by A. R. Knight
So I reach out to the Cache, that all-knowing bracelet given to me by a Sevora when it first crashed outside my village, and rub the cool, hard surface. I want to check, to see if it knows anything about what’s happened here, whether Earth’s part in the galactic chaos comes earlier than my own dalliance with dominating parasites.
The Cache, though, is like walking into a dream. It takes all my concentration, and while reading its lines I’m going to be useless to Viera and T’Oli. In a place like this one, with who-knows-what around the corner, blasting my mind into purgatory isn’t a safe move.
There’s other ways of learning things, though.
“What do you think would use a ramp like this, T’Oli?” I ask the Ooblot as we continue through the dark.
On either side of me I can feel the walls close in, and I reach out to brush them every now and again. Cold metal, generally, though often pocked and scratched. T’Oli’s been calling out to us whenever it hits debris that we have to blindly climb over, and a few times it’s noted other doors, but I figure the ghost would have told us if the path branched at all en route to our destination.
“Like this one?” T’Oli muses. “Whelk certainly wouldn’t mind it, but it’s too wide for them. Or for other Ooblots, though there are other signs this isn’t of our making.”
“Then whose?”
“Oh, there’s really only one species that would make a place like this,” T’Oli says, and I can feel Viera stifling a sigh. “Amigga.”
4 The Wildfire
Sax glares at the intercom. Then heads out, jumps down to the loading bay and hits the button that lowers the boarding ramp. As he does so, one of the cargo robots shifts in front of the ramp, the small intercom on the thing’s block-like body crackling to life.
“Where are the crystals?” the filtered voice, via the robot, demands. “I don’t see any.”
“Search the ship, if you want them,” Sax hisses, stepping right around the robot.
The robot turns, as if it’s going to follow Sax. “Where are you going?”
“Engee didn’t show. My pair was with her,” Sax replies, glaring back at the floating metal sled. “I’m going to find them.”
As Sax walks away, though, his vest blinks red. The Mobius’ ramp suddenly retracts, closing off the cargo bay and leaving the twelve robots without anything to do. Which doesn’t bother Sax in the slightest. He’s following the trails of light globes towards the Spire’s center, towards one of the many doors leading inside.
He’s nearly there before the entrances - wide, rectangular things with several layers - shift open to reveal a grimy airlock, coated with yellow pollen. Inside it, standing with two of small miners in its hands, is a tall Teven.
Unlike the naked carapace so many of the species wear, this one is plated over with blue steel, and a pair of helmets house the creature’s eyes through holes in its sides. Its arms, or legs - Sax isn’t sure what is what when it comes to Teven - leak out the top of the carapace, two holding the miners, one free, and the fourth hanging on to what looks like an energy knife.
What’s more fascinating though is what the Teven’s done to its base; instead of leaving it open for the creature’s legs, this one’s gone ahead and attached a magnetic circle to itself, allowing it to float over the floor. Useful if you live on a metal construct, perhaps, but entirely useless in the wilds.
As Sax starts into the open airlock, the Teven tilts back and, with its magnet, glides away from Sax towards the rear of the space.
“Stay right there, Oratus,” the Teven says.
“Why?” Sax replies, and keeps moving forward. “You think you can hurt me before I tear you apart?”
“I’d aim for your eyes!”
Sax opens his mouth, shows off the teeth. Breathes deep through his vents and exhales in a loud hiss. “I don’t need those to end you.”
“But they’d help if you want to find your pair, wouldn’t they?”
And there’s the clue Sax needs. This is the filtered voice. Which means he’s not wasting any more time. Sax digs his talons in and leaps high, over the Teven, and as he goes, Sax whips his tail down, knocking the miners from the creature’s hands. As soon as the Oratus hits the ground, Sax digs in his claws, flips directions, and tackles the Teven, driving the yelling alien to the floor.
The airlock doors shut behind them as Sax looms over his victim.
“Tell me where they are,” the Oratus says, making sure to open his mouth good and wide so the Teven can use the full power of his imagination on those razor teeth.
“I don’t know,” the Teven’s voice is reedy, indignant. “They never came to the Wildfire.”
“Then you have a problem,” Sax says. “Because they were trying to get to you, and if something’s happened to Bas, you’re the one I’m going to blame.”
The Teven squirms as the inside airlock seals shift open, leading to the interior of Astre’s Spire. Here at the top, the walls are plastered with various terminals and vending machines for nutrient goop, water, and the various types of licenses and passes for cargo shipments. The center of the space is a series of interlocking elevators, with large ones for cargo and smaller ones for passengers.
Sax stands and hooks a mid-claw around the Teven’s carapace, lifting the lightweight creature and carrying him out of the airlock.
“You don’t understand,” the Teven’s wailing. “I wouldn’t hurt her! Or her friends!”
“Doesn’t sound like your message,” Sax says, looking around. “You made a clear threat.”
There’s not many other species on this level at this time of night. A few are set up around a vending bar, where drinks and other substances are provided purely by mechanical means. A big terminal scrolls through news sources and plays soundless video. Four Flaum are tugging a cargo sled out of one of the elevators towards another airlock.
Nobody pays them any attention.
“I know, I know, but I need those crystals, and Engee too,” the Teven says.
There’s a flutter around the Teven’s words that catches Sax’s attention. He’s heard that lilt before, from Bas, from himself.
“Are you and Engee together?” Sax asks.
He’s not sure how Teven mate, if they mate. Sax isn’t sure if they lay eggs, if they replicate, or if there’s some complex ritual involved.
“Well, no,” the Teven says. “Not yet, anyway. That’s why I need the crystals! To earn her love!”
“You’re threatening Engee to get things from her... to earn her love?”
“I wouldn’t expect an Oratus to understand.” The Teven squirms hard, kicks that magnet bottom of his and shoots out of Sax’s hand.
The Oratus lets the Teven go. Sax can catch him again if he needs to, and without his miners, the Teven’s not exactly a threat.
“I don’t really care,” Sax says to the Teven. “Just tell me how to find them.”
“I already said! I don’t know where they are.” The Teven searches, sees where his miners lay on the ground, just past the shut airlock door.
Sax leaps to them first, slips the small weapons into the many holsters on his waist. Vincere principles call for leaving extra space in case of useful finds, and just because Sax isn’t part of the military anymore, doesn’t mean he’s not going to keep good habits.
“Then you’re going to help me find them,” Sax says as the Teven stares at his stolen weapons. “What’s your name, Teven?”
“Nobaa,” the Teven replies. “And you, Oratus? Should I call you Deathclaw?”
“Sax is fine.”
He, Nobaa tells Sax while they wait for an elevator, is an engineer. He met Engee when they were both in school, and, like her, he’s been fascinated with self-augmentation ever since. After achieving their degrees, they both came here, until Engee declared the noxious yellows of Rathfall some sort of creative killer and left when Plake offered her a job.
“I agree,” Sax says at this part, as an elevator pings open in front of them and they
step into its ad-blasting confines; shifting images with Flaum hawking various restaurants, hotels, and other products on Astre’s Spire.
Sax is expecting a single-button stop, right to the Wildfire, but Nobaa uses the terminal to select more than a dozen points.
“You agree with what?” Nobaa says, tilting an eye in his dark blue helmet towards Sax.
“Leaving here. It’s a terrible planet,” Sax narrows his eyes at the Teven. “Why did you pick so many stops?”
“You don’t know where they are, I don’t know where they are, so they could be anywhere!” If Nobaa’s expecting Sax to do something with this statement, the Teven’s bitterly disappointed. But not for long. “Engee and I worked on Astre’s Spire for a while - I might as well give you a tour, and maybe we’ll run into them!”
“I’m not here for a tour.”
“Oh, I know. Neither am I!” The elevator dings to its first stop as Nobaa speaks, and the doors shift open to reveal a dark and damp space.
There’s no walls Sax can see, and the only light comes from floating motes - likely tied to robots - drifting around in the distance. From what illumination spills out of the elevator doors, Sax sees thick green fronds sneaking into view. The air’s thick with the smells of flowers and fertilizer.
“Every Spire needs a greenhouse,” Nobaa says as the elevator’s doors shut. “We make sure Astre has fresh food, and that nobody’s starved for something natural!”
“Stop it,” Sax takes a long step over to the panel, pushes the Teven out of the way, and hits the emergency stop button. “You’re going to tell me what you’re doing. Now.”
The elevator judders to a sharp halt. Sax glares at Nobaa, whose four hands wrangle their fingers together. The Teven’s eyes bounce past Sax to the terminal, something the Teven’s not going to get near again.
“It’s true, I swear! All of it!”
“Talk straight,” Sax replies. “Tell me where they are, or I’ll cut you apart right here and take my chances.”
“I don’t know, uh, exactly where they are,” Nobaa replies. “And I’m not the reason they’re gone! I wanted to meet them at Wildfire, honest!”
“You’re not helping.”
“Right,” the Teven takes a step back, but the elevator’s not large. No move is going to buy Nobaa more than a half-second of time before Sax takes his due. “See. There’s a lot of money on your heads, you know? Not just you, but the whole Mobius crew. I just wanted my crystals before you all wind up dead.”
Sax takes this in like he does everything else - with shrugging resignation. The galaxy’s never made things easy for him, why start now?
“So the Engee thing was a lie?”
Here Nobaa actually looks distressed. “No, no, that’s all true! Yes, I want the crystals, but Engee’s a friend. I was hoping she’d come to Wildfire, and then I’d find a way to keep her out of this. With the crystals, of course.”
“Such a romantic,” Sax throws some extra venom into the hiss. “This Spire isn’t that populated. Who here is going to risk fighting us?”
The Teven nods at the elevator panel. “Can we go? I have a place. It’s not big, but it’s more secure than here. People might be listening.”
“If you’re trying to trap me, Teven, know that I’ll kill you first.”
That fact delivered, Sax steps aside and lets Nobaa adjust the elevator’s destinations. Takes Sax deeper into the Spire, to one of the residential levels. If Sax is calculating right, it’s right in the middle of the thick lower cloud, which means Nobaa’s not among the power players in the Spire.
If the Teven doesn’t have resources, then Nobaa had better have information, because without it, he’s wasting Sax’s time.
And Sax is not a patient person.
Nobaa’s apartment is little more than a single room with a food dispenser and an info terminal where the window would be, if there was anything to see other than flowing mustard-yellow gas.
“It’s not much, but then, I don’t need much,” Nobaa says, pointing one of his small arms at the soft-box in the middle of the floor.
Full of what looks like sand, it’s where the Teven would sleep. The grit keeps the Teven’s carapace centered and straight, while providing a comfortable space to thread limbs if Nobaa wants.
Overall, the whole space isn’t far off from what Sax would have on a Vincere ship.
“Don’t care,” Sax hisses. “Tell me what you know. Now.”
“Sure,” Nobaa says, floating his way into the soft-box. “Here’s the thing. You’re all wanted by the Vincere and the Chorus for an amount that’s, frankly, obscene. Only there’s not many on the Spire that read those alerts and fewer that can act on them.”
“Get to the point.” Sax folds his four arms and lets his tail curl around his legs.
“As an engineer, I did some work for the group I think took Engee, and probably the rest of your friends. A Vyphen, goes by the name of Frayk.”
“He runs the the shipping around here?”
“That’s the weird thing,” Nobaa replies. “Frayk doesn’t run anything, far as I can tell. His name isn’t on any company, he doesn’t show up to big ceremonies, and nobody talks about him. The only way I knew this store I was designing connected to him was because he stopped by once and you could tell, oh you could tell; there wasn’t anybody in that place who didn’t stop what they were doing and wait for him to stay something.”
“So you think this Frayk is doing this for money?”
“I, I’m not sure,” Nobaa says. “I don’t think Frayk needs the money. I’d say he’s doing it for something else. A favor, maybe? Get the Vincere or the Chorus to allow something?”
“Like what?”
“No idea! I’m not a detective, Sax. I’m an engineer! I make things!”
“Sure,” Sax says. “How do I find the Vyphen?”
“No idea. You might be able to try the place I worked at though? The one I designed?” Nobaa waits a second. “Guess what it’s called?”
“The Wildfire?”
“Wow! You’re good. You’re really good. I can see why the Vincere is all your species now, scary and smart.”
Sax puts up with the Teven long enough to get the Wildfire’s location, then ditches Nobaa in the apartment with a warning not to touch the Mobius. The Oratus heads back to the elevator, taking off Engee’s vest along the way and tossing it into a trash bin. It’s annoying to wear, and Sax isn’t going back to the ship without his pair, without the crew that’s been taken.
The Wildfire is on the fiftieth level from the top of the Spire, in the heart of the restaurant series. Sax gets off the elevator into a shifting crowd of night-cappers. It’s well after dinner and the ones roaming the ring, drifting in and out of those few places still open have left sense and sensibility long behind. They barely glance at the walking array of weapons that is Sax, and those that do regard him like he’s a dream.
Sax doesn’t care. He’s focusing on the luminous red display in jagged font screaming his destination. The nameplate sits above a broad opening flanked with billowing flames - not real ones, as fire in sealed environments can cause... problems. Regardless, there’s an empty stand for visitors to check in and see available seats, unnecessary given the late hour, and past that a broad array of tables and seating areas bordered with walking isles marked by red-orange metallic paint.
The lighting in the place evokes the fires too - hitting the same color notes as the floor and doing so with strands of laser-wire hanging from the ceiling, as if it, too, is aflame.
There’s a single many-armed, no-eyed robot bartender serving a half-dozen species around a central ring bar. Sax steps his way up to it, signals the robot for a glass of water and a packet of nutrient goop. Hardly an exotic order, but when a greased-up, working Whelk slides his wobbly eye over to mock Sax, the creature realizes who it’s about to insult and quickly withdraws.
Sax can’t see anyone else in the restaurant, and there’s no visible signs of strug
gle. So either Engee and Bas didn’t make it here at all, or someone talked them into leaving.
“Who’s the manager?” Sax asks as the bartender delivers the goods.
“Currently?” the robot replies. “Or during the day?”
“Now. I want to speak to them.”
The bartender turns and presses something beneath the bar. “They’ll be out shortly.”
While he waits, Sax glances up at the screen. There’s an array of sports scores for games Sax neither knows nor cares about. Some talking-head Flaum blather on for a moment, before, at last, things shift to a galaxy update.
“The Chorus are responding to increasing unrest led by a pair of rogue Oratus, Evva and Avan, whose whereabouts are sought by the Vincere. After accusations emerged that the Chorus may be engaging in wholescale manipulation of civilized races, the First Chair denounced the assertions and laid out a long series of points purporting to show how the galaxy has improved under Chorus and Amigga control.” The gray-black turns to his partner, a golden-haired, smaller Flaum. “Do you think that’ll be enough?”
“It’s ludicrous to go against the Chorus,” the golden one says. “They’ve done too much good, and even if you don’t agree, they control the Vincere. Anyone seriously opposing them is just going to wind up dead, so what’s the point?”
“What’s the point. indeed. Inspiring stuff, as ever,” the black Flaum replies.
Sax looks away from the screen at the sound of approaching wheels. The manager’s here.
A Belloch. Thick, yellowed, and with eight thin arms of varying lengths wrapping around its curving bow of a body, the creature sits in a concave chair tied to a pair of treads trundling across the floor. At the top end of its body, the Belloch has a bulbous eye cluster, deep red and dark, and a slit that, Sax knows, can open to reveal its goop-sucking proboscis.
Sax recoils, though, presses back against the bar with his nutrient packet in one foreclaw and his water glass in the other. Bellochs are mistakes, Amigga errors long-since stopped, but with enough lifespan to keep on going. There’s rumors that the species has found a way to reproduce, but Sax hasn’t seen evidence.
