The Star Agency (The Star Agency Chronicles)

by R. E. Weber

  The pod was now closing in rapidly on the object ahead, and Theo could clearly see that it was some sort of space station. It was possible to make out that the arms fanning out from the centre were actually flattened layers of linked geometric shapes, like hexagons, squares, triangles or rectangles. Nearly all the structures were flattened with very little depth, making them difficult to see edge on, and none had curved surfaces or rounded edges; instead they were all straight and angular, giving them what looked like a crystalline structure – like layers of ice crystals stacked on top of each other. And like ice crystals, they reflected the light from the twin suns in every colour of the rainbow. It was without doubt the most spectacular structure that Theo had ever seen.

  Moments later, the pod reached the outermost edge of the station and began to pass over a huge hexagonal domed structure. As Theo looked down, he noticed what appeared to be a tiny black slit precisely matching the pod’s speed, skimming over its surface. Was that its shadow? Looking at it, he suddenly realised how huge the station was. It was vast – perhaps several kilometres across at it widest point. Now he knew that it was so much more than just a space station. It was more like a huge city in space.

  Suddenly, the pod passed into shadow and for a moment all he could see was darkness. Then, as his eyes became accustomed to the low light, thousands of faint flickering lights began to pop into view everywhere he looked. Staring ahead into the darkness, Theo tried to see where the pod might be heading, but other than a faint background shimmer he couldn’t see anything at all. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a row of enormous, horizontal, crystal spires appeared.

  The pod gradually slowed and then came to a halt directly under one of the huge spires. Then it spun slowly around its centre until it was pointing directly at its underside. On the bottom of the spire, a black rectangular hatch appeared directly above. Then the pod began to move again and within moments it had slipped through the hatch into the darkness.

  For about a minute, Theo just stared ahead into the blackness, unable to see anything at all. Then the pod became bathed in light and he could see that he had arrived in some sort of large, empty looking room. The oxygen mask, which had been clamped over his mouth and nose, unsealed itself and retreated back into the tube, which then slid away behind him. Then the pod zipped itself open and the chamber walls, which had been cushioning him during the flight, pulled back to release him.

  Suddenly, Theo felt very heavy, and for a moment his legs felt like they were going to buckle beneath him as gravity, which he hadn’t felt for some time, began to pull on him again. He grabbed the edge of the pod to steady himself while the blood to rushed back to his legs and their strength returned. Then carefully, he stepped down from the pod and dropped to the floor of the chamber. There was a dull thud as he hit the floor, and for a moment he felt like he was going to fall flat on his face. But his wobbly legs just about managed to hold him upright.

  Once he had steadied himself, Theo looked around the room. It was quite large, perhaps twenty or so meters square, with pale grey walls and no apparent doors or windows. Behind him, along the wall, were a series of about ten identical vertical slots, each about four meters high by about a meter and a half wide. His pod was secured in one of the middle slots and in the rightmost slot was another identical pod. But all the other slots were empty. On the ceiling, about five meters above him, were a series of faintly glowing, white rectangular panels, gently illuminating the room with a ghostly light.

  As Theo turned and looked at the wall opposite, the glowing outline of what looked like a doorway, surrounded by pulsing white lights, appeared. The exit! He removed his rucksack from around his neck, slung it over his shoulder and then walked towards the doorway. When he was about a meter away, noticing that the doorway hadn’t opened automatically, he stopped and looked around for any buttons or panels to operate it with. He couldn’t see any. Did it perhaps just push open? He reached out towards the door to give it a gentle shove, but just before his hand reached its flat, smooth surface, it vanished into thin air. Startled, Theo dropped his hand and stepped quickly backwards. Then the door re-appeared.

  For a moment, Theo stared at the doorway in disbelief. Then, with his heart racing fast, he took a deep breath and walked slowly forwards – watching as the door disappeared once more – and stepped through.

  Once through the doorway, Theo found himself at the end of a long empty corridor, several hundred meters long by about six meters wide. Along the floor, crawling away into the distance, was a trail of pulsing white lights. This way!

  Theo was about to set off along the corridor, when he looked ahead and stopped dead, frozen to the spot in shock. Several meters ahead of him, a tall, graceful, multi legged creature had appeared from another doorway and was now striding slowly up the corridor. Not daring to move, Theo looked back at the amazing creature open mouthed. Then, as if sensing his eyes burning into it, the creature stopped, and its head spun around on the end of a long sinewy neck to face him, fixing his gaze with four intense green eyes. The creature was like nothing he had ever seen before. It was clearly an alien.

  Chapter 5 – Polisium Prime

  Theo stared into the unblinking green eyes of the alien, not daring to move. It was a narrow, spindly creature with what appeared to be a hard, black, segmented shell covering most of its body. It had two pairs of thin legs sprouting from the sides of its lower body, while its upper body, free of the segmented shell, curved gently upwards, thinning into a long sinewy neck. Its head was roughly triangular in shape, rounded on top and tapered to a single point at the front. It had what looked like a single hole for its mouth and four oval green eyes, two on either side of its face. There were also two other limbs sprouting from the base of its neck, hanging loosely at its sides, each with maybe three or four finger like appendages. At its full height it was perhaps three meters tall and looked a little like a praying mantis that had been twisted out of shape. Yet for all its ungainly appearance, when it moved, it was somehow graceful and majestic.

  As the creature stared at Theo, its body began rocking from side to side, while its head remained motionless as if fixed invisibly in mid-air. It reminded Theo of hovering bird of prey eyeing up its next victim. After a few seconds, it blinked once with all its four eyes simultaneously, straightened its legs and raised itself up to its full height. Then it uttered a series of guttural clicks, turned its head and strode gracefully away up the corridor.

  Stunned, Theo decided to wait until the creature was out of sight and so continued to watch as it strode away. Then, out of another nearby doorway, two more creatures – which were about a quarter of the size of the larger one and lacking its graceful manner – appeared and scuttled quickly away up the corridor. He guessed that they were its offspring. As he watched the two creatures, one of them suddenly stopped and turned to look at Theo. It uttered a couple of short, excited squeaks, and then began to make its way slowly towards him, clearly curious. The adult however, having spotted it, uttered a short, loud series of clicks, and the smaller creature turned and raced away towards its parent. It had clearly been warned off.

  Theo waited until the aliens had disappeared out of sight and then continued on up the corridor. As he reached the end, another doorway opened and he stepped through.

  He was now standing in a large, well-lit room, approximately twenty meters square by about six meters high. Across the far side of the room, he could see the three alien creatures he had seen a few minutes earlier heading towards another larger creature of the same species. As the aliens met, they entangled their spindly limbs together, toppled over sideways and then began rolling around the floor with their legs flailing, clicking and squeaking with excitement. The creatures looked a little like spiders in a wrestling match, and it was so comical that Theo had to put his hand over his mouth to stop himself laughing. Then, moments later, they untangled themselves, stood up, strode away quickly through a doorway and disappeared.

  In the wall opposite,
another large doorway appeared, and a tall whitish/grey creature, perhaps two and a half meters tall, stepped through. It was clearly a different species to the other aliens. Almost immediately, it seemed to lock onto Theo and fix him with an intense stare. Then it began striding purposefully towards him, seemingly glaring as it approached. For a moment, Theo felt the urge to turn and run. But somehow, he managed to stay rooted to the spot as the creature approached.

  The alien stopped about two meters in front of him and looked him up and down. Theo stared back, open-mouthed. The creature stood upright on two long, thin muscular legs, which were bent backwards at the knee. Its large flat feet had three forward pointing toes and a shorter fatter backward pointing one, similar to that of a bird. It had two long arms, each of which were split at the elbow into two forearms: a fatter muscular arm with five long fingers and another thinner bony arm with two more hook like fingers. Its thin neck was about half a meter long and supported a long narrow head, with two black and green, sideways facing, bulbous eyes, a narrow slit like mouth at the front and a flat crest at the back. A bony uneven ridge ran along the top of its head from just above its mouth to the tip of its crest at the back. There were two small flaps of skin below and behind its eyes – which Theo guessed were its ears – but there was no sign of any nostrils. Its torso and abdomen appeared to be covered with a skin-tight white garment, with what looked like a utility belt around its waist. And dangling from the tip of its crest at the back, swinging lightly from side to side, was a small pendant of some sort.

  As Theo stared at the creature, its eyes seemed to roll around in their sockets and flicker from side to side for a couple of seconds, almost as if it were watching a fly buzzing around in front of it. Then it removed one of the objects from its belt and held it out towards him in the palm of its bony hand. Theo stared at the object – which was black, about six centimetres across with a small round sphere in the centre and four thin wires sticking out. Then he stared back at the creature, whose head was cocked inquisitively to one side. Clearly it wanted him to take it. Gingerly, Theo lifted the object out of its hand and stared at it. It looked like a dead spider with some missing legs. What on Earth was he supposed to do with that? He looked back at the creature to see that it was tapping one of the tiny flaps on the side of its head with its finger. Then Theo felt stupid for not realising what it was. An earpiece! Carefully, he popped the sphere neatly in his ear and the tiny wires clamped themselves onto its outer rim. Again, the creature’s eyes rolled around in their sockets for a moment. Then it spoke:

  ‘Theopolis, telha.’

  Moments later, a human sounding voice began speaking from his earpiece:

  ‘Theopolis, follow me’.

  Then, without waiting for a response, the creature turned and strode away in the direction it had come from. For a moment, Theo stood and stared in amazement at the gangly creature walking quickly away. Then he started after it in a quick trot.

  The creature continued heading towards the far wall, and directly ahead of them another doorway opened. Without pausing, the creature strode through, closely followed by a nervous but excited Theo.

  They continued on down another long empty corridor for several minutes before reaching a doorway at the far end. Then, as Theo stepped through, he looked around, gasped and staggered backwards in panic. They had walked out onto a narrow ledge – no more than two meters deep, by six meters wide, with no barrier around it – perched on the edge of a gigantic, vertical, cylindrical chamber, which was so vast that it seemed to have no top or bottom.

  With his back glued to the wall and his heart thumping hard, Theo stared at the vast chamber, which was perhaps a kilometre or so from side to side. There were hundreds if not thousands of rows of lights completely encircling it, each interspersed every fifty meters or so with more narrow ledges. Everywhere he looked, there were flying circular platforms carrying alien creatures of every kind, busily whizzing to and fro, up and down and narrowly dodging each other like angry wasps around a nest. The scale of the chamber was so vast that his mind could barely take in what he was seeing.

  Theo looked back at the alien creature he had followed, which was now standing precariously close to the edge of the ledge, seemingly staring downwards. Clearly, it had no fear of heights. As he watched, it rolled its eyes around again for a few seconds. Then it stared forwards in silence as if waiting for something. What was all that eye rolling all about? And what was this place?

  After a minute or so waiting on the ledge, Theo’s initial panic had subsided a little, so he peeled himself away from the wall, craned his head back and stared straight up. But he couldn’t see any obvious top to the chamber, which just seemed to go and on, fading away out of sight behind a layer of mist. Feeling a little disorientated, he looked back down.

  He then glanced over to his right. The edge of the ledge was about a meter away. With his back pressed against the wall once more, he sidled slowly towards the edge and, with his right leg swung out to ensure that he kept his balance, he tentatively peered over. But as soon as he looked down, he wished that he hadn’t. The chamber was vast and deep and just seemed to go on and on forever, disappearing into the darkness below. Suddenly, Theo’s head began to spin and he felt sick, so he quickly edged sideways back towards the centre of the ledge. Then he pushed his head back against the wall, squeezed his eyes shut and began taking deep, slow breaths. Looking down had been a very bad idea.

  ‘Theopolis, you are well?’ said a sudden voice in his ear.

  Startled, he opened his eyes to see that the alien creature was now staring back at him, clearly confused by his behaviour.

  ‘Erm, yeh I suppose,’ Theo stuttered. ‘It was just the height, you know. It’s a long way down.’

  ‘The scale of the station is a cause of concern for you?’

  ‘Erm, well yeh, sort of. I’m just not used to being this high up.’

  ‘I believe I understand,’ said the creature. ‘Your reaction is one of instinct as your species are naturally ground dwellers.’

  ‘Well I am,’ said Theo. ‘But I can’t speak for the rest of the human race.’

  But the creature didn’t reply.

  Moments later, a large circular platform about four meters across, appeared from below the ledge and stopped at its edge. Then a narrow walkway extended out from the ledge connecting it to the platform.

  ‘Theopolis, follow me,’ said the creature as it stepped quickly on.

  Not daring to look down either side of him, Theo stepped carefully on to the platform and positioned himself dead centre so he couldn’t look down. Then the platform began to glide silently away without the slightest sensation of movement.

  As the platform raced upwards, Theo looked back at the strange creature, which was staring impassively forward. Unlike Theo, it was seemingly unaffected by the idea that it could easily tumble several kilometres to its death. He had to try and distract himself from what was below him. He had to, as his grandfather would have said, turn a negative into a positive.

  Theo cleared his throat and took a deep breath. ‘So, erm, how big is it exactly – you know, this structure or whatever it is?’ said Theo, his voice a little unsteady.

  ‘The core dimensions are eight by zero point five hotah,’ said the creature without looking back at him.

  ‘A Ho…tah?’ replied Theo.

  The creature paused for a moment while its eyes rolled again. ‘A hotah is a standard measurement,’ it continued. ‘One hotah is approximately equivalent to two kilometres.’

  Theo’s eyes popped wide open. It was sixteen kilometres from top to bottom.

  ‘Wow, that’s erm, big,’ said Theo.

  ‘Do you consider this structure large?’

  ‘Yeh, you could say that.’

  ‘This is the largest habitat in orbit around Polisium.’

  ‘No kidding,’ replied Theo.

  ‘I would not lie to you,’ replied the creature. ‘There would be no purpose in this.’
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br />   ‘O – K,’ said Theo, not entirely sure whether he should try and explain himself to the creature. ‘So anyway, do you erm, you know, have a name?’

  The creature paused for several moments.

  ‘If you are referring to my designation, then it is Orientation Assistant 36, Polisium Prime.’

  ‘That’s a bit of mouthful,’ said Theo.

  For a moment, the creature looked at Theo, confused. Then, after a few seconds, it seemed to understand.

  ‘Orientator will suffice.’

  ‘OK, Orientator it is. So Orientator, the planet below us, that’s Polisium, is it?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘And this space station; what’s it called?’

  ‘This habitat is designated Polisium Prime.’

  ‘You said this habitat. So there are others?’

  ‘There are twelve major and thirty two minor habitats in orbit around Polisium.’

  ‘How many people? I mean beings, creatures or whatever you want to call them, live on them?’

  ‘There are in excess of twenty nine million identities in permanent residence on all orbital habitats.’

  ‘What about down below on the surface?’

  ‘Approximately five billion.’

  ‘Are there any other planets in this solar system – you know, inhabited planets?’

  ‘There are several inhabited outposts on the planets and satellite worlds within this system.’

  ‘And is Polisium the biggest, you know, the most heavily populated planet?’

  Orientator paused for a moment, before turning to look Theo in the eye. ‘You pose many questions, do you not, Theopolis?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I was just wondering. It’s not important. And by the way, call me Theo. I don’t really like…’

  ‘Apologies are not required,’ interrupted Orientator. ‘All questions will be answered. And it is important that you ask questions. Very important. This will be deemed a good sign.’