The Imprisoned Earth

by Vaughn Heppner

  “Yeah, but that never happened.”

  “Is that correct? It did happen in one time stream. Then, we erased the event.”

  “All right, Calidore. What are you getting at?”

  “Ammon and Ra were mentalists. They understood in the end that they were attempting to grab a temporal shifter. Perhaps they set up a situation where the information they’d uncovered was saved even if the time line was shattered.”

  “That’s preposterous. How could they save something like that if they never came in the first place?”

  “I don’t know how, although they did come in the first time line.”

  “A now vanished time line.”

  “Yes, yes,” Calidore said. “But you should also consider this. We’re dealing with mentalists. There is no one like them. They aspire to become like the Masters and the Avantis. If anyone could have figured out a way to save such data, it would be mentalists.”

  I rubbed my forehead. “So Ammon and Ra might actually know about us?”

  “That is my point, yes. And you must consider this: if they know, other mentalists will likely know in time. If that is so, mentalists will hunt for us, seeking to learn the location of the Solar System.”

  “That’s just great.”

  “It is the opposite,” Calidore said. “However, it does not change our ultimate goal.”

  “Yeah?”

  “We must storm the Arch Ship and make it ours. “I’m utterly dedicated to the task. I want revenge and you want to free your homeworld.”

  He also wanted Avanti technology. None of that had changed, either. I guess that getting the Terrans the tech was also my goal.

  To that end, I moved around the Kelso Spaceport, trying to find out what I could. The spaceport was away from the city and had three enormous launch pits and several vast hangars to house waiting space vessels.

  By using most of our hard-earned money, I could book passage on a space hauler. Depending on which one I boarded, I would choose which different world I went to.

  “I imagine we can eventually find our way to Terra,” I said while standing on the far edge of the spaceport field. “But the Arch Ship will intercept us if we enter the Solar System. If we’re going to destroy the crystalline sheath around Terra…”

  “We need something to help us capture the Arch Ship,” Calidore finished for me. “That means we need money to purchase a spaceship of our own. Then, we need a method for pirating the Arch Ship.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “I have been analyzing the problem for some time, including how to stay out of mentalist clutches. I think I have the answer.”

  I nodded.

  “We must search out ancient ruins just like we did here. Buried in the past might be the tech we need to overcome the Arch Ship.”

  “Master technology?” I asked.

  “Or Avanti technology,” Calidore said. “Of course, it might help if you were modified with mentalist—”

  “Forget it,” I said, interrupting. “While mentalists are clever, they’re also dangerous. I certainly don’t want them operating on me. That’s the opposite of remaining hidden from them.”

  “You have to be dangerous if you hope to storm the Arch Ship and take it over from the Avanti. But I understand your reluctance to use mentalist methods. Besides, you have a valid point. Mentalists are smarter than others and tricky beyond belief.”

  “Add ruthless, and ambitious to a fault.”

  Calidore did not reply.

  “You do have a point about being dangerous in order to defeat the Avanti and her Arch Ship,” I said. “That means we need superior tech as you suggested. Okay. Suppose I buy into your plan. Where do we go next? Where is the next archeological ruin that we can search through in order to find what we need?”

  “Consult your inner voice,” Calidore suggested.

  “You told me yesterday that the Avanti didn’t expect us to survive the temporal shifter.”

  “That’s right, but she probably has made contingency plans if you did survive. Wherever she wants us to go next to stop mentalists, that is the place we should go in order to win the prized relics for ourselves.”

  “Next you’re going to suggest we turn starmenter in order to gain a fighting vessel of our own.”

  “That’s not a bad idea.”

  “Forget it,” I said. “I have a feeling starmenter ships travel local lanes, and that’s it. We need a far-ranging interstellar ship.”

  “First, we need to figure out where we are in relation to Terra.”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “I’m sure I used to,” Calidore said. “The Avanti must have scrubbed that knowledge from me while she digitized me. Now, I have to start over.”

  “That doesn’t seem like the first thing we have to do,” I said. “First, we need the great tech. Now, I don’t hear any inner voices guiding me. That means we need another method for finding these ancient archeological sites.”

  “That would indicate heightened research,” Calidore said. “For that, we need a place with excellent and retrievable records.”

  I nodded as I sauntered toward a rented bike I’d laid on the ground. It was time to return to the main spaceport terminal and figure out where we should go next.

  -49-

  That turned out to be Oladahn Prime, twelve and a half light-years away. It boasted a fantastic library holding much galactic knowledge. There was a cargo hauler heading there with a shipment of newly found ores. Yes, they were the so-called pulsating rocks the Fighting Hunge used to trade with starmenters in the old time line. Pulsating rocks was the nickname. Zhorium-X10 was the scientific name. For whatever reason, the rocks hadn’t been found until now.

  “Who knows what changes the temporal shifter and Gorth spaceship deep in subterranean chambers achieved on this planet,” Calidore said in our wardroom. “Or in this instance, their not being there did.”

  The wardroom was ill named, for if this wasn’t what Terrans used to call a broom closet, I had no idea what it was. The bed wasn’t laid out normally, it stood up at an angle to such a degree that it was impossible to keep the blanket in place while asleep. There literally wasn’t enough room in the chamber to set the bed out properly—flat.

  There were no showers aboard the tramp hauler, while “air-baths” cost a credit each time. Most of the passengers used strong-smelling perfume or deodorant. Most of the time, I played cards in a tight-fitting card room or watched TV entertainment in a community lounge.

  There were no majority-type passengers, we were an eclectic range of people that included trade reps from Rhone, Hunge misfits looking for work on Oladahn Prime, Wind Runner circus folk, card sharks of indefinite heritage, a group that referred to themselves as “voyagers” and a few hard-eyed individuals that I heard whispered were interstellar bounty hunters.

  The Cargo Hauler Beran O made a run to various inhabited worlds in the Oladahn Confederacy, including Oladahn Prime. Given the nature of interstellar trade, the captain-owner of the vessel and his makeshift crew were the sole beneficiaries of profits or losses.

  The constant and steady thrum of the ship was due to the main E.C. Generator that allowed Faster-Than-Light (FTL) travel. The generator surrounded the Beran O with a green energy field that allowed the FTL velocity. There was more to the physics, of course, but I didn’t pay much attention to Calidore’s explanation.

  In all, the cramped quarters aboard the hauler proved boring, smelly, tedious…and yet the ship held its own peculiar excitement. Apparently, this was the main mode of travel between planets, unless one could afford the luxury liners or to buy a ship of his own. These tramp haulers went from world to world, the crews trying to eke out a living like everyone else. I yearned to reach Oladahn Prime and its fantastic library and figure out what we had to do next so I could return home, deal with the Avanti and free Terra from crystalline stasis.

  The point about describing the tramp hauler was the conclusion to my introduction to th
e interstellar community that thrived in the Orion Arm while poor old Terra had been in isolation for millennia. Why Terra and Terrans had been left isolated all this time not even Calidore could tell me. That was something else I planned to discover.

  It was an eleven-day journey to Oladahn Prime and I’d passed five of them with increasing tedium. After the constant adventure, excitement and exercise on Aiello, the time crammed aboard ship was starting to tax my nerves.

  I had a lot to learn about voyaging between stars. This was my introduction, as I’d said. And I learned several invaluable lessons the next day that would prove critical.

  The TV shows were dull and even worse, an insult to my intelligence. The card games interested me because I’d always enjoyed competition. The game was stars and comets, although I did not know much concerning poker strategy and proper bankroll management.

  I’d watched them play for several days and had tried my luck with limited amounts of money. After losing the money, I’d gone to my room and told Calidore to teach me everything he knew about stars and comets.

  The computer knew plenty, and he taught me carefully, and then complained when I couldn’t remember everything he said.

  “You’re hopeless at cards,” Calidore said. “Forget about it.”

  “We need more money,” I said.

  “Which is the worst reason of all to gamble,” he said.

  “If you help me, it won’t be gambling.”

  “Don’t kid yourself,” Calidore said. “Even when you do everything right, it’s a gamble. The only thing you can really do is make sure the odds are in your favor over time.”

  I nodded. He’d said that twenty thousand times already. “Look,” I told him. “I purchased this earbud in the ship store. Can you give me a wireless link?”

  “Oh. You want to cheat, eh?”

  “No,” I said. “I want your advice as I play.”

  “Why not,” Calidore said. “As a mentalist, I will prove unbeatable. Perhaps you have a point after all. Besides, it will help pass the time.”

  I joined one of the card games, this time with a larger amount of chips, using up everything I’d saved. Several of the players smiled at me as I sat down, telling me I was making the right decision.

  “They’re the sharks,” Calidore said in my ear through the bud.

  I fiddled with the computer slate as if looking at something on the screen. Really, I gave Calidore a visual so he could study the other players. He’d told me he was going to study them so he could look for “tells.”

  During the next three hours, I made a modest amount, losing most of my winnings twice.

  “I know you don’t like that,” Calidore said through the earbud. “But a few of the players were starting to get suspicious. Yesterday, you couldn’t play. Today, you’re playing like a pro, which is to say, you’re playing like me.”

  I nodded absently, and continued to accept cards and make bets. By the end of the first session, I’d doubled my money. By the end of the second session, I’d increased it by another fifty percent. I had to play at a different table for my third session, one for high stakes. I kept at it for several hours, remaining even. Then I began to play at an even higher level.

  “We’re going for the kill,” Calidore said in my earbud. “The main ship gambler is too shrewd to do it any other way. We have to strike fast and hard.”

  The next hour, through play that seemed insanely reckless to me, I managed to stack a huge pile of chips. Two of the wins came through huge bluffs that I would never have done on my own.

  According to Calidore, the ship’s gambler used his stake as his permanent ticket on the hauler. He no doubt gave the captain a portion of his profits. If the gambler lost his stake, or lost too much of it, he would lose his berth on the ship, and be penniless or next to penniless on whatever world the captain dropped him.

  The ship gambler was a tall lanky man with a scar on his cheek. He had thin yellow hair and wore gold earrings. He also had the most suspicious-looking fingers I’d ever seen, long fingers that dealt the cards far too easily.

  According to Calidore, the gambler was using another man at the table. They likely pooled their wins and losses, meaning that if either of them won a pot, they both won the pot.

  I continued playing as the two tried to chip away at my huge stack of chips. Then I looked at my cards and found myself staring at a full stars and comets hand.

  “This is where you slow play,” Calidore said in my ear.

  Slow play turned out to be betting less when I should have bet heavy. The point was to try to sucker the others to betting when they should have been folding.

  The gambler and his stooge eyed me carefully.

  “Ah,” Calidore said in my ear. “The gambler is signaling his stooge.”

  I wondered how the gambler did the signaling, because I hadn’t seen it.

  Both men bet high.

  “They’re pot committed,” Calidore said. “This is excellent. Now, push in everything. It’s time to make the kill. We’re not going to have a better opportunity than this.”

  I swallowed, hesitating.

  “You have stars and comets,” Calidore said. “Do it. We’re going to need large sums on Oladahn Prime.”

  I sighed, looking at the other two, saying, “I’m all in,” pushing in all my chips.

  Neither player folded.

  We showed our cards and of course, my full stars and comets took the pot. It felt awesome scooping up the winnings and piling the chips in stacks in front of me.

  I played for another hour, but only bet in a desultory manner. That was Calidore’s strategy, to let them cool off.

  “Now you’re going to have to watch out for the gambler,” Calidore said.

  The gambler hadn’t stopped frowning since my big victory. I had even noticed him eyeing me a few times with mayhem on his mind.

  “In case you don’t realize it yet,” Calidore said, “he’s been trying to set you up for a stars-and-comets kill since your victory. Haven’t you noticed the great early cards we’ve been getting?”

  I nodded, wondering why we hadn’t been playing them.

  “It’s the oldest trick in the book, giving you a good hand while he gets a great one. Let’s go. We’re done playing this voyage.”

  “That’s it, gentlemen,” I said, pushing away from the round table. “I need a break.”

  “So soon?” the long-fingered gambler asked smoothly.

  I shrugged.

  “We’re just getting started,” he added.

  I faked a yawn, and stretched.

  The gambler looked as if he wanted to frown, but he didn’t. Instead, he made a slight gesture with one of his long fingers. I caught it and didn’t need Calidore warning me about it. Nor did I turn around to see who he signaled. For that, I relied on Calidore.

  “He signaled a bruiser,” the computer told me in the earbud. “Ah. The bruiser has a companion. Undoubtedly, they’re going to try to rob you. Either that or they’ll attempt to start an altercation and get you thrown into the brig. Then, they can case your room and steal the chips or credits. The problem is, they might steal me as well. Maybe we shouldn’t have won quite so much.”

  I used several trays to carry my chips, easing past the other tables, and I cashed out at the desk. I glanced at the bruiser once. He was a big fellow with broad shoulders and a heavy gut, wearing a long yellow robe that almost reached the floor. He looked strong, but I was sure I was stronger. The fellow with him was a slight man with a skinny neck that had the shifty eyes of a back-stabber.

  I wore long sleeves, with my knife strapped to my left forearm. The gun was in a safe in the cargo hold.

  I left the card room, using one of the narrow passageways, passing the entrance to the TV lounge with a glassy-eyed throng staring up at the screen. Soon enough, I came into the larger barroom. One side had a wide-screen showing the stars. It was magnificent.

  “Beer,” I said, standing at the bar.

 
I received a tall foaming glass and took a sip.

  The bruiser and his shifty buddy entered. They didn’t look directly at me, but I could feel their scrutiny just the same.

  “This is a bad idea,” Calidore said. “I just analyzed the drink. It’s spiked.”

  “What?” I said.

  “The bartender drugged your drink,” Calidore said in my earbud. “He’s in on this, which means he had advance warning. I have given it a high probability that the gambler might be a relative to the captain. I hadn’t thought of that. Hmm… Maybe you should return the money. Then, we’ll hole up in your room for the rest of the voyage.”

  I shook my head. That was out of the question.

  “Look,” Calidore said. “If I can stand being a computer, you can stand being in your room for the next week until we land.”

  I snorted, picked up my glass, made to sip, and then set it down with a thump. I felt a tightening in my gut, and I actually enjoyed that. The ship with its tight confines had been getting to me.

  “Remember this,” Calidore said in my ear. “We’re all alone and must depend solely on ourselves. No one is going to bail you out if you lose. Use your head, Jason. You did back on Terra.”

  That stopped me. I suppose he had a point. I’d been getting reckless. That wasn’t how a Wolf Clan warrior acted.

  “Is your beer too warm?” the bartender asked me. He held a towel and gave me a concerned look.

  “It’s fine,” I said.

  “Oh…okay.” He wiped a wet spot on the bar and went elsewhere.

  I waited, deciding I would use my old skills as a hunter. One of the great keys to most successful hunting was patience.

  The bartender came by later, once again asking if the beer was okay.

  “I’m not thirsty anymore,” I said, and I slid the tall glass of beer back to him. Then I looked up into his face, letting him know that he was screwing with the wrong man.

  He blanched, stammering, and then tried to stand tall as if to show someone else he wasn’t afraid.

  I could feel the bruiser and his weedy buddy behind me. I turned around, staring at them.

  “He bothering you, Stead?” the bruiser asked.