Orphan Star

by Alan Dean Foster

  That “first” could last forever, he knew, or at least until a bored Challis had destroyed the last link between Flinx and his heritage. Nor was he convinced they would help him even if he did reveal himself fully—he wasn’t certain the Church’s adaptability extended to breaking its own Edict.

  He was going to Ulru-Ujurr, no matter what, though he couldn’t tell anyone the real reason why. Not even the silently waiting Sylzenzuzex, who stared at the floor with the look of the living dead. Surely, though, she would be fully reinstated when it became known she had accompanied him under duress.

  Surely . . .

  After Sylzenzuzex had applied for and, as a matter of course, received her accumulated leave of several Terran weeks, they took an atmospheric shuttle back to Brisbane Shuttleport. To the questioning machine she had explained that it was time for her to visit her parents on Hivehom. Throughout it all, Flinx never wavered in his determination to take her with him. This couldn’t be helped. She was frigidly polite in response to his questions. By mutual agreement they did not engage in casual small talk.

  They were held up in Brisbane for over a week while Flinx concluded the complex arrangements required for renting a small, autopiloted KK-drive ship. Private vessels capable of interstellar travel were not commonly available.

  Malaika had been very generous, but the three-day rental fee exhausted the remainder of Flinx’s credit account. That didn’t trouble him, since he was already guilty of kidnaping. It would hardly matter when the ship broker sent collectors to stalk him after three days had elapsed without his return. He would worry about repaying the astronomical debt he was about to incur another time. If he returned, he reminded himself. The Church had not slapped an Edict on Ulru-Ujurr out of bored perversity. There was a reason . . . and there was always Challis.

  Sylzenzuzex knew less about astrogation than he did. If the broker had lied to him about the little ship’s self-sufficiency, they would never get to Ulru-Ujurr—or anywhere else.

  As a matter of fact, she explained, her chosen field was archeology. Security was only her student specialty. Hivehom’s early primitive insectoid societies had always fascinated her. She had dreamed of studying them for the rest of her life, once she graduated and returned home as a full padre—something that would never happen now, she reminded him bitterly.

  He ignored her. He had to, or his resolve would crack. Once more he wondered at why an apparently innocuous, inhabitable planet like Ulru-Ujurr should have been placed Under Edict. The information they had studied in Galographics, the long lists of cold statistics that had led him in short order to abduction and fraud and debt, neglected to elaborate on that small matter.

  At least one worry was quickly allayed when the powerful little vessel made the supralight jump that took them out of immediate pursuit range. According to simplified readouts, the ship was proceeding at maximum cruising speed on course for the coordinates Flinx had provided it.

  Flinx wasn’t really concerned that he was worse than broke once again. In a way he was almost relieved. He had spent his entire life in an impecunious state. The abrupt resumption of that familiar condition was like exchanging an expensive dress suit for a favorite pair of old, worn work pants.

  The time they spent traveling wasn’t wasted. Flinx constantly consulted and questioned the ship’s computer, improving his rudimentary knowledge of navigation and ship operation while staying a respectful distance from the autopilot override. He was not ashamed of his ignorance. All KK-drive ships were essentially computer-run. Stellar distances and velocities were far too overwhelming for simple organic minds to manipulate. The humanx crew present on the large KK freightliners was there merely to serve the needs of passengers and cargo, and as a precaution. They constituted the flexible fail-safe, ready to take over in the event the ship’s machine mind malfunctioned.

  It was fortunate that he was so interested in the ship, because Sylzenzuzex proved to be anything but a lively companion. She preferred instead to remain in her cabin, emerging only to pick up her meals from the autochef. Gradually, however, even the patience of one accustomed to underground living began to wear thin, and she spent more and more time on the falsely luxurious bridge of the ship. Still, when she deigned to say anything at all, her conversation was confined to monosyllabic comments of utter despondency.

  Such willing submission to reality grated against Flinx’s nature even more than her silence. “I don’t understand you, Sylzenzuzex. You’re like a person attending her own wake. I told you I’ll confirm that I kidnaped you against your will. Surely everyone will have to admit you’re blameless for anything that happens?”

  “You just don’t understand,” she muttered sibilantly. “I could not lie like that. Not to my superiors in the Church, or to my family or hive-mother. Certainly not to my parents. I went with you willingly.” Her exquisite head, shining like the sea in the overhead lighting, dipped disconsolately.

  “You’re not making sense,” Flinx argued vehemently. “You had no choice! I called on you to fulfill a hereditary debt. How can anyone blame you for that? As for our forbidden destination—that was wholly my choice. You had nothing to say about my decision and you have voiced plenty of objections to it.” As he talked, his pre-prepared meal lay cooling in its container nearby. Meanwhile Pip’s jet eyes stared pensively up at his troubled master.

  Sylzenzuzex stared across at him. “There are still some things humans do not understand about us,” and she turned away as if those were to be her last words on the subject.

  Always the convenient phrase, Flinx thought furiously. Whether human or thranx, it mattered not—always the ready willingness to seek refuge in absolutes. Why were supposedly intelligent beings so terrified of reason? He stared out the foreport, frustrated beyond measure. The universe did not run on emotional principles. He had never been able to understand how people could.

  “Have it your way,” Flinx grumbled. “We’ll stick to more immediate concerns. Tell me about this peaceforcer station that’s supposed to prevent us from landing on this world.”

  There was a whistling sound as a large dollop of air was forced out through breathing spicules—a thranx sigh. “Peaceforcers, more likely. There should be anywhere from one to four of them in synchronous orbit around the planet. I’m not certain because so few worlds are Under Edict that the subject is rarely brought up for discussion. So, of course there is no information whatsoever on the worlds themselves. Being Under Edict, as they say, is a situation discussed more as a possibility than a fact.

  “I would imagine,” she concluded, walking over to a console and gazing idly at the instrumentation, “that we will be signaled or intercepted in some fashion and ordered to leave.”

  “What if we ignore any such warning?”

  She made a thranx shrug. “Then we’re likely to have our wingcases blown off.”

  Flinx’s tone turned sarcastic. “I thought the Church was an interspecies purveyor of gentleness and understanding.”

  “That’s right,” she shot back, “and it provides a lot of comfort and assurance to everyone to know that the Church’s decrees are enforced.” Her voice rose. “Do you think that the Church puts a whole world Under Edict because of some counselor’s whim?”

  “I don’t know,” he replied, unperturbed. “Probably we’ll get the chance to find out. . . .”

  Without warning a flying fortress appeared out of nowhere. One minute they were alone in free-space, cycling in toward the fourth planet of an undistinguished sun, and the next a craft with six points projecting from its principal axes had matched their speed and was cruising alongside. This ship was many times the size of their small vessel

  “Automated peaceforce station twenty-four,” a mechanical voice said pleasantly over the speakers. The tridee screen could not pick up any picture.

  “To undeclared vessel class sixteen-R. In the name of the Church and the Commonwealth you are hereby notified that the world you approach is Under Edict. You are directed
to reverse your present course and re-engage your double-K drive. No vessel is permitted to make shuttlefall on the fourth planet, nor to remain in the vicinity of this sun.

  “You have thirty standard minutes from the conclusion of this notification to reprogram your navigational computer. Do not, repeat, do not attempt to approach within scanner range of the fourth world. Do not attempt to move closer than five planetary diameters. Failure to comply with the aforementioned regulations will be dealt with appropriately.”

  “A polite way of saying it’ll blow us to small pieces;” Sylzenzuzex commented dryly. “Now can we go back?”

  Flinx didn’t reply. He was busy studying the mass of metal drifting next to them. That it was supremely fast, far faster than this small craft, had already been demonstrated. Without question, several weapons of various destructive capabilities were trained on the bridge even as he wondered what to do next. They could no more make a desperate dash for the planet’s surface than he could outrun a devilope on the plains bordering the Gelerian Swamp, back home.

  “This is why I’ve brought you,” he told the waiting thranx. “It sure wasn’t for the pleasure of your company.” Flinx moved aside, revealing activated instrumentation. “Here’s the tridee. Give it your name, Church identity number, Security code—whatever it takes to gain clearance to land.”

  She didn’t budge, her legs seemingly rooted in the metal floor. “But it won’t listen to me.”

  “Try.”

  “I . . . I won’t do it.”

  “You’re under life-oath, you’ve sworn on your Hive,” he reminded her between clenched teeth, hating himself more with every word.

  Again the symmetrical head drooped; again the hollow, defeated voice. “Very well.” She shuffled over to the console.

  “I’m telling you for the last time,” she told him, “that if you make me do this, it’s as if you’ve banished me from the Church yourself, Flinx.”

  “I happen to have more confidence in your own organization than you apparently do. Besides, if after a full explanation of the circumstances they actually do kick you out, then I don’t think the organization’s worthy of you.”

  “How sure you are,” she said calmly, concluding with a sound so harsh it made Flinx flinch.

  “Go ahead,” he ordered.

  She tested the broadcast, then rattled off a series of superfast words and numbers. Flinx could barely identify them, much less make any sense of the steady stream of hybrid babble. It occurred to him that she might just as well have given the fortress the command to destroy them. That unpleasant thought passed when nothing happened. After all, survival was as strong a thranx drive as it was a human one.

  Instead, the announcement brought the hoped-for result. “Emergency temporary cancellation received and understood,” came the stiff voice. “Processing.”

  Two minutes stretched long as two years while Flinx waited for the final reply.

  Then: “Other stations notified. You may proceed.”

  There was no time to waste on giving thanks. Flinx rushed to the navigation input and verbally instructed the ship to take up a low orbit around the temperate equatorial zone, above the largest continent. The detector devices on the ship were then to begin a search for any sign of surface communications facilities—anything that would indicate the presence of humanx settlement.

  Anywhere someone like Challis could exist.

  “What if there isn’t anything like that,” Sylzenzuzex asked, her face paling as the ship pulled away from the orbiting fortress. “There’s a whole world down there, bigger than Hivehom, bigger than Terra.”

  “There’ll be someplace developed,” he assured her. His confident tone belied the uncertainty in his mind.

  There was. Only they didn’t locate it—it found them.

  “What ship . . . what ship . . . ?” the speakers crackled as soon as they entered parking orbit. The query came in perfect symbospeech, though whether from thranx or human throat he couldn’t tell.

  Flinx moved to the pickup. “Who’s calling?” he asked, a mite inanely.

  “What ship?” the voice demanded.

  This could go on for hours. He responded with the first thing that sounded halfway plausible. “This is the private research vessel Chamooth on Church-related business, out from Terra.”

  There, that wasn’t a complete lie. His abduction of Sylzenzuzex certainly constituted Church-related business, and he had been led here by information in Church files.

  A long pause followed while unseen beings at the other end of the transmission digested this. Finally: “Shuttleport coordinates for you are as follows.”

  Flinx scrambled to record the information. His ruse had gotten them that much. After they landed . . . well, he would proceed from there. The numbers translated into a position on a fairly small plateau in the mountains of the southern continent. According to the information, the landing strip bordered an enormous lake at the 14,000-meter-level.

  Sweating, muttering at his own awkwardness, Flinx succeeded in positioning the ship over the indicated landing spot with a minimum of corrections to the autopilot. From there it was a rocky, bouncing descent by means of autoprogrammed shuttlecraft to the surface.

  Sylzenzuzex was talking constantly now, mostly to herself. “I just don’t understand,” she kept murmuring over and over, “there shouldn’t be anything down there. Not on an edicted world. Not even a Church outpost. This just doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Why shouldn’t it make sense?” Flinx asked her, fighting to keep his seat as the tiny shuttle battled powerful crosswinds. “Why shouldn’t the Church have business on a world it wants to keep everyone else off of?”

  “But only an extreme threat to the good of humanx kind is reason enough for placing a world Under Edict,” she protested, her tone one of disbelief. “I’ve never heard of an exception.”

  “Naturally not,” Flinx agreed, with the surety of one who had experienced many perversities of human and thranx nature. “Because no information is available on worlds which are Under Edict. How very convenient.”

  The shuttle was banking now, dipping down between vast forested mountain slopes. A denser atmosphere here raised the treeline well above what existed on Moth or Terra. Tarns and alpine lakes were everywhere. At the higher elevations, baby glaciers carved tentative paths downward—even here, near the planet’s equator.

  “Commencing landing approach,” the shuttle computer informed them. Flinx stared ahead, saw that the plateau the ground-based voice had mentioned was far smaller than he had hoped. This was not a true plateau, but instead a broad glacial plain ice-quarried from the mountains. One side of the plateau-plain was filled with a narrow lake that glistened like an elongated sapphire.

  As the shuttle straightened out they rushed past a sheer waterfall at least a thousand meters high, falling to the canyon below in a single unbroken plunge like white steel. This, he decided, was a magnificent world.

  If only the shuttle would set them down on it in one piece.

  His acceleration couch trembled as the ship fired braking jets. Ahead he could now make out the landing strip that ran parallel to the deep lake. At the far end, a tiny cluster of buildings poked above the alluvial gravel and low scrub.

  At least the installation here—whoever was manning it—was advanced enough to include automatic landing lock-ons. Built into the fabric of the landing strip itself, they hooked into the corresponding linkups in the belly of the shuttle. The completion of this maneuver was signaled by a violent lurch. Then the landing computer, somewhere below them, took over and brought the shuttle in for a smooth, safe setdown.

  Sylzenzuzex stared out the side port on the left even as she was undoing her straps. “This is insane,” she muttered, gazing at the considerable complex of structures nearby, “there can’t be a base here. There shouldn’t be anything.”

  “Some anythings,” he commented, gesturing toward the pair of large groundcars which were now moving onto the field
toward them, “are coming to pay their greetings. Remember now,” he reminded her as he calmed a nervous Pip and headed for the access corridor leading to the hatch, “you’re here because I forced you to come.”

  “But not physically,” she countered. “I told you before, I can’t lie.”

  “The Horse Head,” he murmured, looking skyward. “Be evasive then. Ah, do what you think best. I’m no more going to convert you to reason than you’re going to convince me to enter your Church.”

  Flinx activated the automatic lock, and it began to cycle open. If the atmosphere outside had been unbreathable, despite the information in the Galographics records, the lock would not have opened. As the door plug drew aside, a rippled ramp extended itself, sensors at its far end halting it as soon as it touched solid ground.

  Pip was stirring violently, but Flinx kept a firm hand on his pet. Apparently the minidrag perceived some threat again, which would be natural if, say, this was indeed a Church installation. In any case they couldn’t take on an entire party which was presumably armed. It took several minutes before lie succeeded in convincing his pet to relax, regardless of what happened next.

  Flinx took a deep breath as he started down the ramp. Sylzenzuzex trooped morosely behind, lost in morose thought. Despite the altitude, the air here was thick and rich in oxygen. It more than counteracted the slightly stronger gravity.

  Snow-crowned crags rose around the valley on three sides. Except for the glacial plain they now stood on, the valley and mountain slopes were furred with a thick coat of great trees. Green was still the predominant color but there was a substantial amount of yellow-hued vegetation. Their branches rose stiffly skyward, no doubt to be fully spread by the winter snowfall.

  The temperature was perfect—about 20°C. At least, it was as far as Flinx was concerned. Sylzenzuzex was already cold, and the dry air did nothing to help the flexibility of her exoskeletal joints.