Lantern Road: 8 by Cullen

by John T. Cullen

  “Yes. Josenda took me there and I had a long look. It's boring in a way, and yet very impressive."

  “It will be more impressive when I tell you some numbers related to what you are looking at. We'll go there later."

  “Are you the only three Astropaths on this ship?” Jory asked Kinkidai.

  “Yes."

  “Are we fairly rare in the universe then?"

  Kinkidai had answered the real question already. For whatever reason, neither Malinu nor Kinkidai appeared to be possible partners for Nolani. Was it expected, then, that she pair with Jory? Such a rash assumption would explain why the woman looked so—scared, he could see now.

  “We are one in tens of millions,” Malinu said. “Millions of humans died when the aliens revolted against our kind centuries ago. Millions of us were shipped off into slavery. Your branch wound up as slaves on Shur, with the Obans. Judging by the size of your keradz, you may prove to have some prodigious talent. We'll know soon enough."

  “So what is it, exactly, that I have a talent for?"

  Malinu described their work. “Have you ever skipped a stone on a pond?"

  Jory frowned. His childhood had been dark and without much play. His parents had not been very warm people, though they had fed him and comforted him when he was sick. A memory teased up, of playing by the river with several other human boys. “You mean, tossing a flat pebble with spin, like so"—he imitated—"so that the pebble jumps out of the water several times before it falls in?"

  “Exactly!” the other three said all at once.

  Malinu continued: “That's how we get through long stretches of space. Plain ordinary motion at the speed of light is impossible, but we manage to skip outside of space, using a special hyperlight drive, and return, like the pebble, or like a frog hopping from stone to stone. The more closely we aim the pebble, and are able to plan its trajectory, the more efficient our travel becomes. That's where we come in. A sentient brain is still the most complex and finely honed tool in the universe. The old humans dickered around with their own genetic material. They did things you and I and most people alive today would not dare. But they were sure they were invincible, and that's what brought them down. They did many daring things, and one of them was to introduce a strain of genes into the race that would enable us astropaths to sharpen the trajectory of a ship through hyperspace by finer and finer degrees."

  * * * *

  Under the observation blister, Kinkidai explained while Malinu and Nolani leaned against the brass railing on either side. “We are in the Third Arm of our galaxy, which is an average size galaxy that has two smaller companion galaxies, one of them twice the size of the other. According to legend, somewhere in this Arm or maybe the next lies a planet called Earth, which was our original home as a kind, but most people nowadays think Earth was a myth. The aliens scoff at us and say we invented Earth to make ourselves feel important. They say we are a kind of roach that grows naturally in any dark place."

  “Do you believe in Earth?” Jory asked.

  The three remained silent. Kinkidai cleared his throat. “Let the Captain speak about that this evening.” He told Jory how far away things were. He pointed to a star that seemed just two rooms away and said: “If you travel at half the speed of light, it will take you a million kjirs—twelve million mendz—to get there."

  Jory grew quiet as they squashed him with statistical monstrosities, one more absurd than the other.

  * * * *

  Next, they went to their place of work in a protruding nodule in the lower human deck.

  Jory noticed that, as they approached the busier parts of the ship, people parted the way for them and nodded distantly, without warmth. They got many strange stares. Malinu said: “We are freaks to them. They can consort with all sorts of aliens much stranger looking than we are, but they are revolted at the sight of one of their own with plates on the head like a lizard."

  They passed through the industrial areas and into quiet, plushly carpeted corridors that were indirectly lit. Malinu said: “They do treat us well, even if at arms’ length. They know we need to concentrate, so they carpet our halls and keep the lights dim. This is our part of the ship, Jory. This is Astropathy. I'm the First Astropath, which is like a ship's first officer, only a hair's rank below. Kinkidai is Second Astropath, and Nolani is Third Astropath."

  “Would I theoretically be Fourth Astropath?” Jory almost laughed. “I'd have nobody to give orders to below me."

  “On the contrary,” Kinkidai said, “we rank just under the top officers, who are all Ruandap; but, other than that, we are outside the chain of command. Their lives depend on us, because we can get them where they want to go in half the time, but if we make a mistake, we can all land in the heart of some sun. You can imagine how long we'd last. They may not like our looks but they have deep respect for us, and even fear."

  “Outside the chain of command?” Jory asked, bemused.

  “Yes,” Malinu said. His face darkened. “Humans are supposed to be slaves. They can't be ship's officers.” “That's why you'll find service aboard the Dora Mora to be very exceptional. We keep the secret among ourselves and move from port to port before rumor can follow. Our masters are—well, you'll see."

  They passed through a spacious offices revolving on a blister deck, all unmanned and dark except for the surrounding starlight. They entered a huge bubble further on, whose ceiling was glassix like the blister on the ob deck, and again Jory saw the fields upon fields of stars.

  Six comfortable captain's chairs occupied the central area of the floor. Though there were instrument panels around the periphery of this room that looked as though it could hold twenty people, the chairs were unadorned.

  “Sit here,” Malinu ordered. As Jory sat back in the comfortable chair, Kinkidai said: “Relax. We're going to hook you up and you'll get your first feel of this."

  “We're between jumps right now,” Malinu explained, “or all three of us would be strapped in here, working together. It will be a wonderful addition to have your power, if it is as considerable as we think it may be."

  Nolani put a kind of well-padded, comfortable cotton helmet on. Its foam interior molded automatically to the exact shape of her skull, leaving the area of her keradz exposed. As he lay looking up, Jory saw the array of cables and fasteners hanging on retractable trapezes over each of the six chairs. Nolani lowered his trapeze. She and Kinkidai began doing thing to his keradz, and he squirmed as it tickled. He'd never had any use for the things, and wished he could pull them out of his head.

  “I'm going to power up,” Malinu said. “Let me know when you see or feel anything."

  Kinkidai placed a pair of black goggles over Jory's eyes that made him blinder than a human on Oba Island. Jory felt a hum of power, and then saw tiny red and amber lights wink on in the goggles. “I see little red lights."

  “Good. That's the beginning of the metaphor. Keep looking, and relax. This is a live run, but there's nothing you can do to alter course or cause any harm."

  “Tomorrow we will begin a live session as we prepare for the next jump,” Malinu said. “See anything more?"

  Jory's field of vision expanded as a host of white and red lines started to appear. The lines raced across the field, vertically and horizontally, chasing each other and blurry speeds, while tiny yellow and blue globes slid along the lines this way and that. Jory cried out and tore the goggles off.

  “Blink next time,” Kinkidai said. “Close your eyes and will it under control. You must find that on your own. You must bring it under control or your gift isn't much use."

  “Relax,” Nolani said. She stood with her arms crossed around herself, as if she wanted to be an island from him.

  He put his goggles back on and lay back. The lines appeared, and he squinted. They appeared to break up, crumble into dust, disappear—then they appeared again. He practiced making them go away by squinting. “I still have no idea what this is all about,” he noted. “But the squinting help
s."

  “They go away and reappear?” Malinu asked anxiously.

  “Yes."

  Malinu shook Jory's shoulder in congratulations. “Then you have a powerful gift,” Kinkidai said.

  * * * *

  Freshly barbered, and wearing overalls, Jory appeared at the Captain's door, escorted by Josenda. She knocked, and, when a small light winked above, pushed the door open for him. “Good luck, Jory. I'll be on call when you're done."

  Jory stepped into a sprawling, low-ceilinged, carpeted space that reeked of luxury. Josenda pulled the door shut behind him.

  “This way!” a rich voice boomed.

  Jory, noting the paintings and sculptures all around, abstract and mute, followed the sound of the voice around a wallpapered corner. A wide flight of stairs, three shallow steps deep, brought him down into a lower dining room. Carpeted stairs cascaded up in three directions to more carpeted acreage—one a library, another a working office with desk laden with electronic tablets, the third a casual lounge.

  “Welcome,” boomed the huge man who sat at the central place of honor. He had a dark mane of hair, and short black hair fairly bursting from his white blouse. He appeared to have taken off his leather uniform, for he swaggered about in cloth breeches that reached just below the knee. “I'm Captain Aptath N'Ruandap. You recognize my other guest?” Aptath nodded to a man who stepped out of the shadows.

  A bald man of indeterminate age, the man wore an expensive black uniform with fine silver piping. “Colonel Jstraki at your service, Astropath.” He bowed slightly. “We met before."

  Jory suddenly recognized him. “Yedy of Anamo, outside Kusi-O!” Jory was too surprised to be angry at the scoundrel who'd seemed to have handed him to the Imperial road police.

  Aptath, as he filled two glasses from a bottle, said: “Colonel Jstraki is a skilled agent for Ruandap Intelligence. When I headed for the Shur system, rumor of your existence floated by me. I couldn't resist the temptation to find you and commission you. It took an agent of Jstraki's caliber a kjir to worm his way in, invent a local personality—"

  “—In that infernal dampness and gloom!—” Jstraki injected.

  “—Find you, and bring you out."

  Jory remembered nothing of the period from when he saw Yedi receiving payment from the Obayyo police official until he woke up sick as a dog in Girex and Giru's chimney. “How did you manage to smuggle me through the drum wall?"

  Jstraki grinned coldly, evidencing ferocious intelligence and efficiency. “We have two old sayings on Ruandap—gravity is heavy no matter where you are in the universe. I found the cracks in the system very easily. Also:Money penetrates all like water finding its way through a crack. I paid the right people, and, I'm afraid to admit, killed a few others. We wrapped you up in a membrane with state of the art AIC breathing apparatus, knocked out colder than a day-old noodle, and secreted you in a vat of fungus."

  “I thought I was poisoned by the babas,” Jory said. He remembered the taste and wanted to spit, but only made a bitter face.

  “No,” Jstraki said, “I didn't need to rely on native crafts. The drug was JF-VII, and I almost feared we had lost you at one point. I think Giru's soup brought you back to life."

  “They were good people,” Jory said stubbornly.

  Jstraki laughed coldly and shook Jory's hand. “A man of principle. I leave you now."

  Aptath handed Jory a glass and raised his own in a toast. “I celebrate the arrival of a promising astropath."

  Jory stared into his glass. “No more kjaba surprises?"

  Aptath laughed. “It's wine, a drink they used to make on Earth from a fruit called the grape."

  Jory sipped. The liquid was dry, and made him sweat. Its taste had a strangely robust, rubbed quality, like something overripe and too sweet, but also severe. It had many interesting after tastes that lingered like broken music notes.

  “Have a seat,” Aptath boomed.

  Jory chose the casual lounge, walking up to a circle of C-shaped couches around a central glass table at knee height. Surrounding them was a bubble, and outside that were the stars.

  Aptath sat down opposite. “Welcome aboard. How do you like it so far?"

  “I could be dead in an Oba latrine."

  “So it's upward of that?” Aptath said patiently as he refilled the two plain, transparent glasses that had narrow glass stems and a wider glass foot.

  “I must measure all things from there, Sir; forgive me, I didn't mean to seem rude."

  “No offense taken, young man.” He handed Jory the half-empty bottle with a paper label on it. “Recognize that?"

  Jory stared at the label, at the bottom of the bottle, into the neck. He sniffed the liquid, which was yellowish and smelled musty-sweet.

  “That's white wine,” Aptath said. “Of course, I forget your people on Shur have been cut off for centuries.” He sat back and sipped his wine. “We're only beginning, Jory. We haven't even started to turn the tide. But we'll win the galaxy back."

  “We, Captain?"

  “We—yes.” He slipped into near-reverie. “We from Earth."

  “You believe in those legends?"

  Aptath smiled. “Oh yes.” His eyes glowed as if he were looking directly at the mythical planet. “I have seen it with my own eyes, so close and so pretty that it seemed I could reach out and hold it in my two hands.” He held up his hands and looked from one hand to the other. “But our ship could go no closer. No closer than Earth's single stony, battered moon. A big moon it is, that shines greenish, with an odd sort of pattern in the light, like a man singing."

  Jory listened to this recitation and wondered if the man were mad, or drunk. But his voice wasn't slurry, and his manner was steady.

  “It was the most glorious run of my life, and one day I must do it again, not once but a thousand times. You should stay with us, Jory O'Call, you have the gift of planets and stars in your blood. We can make a run there again. She's round, and blue as ice, with white clouds around her like angel dust. She is a fine confection, mostly ocean, but with deep swatches of green forest and mountain ranges that sing in the wind, I'm told."

  Jory swallowed, then spoke slowly, “You say you've been to—Earth?"

  “Yes.” Aptath's eyes still glowed. “It's a secret only a few of us know. Only a few of us on this ship, including the Astropaths."

  “Where is it?"

  “That's the rub, Jory. I don't know. It's a secret. We'll have to look for her. When the old Earth empire fell, the last pre-Inversion scientists hid her in a well of time. They were powerful people, your race. Our kind. They did many things. Why do you think you carry those horn plates in your skull?"

  “They cultured some of their own kind to specialize—?"

  “Yes. They had no regard for the individual."

  Jory was silent, thinking about the cruelties of Oba and now, apparently, the whole galaxy.

  “Do you know,” Aptath said thickly, “at one time your race hunted my race?"

  Jory shook his head slowly. “The old women who count mendz don't tell such stories. Much is lost."

  “Ah, not lost, just misplaced, like Earth herself."

  Jory said: “Why do you say ‘your race’ in one breath and ‘our kind’ in the next?"

  “Because both our races come from Earth. Any living thing from Earth is our kind, Jory, though we may be a million races and species. Even those of us who were altered, like you and I."

  Jory frowned. “You are—?"

  Aptath set his wine glass aside and rose. “Let's see if you have any racial memory at all.” He reared up to his full height. “Does this strike any chords in you?” He took off his shirt, revealing a brawny, furry body twice the size of the largest human man's. He held his arms out as far as he could, as if extending something flexible. Then he curled his hands inward, leaned forward stiff-backed, and, touching his fists to the table top, leaned massively on his knuckles. “My legs are longer than they should be, and my arms are a bit shorte
r so that I can walk more like you. Before they altered us a bit, they came to hunt us. Some of your race protected us, but many of my race were killed for their hands and feet, which some of your race ignorantly believed could be made into medicine. For that alone, I should kill all of you. But then, you gave us some of the spark from the fire of your own intelligence. I like to think we have used it more wisely. Do you recognize me, Jory boy?"

  Jory shook his head slowly, as if the Captain's words had made him drunk with their heaviness.

  “I am a gorilla."

  The room steeped in silence for a moment, while they stood frozen—the man, an underling, sitting uncomfortably on the edge of his couch, while the gorilla, a space captain, demonstrated a posture that was but a memory.

  Aptath broke the spell by walking quickly to a small book case and bringing back two pictures. Each showed a hairy creature whose face resembled Aptath's, in a posture much like the one Aptath had just demonstrated. “One is my ancestor long ago. The other is yours."

  While Jory studied the picture, Aptath poured the rest of the wine.

  “Is this somewhere on Earth then,” Jory asked.

  “Yes. It's on the savannah in a place called Africa. A place called Rwanda, to be specific, in a rain forest where my race lived for millions of kjirs before—all hell broke loose.” He held up the bottle. “This wine, Jory, is from Earth. I was very young, and our captain was an alien, a scoundrel. He was accepted for the secret trade route, but he tried to sell the secret, and their spies killed him in the next port before he could pry the first word through his teeth. Our spies, I should say. We are still a dangerous kind."

  Jory said: “I never had a choice about being born on Oba of Shur. I never had a chance to decide when my parents sold me to the palace. I never did choose my way out. But here I am, and I could say no?"

  “Most assuredly,” Aptath said darkly.

  “Then I freely say yes."

  “Good!” Aptath boomed, reaching for Jory's hand. “Welcome to my crew. I make you Astropath Four, but I think you will rise to the top of your profession. Let those three teach you what you need to know. You'll be safe with me. I've been sailing for fifty kjirs, and I've never once lost a single human crew member to the alien terror. The Inversion of Man, I should say. And of you I will take special care, for you will be the sail that takes me down the well of time and to that wonderful blue vision once more.” He held up his glass. “It was one of my last bottles. I managed to buy a case of them, shipped up from a place called San Francisco."