This Starry Deep

by Adam P. Knave

  Albertoth. The name surfaced at last. Albertoth - the guy in charge, last time I stood around on these hills. He was old then and certainly not in charge now, but it’d be a place to start.

  Bee, Kem, and the rest were standing around, whispering to each other and pointing at things. I gathered them up and started walking. Instantly, they wanted to know where we were going. I just pointed and kept moving. We needed to find a native and build from that.

  We came across someone soon enough and he took us up the chain, knowing who Albertoth was, if not knowing the man personally. He had a friend who knew someone who knew someone, and so on up the ladder. An hour or so later we got out of an old, underused transport and stood at the door to Albertoth’s old office. I remembered the doors fondly. Large things, made of metal and etched to resemble the fog itself.

  I had taken the time to catch up on things, as much as possible, while we went. Albertoth had retired as leader. Amusing to me, since all the leader of Bercuser seemed to do was listen to other people who told him the future, and a few who tried to predict the past, and wrangle sense out of them. I suppose the work bore out to be far more frustrating than it looked.

  He’d been replaced by a guy named Tonth. They told me Tonth judged very similar to Albertoth, but I would have to see for myself. Everyone I talked to, it also seemed, knew there was an invasion coming. They weren’t scared, though. No, they were waiting to see what happened, with the calm certainty that an answer would be found and would reveal itself as events unfolded. I’d have liked to have had their confidence.

  Instead, I had a growing lump of worry in my gut that we were wasting time. I didn’t share it with anyone. I couldn’t see how it would help. I followed our guide up into Tonth’s office. Tonth, unlike his predecessor, preferred a shine of glamour. Ornate carvings littered the wall, his desk, and his chair. Lights sparkled and bowls of fog glimmered on various flat surfaces.

  Tonth himself had an air of nobility about him. This was a man used to being listened to. I hoped he was also used to listening. I bowed, the standard formal greeting on Bercuser, and Tonth nodded, gesturing with an open hand for me to speak.

  “Head Seer Tonth,” I addressed him, “I am Jonah Madison. In the older days I spoke at length with Albertoth, a wise and gentle man, truly great, and today I come before you, seeking—”

  He cut me off with a grim smile and a nod. “You come to tell us to flee, do you not?”

  “I do, Head Seer, truly your powers are great.”

  “It does not,” he said, warming up, “take great power to look up, Mister Madison.”

  “Please,” I said, giving him another bow, “call me Jonah.”

  “Sit then, Jonah,” he said. More chairs were brought in and shoved around and we all sat, the office growing cramped with both furniture and people. “Now, tell me how you intend to save our people.”

  “Uhm, well, Head Seer—”

  “Tonth, please. We shall be friends and consider each other equals.”

  I nodded at him and continued, “I’m not sure there is a plan. Do you have enough ships to evacuate the planet?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “No,” I agreed, “not many do. Can you make Bercuser shift orbits again, or do you know if it will do so soon?”

  “None of us,” he told me, a stern edge creeping into his voice, “can predict such things.”

  “I was afraid of that,” I admitted.

  “However,” he continued, “that doesn’t mean that some do not try.”

  “Does that mean you can or you can’t?” I asked, not sure where he was going but trying to follow along.

  “It means that some claim to be able to. They are not right as often as they wish, but nor are they always wrong.”

  “So, they guess, and at times they’re lucky and right?”

  “You cast doubts on all our abilities with your reductive speech,” Tonth said, growing cold again.

  “Your forgiveness,” I said hurriedly, “I only meant to express disappointment.”

  “Disappointment that we are not perfect?” he asked. “We never claimed to be so. It is others who see us as charlatans and feel that we should we should be perfect lest we reveal ourselves as frauds. They accept no margin into their lives, no belief, no wisdom. We only—”

  “Tonth,” I said, interrupting him. It was a risky move if I wanted to stay in his good graces, but I couldn’t sit and listen to him make speeches. “We don’t have time. Honestly. We don’t. Can we discuss a plan?”

  “Yes,” he said with an air of seriousness, “of course. A plan. We have many ships, though not enough to evacuate the planet, as I said.”

  “Which is fine, I wasn’t thinking of evacuating this planet. If your seers think there is a reasonable chance the planet will orbit shift in a few days, then we should use that.”

  “And simply wait? Is that wise?” I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. A minute ago he’d seemed all about trusting the predictions.

  “Not really, but it’s the choice we have. I do, however, want to use your ships.” And here was the gamble.

  “For?”

  “I want to send them to Trasker Four to evacuate as many people from there as possible. If you land them here and the orbit shift happens, they’ll be safe, as will the people of Bercuser.”

  “To take in such refugees, they would not know our customs. However, we have long felt a time would come when our lands would need sharing. This must be why. Yes, we have lands set aside for a group of outsiders.”

  “You do?”

  “Our seers,” he said with a small grin, “are not kept just for show. There were some who thought the invasion and the refugee problem would be linked. They were right. Some thought the invaders themselves would be the refugees. I see now they were wrong in the details.”

  “Happens to the best of us,” I said quickly, pushing on. “Now, with enough ships we can evacuate some folk and bring them here.”

  “How will we get to a planet that you are telling me is being invaded as we speak?”

  “Landing will be the tricky part, yeah.” I admitted. “But I can let the military know and they can protect your ships going in and out of orbit, and direct you to land where it’s clear. This isn’t a great plan, and there will be a lot of good people lost, but it’s the only plan I have.”

  “And you will lead these forces yourself?” Tonth looked at me as if he knew something. Then again, maybe he did. Even if he didn’t, he could claim to later. I didn’t put much stock in seeing the future, and maybe he was right: maybe I failed to look at the big picture the way he did. I had my own way of seeing the future, though, with plans and strategy.

  “Not quite.” Two words and the whole room burst into babble. The kids I brought with me started to yell, as did Tonth’s advisors in the room. Everyone who shouldn’t have been talking was. The two of us who actually needed to be talking sat silent and looked at each other. I turned and looked at my guys. I gave them the same hard glare I used to give my team when they knew better then to be doing something stupid. Same as back then, people shut up.

  “Some of my people will be with me. The rest will go with your ships to help guide them and collect their planet-mates,” I told Tonth. He nodded.

  “I expected as much,” he said.

  “Of course,” I inclined my head to show respect, and then got down to brass tacks. “How many ships do you have and how many people can they hold?”

  The rest of the meeting was simple planning. We managed to work out a decent number of cargo ships, each capable of holding a thousand people if they weren’t too comfortable. They’d survive the trip, and that remained the important part. Work began as soon as possible on launching those ships, knowing no one had much time at all. They weren’t the fastest ships, and if the planet was going to orbit shift in two days - never mind that an invasion that could wipe out the planet was already attacking them - we’d need every minute we could scrape up.

>   I pulled Bee aside and told her she wasn’t going back to Trasker Four, she was staying with me. A curt nod was all that she allowed herself, but I could tell she’d hoped it would be that way. Steelbox came over and asked me the same thing.

  “I wanna stick with you,” he said, his lack of neck robbing him of the ability to nod well.

  “Yeah, well, uhm, Steelbox? Do you have a real name, kid? Steelbox is a bit—”

  “Steve Bokonski,” he said with a shrug. “So, you know.”

  “Steelbox. Right. Sure,” I told him, “the thing is, I need you going with the others. We don’t have many people from your world to help and we need you to show them where to land and convince people to get in and go.”

  “I think they’ll be willing to go even if none of us try to convince them. If your planet was getting blown up around you, how much talkin’ would it take to get you to leave to safety?”

  Damn it, he had a good point. I just didn’t want to drag too many people into this mess. Bee would come with me and I had planned on getting Kem as well. Two tech heads never hurt anyone, and they’d be more use to me than to the Bercusans, who had their own tech teams.

  I just couldn’t think of a good reason to say no to Steelbox. I shrugged at him and told him I’d think about it. Really, I decided to ask Bee her thoughts. She knew him, they had been in the same gang.

  As I approached her, a tall, reedy guy came up to us. His eyes seemed to refocus and he started intensely at me.

  “Can I help you?” I asked, knowing he must be a Bercusan Seer.

  “I must go with you,” he said, his voice solemn.

  “Yeah, the rescue ships are over there. This isn’t one of them,” I told him, and I patted our new loaner ship with one hand. Bee and Kem had been familiarizing themselves with it. They were both now stopped, watching with interest. “I need to get back to work, but good of you to help.”

  “You misunderstand me,” he said. I was afraid of that. “I need to come with you, specifically. I have foreseen it.”

  “Can I ask why?”

  “So that you may die.” This guy didn’t know how to sell himself at all.

  “So if you don’t come with me I won’t die?” I asked. “Because that isn’t a great reason to bring you along, I hope you realize.”

  “But you must. I have seen it. You must die, and I must be along.”

  “I really don’t think this is going to work out. Now, if you’ll excuse me…” I turned back to Bee and started to ask about Steelbox when my new best friend grabbed my shoulder.

  “Truly, Mister Madison, I need to accompany you and your crew,” he said with all the inflection of a corpse.

  “Jonah. Call me Jonah. Or Captain Madison. Never Mister. And my answer was no, and it was final.” I turned back to Bee and Kem. Kem nodded when I mouthed a question at him, asking if the guy had gone.

  That done, I put the idea of Steelbox joining the crew to them. They didn’t mind so I gave in, deciding they needed more faces from home. They also promised to ensure that he’d keep in line. Kem seemed to think Steelbox would make a fine addition for reasons he couldn’t quite put into words.

  That settled, I left them to finish the preparations and went around to check how the rescue ships were going. Everything seemed to be moving smoothly. It took a while, but soon enough they were ready to go.

  Now all I needed was a plan for us. I’d get there, though. I felt confident about that. We’d get back into the void and then go for Shae. Stopping the invasion along the way would be icing.

  I headed back to our ship and saw Bee, Kem, and Steelbox waiting for me. Stowing my gear quickly, I sat in the pilot’s seat and prepared us for liftoff. I brought the engines to life and we rattled and rumbled our way toward leaving the gravity well. Just before we launched ourselves up and through the atmosphere, I heard a door close. I turned my head and there was the stranger from earlier, sitting quickly in a seat and buckling himself in.

  “Bee?” I asked, jerking my head back toward our new guest.

  “He came back with a letter from Tonth saying we had to take him. Says his name is Olivet.”

  “Great. Thanks for the warning,” I told her as I kept goosing the engines to life.

  “Hey, you weren’t here and he had official documents demanding his inclusion,” she snapped at me.

  “No, you’re right. You made the right choice. I just don’t like him.” I ignored the presence of Olivet as best I could and concentrated on takeoff. The engines roared to full heat and we started to lift. As always, my body felt compressed back in my seat and I wanted to close my eyes and whoop it up. I loved this. I always had and always would.

  We broke out of the sky and into the deep, straight and true.

  Chapter 23 - Mud

  I SLID ALONG the corridor, matching its color and feel as best I could. Locating the section they held Mom in (no sign of, or word from, Dad) proved easy enough once I had the room quiet. I had disabled the room and the door’s ability to open, and had taken all the communication equipment the guards and staff carried, but I still knew it wouldn’t be long before the rest of the ship knew I was there.

  And of course, they’d put her pretty far from where I stood. Which meant I had a lot of ground to cover if I intended to help. I considered, briefly, dressing as a security officer, but as the only Hurkz around I’d still stick out pretty bad unless I wore a full helmet.

  It wasn’t often security wore a full helmet inside without a problem to respond to, and one officer never responds alone. Even if I could think of a good reason to pull that much off and get away with it, the security armor tended to have locators on it. Which meant the second anyone knew what I had done, they’d have me on a big map. A lone red dot trailing through their ship as obvious as could be.

  No, I’d have to be better than that. Air ducts were right out, of course. Too small and rigged with security anyway. Maintenance passageways should do, for a while at least. There would still be security but less of it. Also less people in general. Just some engineering staff and a few drones.

  I would’ve focused security on those passageways, personally, seeing as how they’re off the beaten path. They’re not a bad place to hide. Except that if you get caught in them, maintenance halls are far quicker to go into airless lockdown. Since they tend to be where people burn and cut things, you want a faster response time. Also, since people don’t roam them quite as freely, you have to count on the ability to just deadlock a passageway from everything else on the ship and secure it.

  So they’d be my best bet, but far from simple should I be noticed. Getting into the passageways wasn’t as simple as a doorknob, either. Normal staff weren’t allowed in them. You didn’t give everyone keys to the backdoor.

  A secure ID would’ve been nice, but I didn’t have one. Big shock. I did have full access to my finer tools now that I was in atmo. I fished them out of my thinsuit and got to work on a hatchway. I triggered the auto-release without the door sensor noticing and slipped inside. At least a few things were going my way.

  The hallway on the other side felt like it belonged to another ship. Instead of the nicely lit, smooth-paneled passage, the maintenance shafts were dimmer and had exposed pipes. The sort of thing you might expect from an area where people needed to work, and fast, to fix problems. Nice place to sneak around a ship in but I wouldn’t want to live there.

  I got through the first corridor fine, only a security drone to avoid. The drone looked one way, I went the other, no problem. Those drones tend to scan in a three-hundred-and-sixty–degree sweep pattern, but they can’t look in every direction at the same time. You just had to not be where it looked when it looked and keep that up until it moved out of range.

  My first instinct told me to blast the thing right in the comm relay and take it out, but leaving behind bits of drone would give me away. More work to avoid them in the short term, but worth it. Not hardly as satisfying, though.

  But this wasn’t about me. T
his was about Mom. I took a ladder up an access shaft and got onto the right level for where they were keeping her. I heard shuffling in front of my position and slowed to a creep. Back to the wall, I activated the suit’s camouflage and sucked air in quietly as the needles bit. Crouching, I continued to slink forward, inch by inch.

  The lights flickered, casting the passage into darkness. Must be a tech ahead, sent to fix them. I could sneak by him but it might be too risky. Taking him out would be just as risky, of course. No good answer ahead.

  I decided to continue to sneak, taking the safe road over the easy again. I got past the tech easy enough; I couldn’t even see him that well. Not clearly, at any rate. Enough to tell he faced away from me. Then I heard a soft “huft!” and the next thing I knew I was on the ground with the tech kneeling on my chest.

  I grabbed his shoulders and started to roll on my side in an attempt to get leverage, but as I did I caught a fist to the face, hard.

  “Mud?” the tech said, in my mother’s voice.

  Wait. I laughed and grabbed Mom close, laughing. “I came to free you,” I told her, letting go and standing up.

  “Well, dear, I appreciate it,” she said, standing as well. I noticed bits of cloth tied around her shoulders and left foot. They didn’t look good.

  “Mom? What happened? You’re—”

  “Fine, I’m fine, dear. Now. Where’s your father? Is he with you?” As we talked, we slid against the wall, hiding in the dark and whispering. We both kept an ear and eye out for trouble.

  “No, I thought he had been captured along with you,” I told her, “but I couldn’t find him when I checked the comm rooms.”

  “I haven’t heard from him, either,” she said, “and if he isn’t with you—”

  “He’s probably on the way, separately. Though I tried contacting him on my way over so we could meet up.”

  “And you heard nothing back, correct?”

  “Right.”

  “Which means he’s in something deep and it isn’t this,” she said. I could hear a level of exasperation in her voice.