Star quest

by Dean Koontz

  "And I imagine she was fair."

  Tohm didn't answer.

  "Well," the library said, "what did you think of the Muties' latest adventures? Exciting, huh?"

  "I didn't understand a word of it," Tohm snapped. "What is the Fringe? And for that matter, what the devil is wave pattern negative or a shell molecule?"

  "You mean you don't know?"

  "I wouldn't ask if I did."

  "Oh, dear. Well, let me start at the beginning. All the worlds of the galaxy were settled by men from the planet Earth. Most planets were peaceful and joined in mutual trade agreements which resulted in the Federation. The planets settled by the ancient political faction known as the RadRi became known as the Romaghin worlds, in honor of their first president, and were kicked out of the Federation because they refused to join in the disarmament plan. The exact same thing happened to the planets settled by the RadLef, which, for many years and through the last several centuries, was and has been the mortal enemy of the RadRi. These two factions built huge armies and navies and entered into a series of wars which have been in progress for eight hundred years. The entire galaxy has never known peace in that time. The Federation, unarmed as it was in the beginning and overwhelmed by the might of both combatants, has never been able to halt the battle. Thirdly, there are worlds like your own where exploration parties reverted and set up primitive tribes over the generations. These the Science League of the Federation is trying to preserve. Both war parties, however, raid these primitive worlds for brains."

  Tohm sighed. "I understand that much."

  "That's background. Now, these first wars were fought strictly with nuclear weapons. Fallout was tremendous. Naturally, mutated births began to occur. Both sides, however, instead of facing up to the responsibilities of this new horror, began killing the mutants at birth. Several groups of sympathetic normals, clergymen, and scholars, formed an underground that kidnapped mutants nearly upon birth. Over the centuries, a respectable colony of un-normals existed throughout the galaxy. Several times, the Romaghins and Setessins have launched campaigns to wipe out these semi-people. But they have never quite succeeded. Today, less than ten thousand Muties are living, but they are a vital group. They have discovered a way to rid the galaxy of the two warlike peoples. They have certain psi-talents (every mutant seems to be born with some) that enable them to envision a daring plan. The Romaghins and Setessins ore afraid, for they realize the feasibility of the plan. The Muties are now under the greatest attack in their history. They are fighting for their lives."

  "But how? I know the history, it is the method of obliterating the war mongers that confuses me."

  "Well, the Fringe is the single molecule which is the barrier of quasi-reality between the realities that lay in infinite number. When the energy nets—"

  Tohm sighed, interrupting. "What is a quasi-reality?"

  "Oh. Well, a quasi-reality exists but doesn't exist. It's a sort of no-man's land with the Truths on either side. Understand?"

  "No."

  The library flustered to itself for a while. "I never thought of the complexities involved when attempting to explain the twenty-ninth century to a twenty-second century man."

  "Hey, I'm educated, you know!"

  "Certainly, but you were given only the scientific understanding of the twenty-second century. The only thing you know after that is history. You know what has happened in the last eight hundred years, but not how or why. You're years behind in concepts."

  "What would you know about anything," Tohm stormed, the pride of his people surging within him.

  "Before I died, I was," the library said, "Chairman of the Department of Literature at Floating University One."

  Tohm felt his pride sinking in a quagmire of shame. He had never seen a university, much less taught at one.

  "The name is Triggy Gop."

  "Not really?"

  "If you were a student, and if I had my old body, I'd flip you on your back and beat the tar out of you."

  "Sorry."

  "Forgiven. But you see, I do know something about modem concepts of life. I lived a full life of my own. My wife died in childbirth, and I was dying myself. In order to see my child as it grew, I volunteered my brain to the Federation, thus gaining near immortality. I've been a library now for twenty-two years."

  Tohm heaved another sigh. "I really have to go. I have star charts now. I know where my Tamilee is, and I have calculated that she will appear on the slave market within a week."

  "Well, if you must go—"

  "Perhaps well meet again," Tohm said. He felt an odd kinship with the professor-machine-library.

  "Perhaps in some lonely cabaret,

  some black night, some bright day

  with snow upon the ground or grass

  turned yellow with days gone past."

  "Huh?"

  "Poetry. Mine. Not much to do after you read the papes and the new books. I never sleep, you know. Just like you. Weariness is electronically sucked off and the brain is rested a full eight hours in only ten seconds. So, I write my verse."

  "I take my leave of Triggy,

  I say goodbye. He seems a little wiggy

  but nice guy."

  "Hey! Hey, limericks," Triggy said.

  The doors opened behind, and the blackness of space glistened impossibly dark. "Goodbye, Triggy Gop," Tohm called.

  "Goodbye, Jason. May you find your fleece that is the maiden Tamilee."

  "What?"

  "Nothing. Nothing. Just, good luck."

  "You too," he answered, drifting out from the hulking cube. The portal closed behind.

  Chapter Three

  HE SWATHED HIMSELF in negative patterns to protect against every sort of radar and coasted in toward the bulbous fruit that was Basa II. He had researched to find why the "two" was hung after the name, but he found no reason. There never had been a Basa I.

  Scoping the land masses through the cloud breakage, lie found he was on the correct side of the giant lemon (the seas were yellow, and the clouds were an amber hue). The continent of Bromida Basa lay below. The capital city, Romaghin Cap Five, was on the edge of a peninsula that stretched into the great sea. Population: three million plus. Main business: trading of stolen merchandise, slave marketing, sin. He tried not to think about Tarnilee. He did not know how long it had been since they had parted or how long it would be until she was totally beyond his grasp. Stretching his mind and studying everything Triggy Gop had to offer, he thought, perhaps, the month long period between capture and sale of a slave would be up this week. He hoped he wasn't just being optimistic. If she did come onto the platform to be sold, he knew it wouldn't take long. Not for a girl like Tarnilee.

  Breaking orbit, he plunged down through the denser and denser layers of atmosphere, hull heating, eyes out for any missiles from anyone who might have broken the radar-negative shield and picked him up. The shield had been known to fail.

  The clouds appeared to rush at him, up and up and up, though it was actually himself dropping down and down and down. He hit the clouds expecting a jolt and was plunging through toward the earth below. He splashed out analyzer waves and discovered the land below was composed mostly of loose sand. There was desert at the back of the peninsula. The sand was a hundred and two feet deep before it gave way to solid rock. He braked for a short moment, cutting his speed in half, and smashed head first into the sand, sinking immediately out of sight like a pebble tossed in a pond. He left a momentary whirlpool in the sand which eventually settled itself and lay quiet. Eighty-three feet below the surface, he slid to a halt and lay very still indeed. Minutes passed without result No missiles. No warheads. Nothing. He eased up on his nerves, allowed them to unbunch themselves, and sighed.

  He was on the planet of Basa II—in it, really.

  He was only a dozen miles from the fringes of the city that held his Tamilee. Tamilee of the soft lips… Tarnilee of the sweet eyes… Tamilee of the flower soul with the delicate laugh and the feet like cryst
al structures…

  He searched into his bowels where the shock-proof chemical tanks and laboratories were working diligently. The body seemed perfect. It was tall, muscular, blond, and handsome. The process had been suspended until he was ready to have his brain deposited in the skull via cellular welding which would connect it to the nerves and life systems of the humanoid floating in the brackish fluid.

  He was ready.

  Clipping the limited semi-brain of the computer into the controls, he set everything on automatic, ready to respond to his call for help but inert and unfunctioning unless needed. A mechanical brain could handle all functions minimally, but it took an organic brain to really operate a Jumbo.

  The servo-robot trundled into the control center where his brain hung in a nutrient sack inside an energy net which was, in turn, sheltered within a shatter-proof, blast-proof alloy bowl The brain was protected, for even if shot down, the Jumbo might provide a humanoid body for the brain—a body which would be in enemy territory and capable of doing more damage. Carefully, the robot lifted the bowl from the immovable pillar, where it had been latched, and carried it down through the decks into the operating theater. He directed it to hypo him to sleep, and he was obeyed.

  Dreams flooded his mind…

  Later, he woke with a clear mind, no traces of fogging drugs. The surgeon arms dangled above his head, all manner of instruments fitted to their metal fingers. Thin bladed knives, broad spatulas, hypos, every conceivable surgical tool hung in their nimble, steel fingers. He raised his own arm and looked at it. It was nothing like theirs. It was real, terribly muscular, and ended in five fingers with hair on the knuckles, fine, wiry blond hair. He shoved himself to a sitting position and surveyed his new body. Admirable. Quite admirable indeed. His feet were neither too tiny to provide a sound base nor too large, to be in his way when a situation demanded agility. His calves and thighs were exquisitely muscled, almost rippling with power even as he sat still. His waist was slim, his stomach flat The barrel of his chest was matted with fine hairs that would, he knew, grow long and darker. His bull's neck was topped with a handsome face, the mirror showed him. There was no trace of the brain transplantation, not even a fine scar. A marvelous body. A fighter's body. He would need it. Kicking onto the floor and flexing his arms and legs, he thought next about clothes. The auto-fact had been programmed with information on Basa II costume. He stepped from the blue chamber of the surgeons and into the bone-white chamber of the auto-fact delivery trough. It provided him, when he punched the delivery button, with a neatly folded bundle of garments wrapped and tied with red twine. Tohm broke the string and laid them out on the couch that was bolted to the wall. There was a red velour of velveteen with a turtleneck ridged in black. The trousers were leotards, actually, black as the night is black. Slipper boots that came just below the knee slid on easily, almost of their own accord, comfortable, sleek, perma-polished. They repelled any form of dirt, maintaining that immaculate appearance popular among the wealthy here. Lastly, there was a cape of velveteen that fell just below his waist, a black and sinister thing with a quarter inch of tassel about the bottom. It tied about his shoulders by a polished brass chain whose links were studded by simu-pearls.

  Turning before the mirror, he admired himself. A uniform like this made a man seem so much more a man, so capable and magnificent. The grandeur of Basa II must be overwhelming, he thought, if this were standard dress. A grand and wonderful world. He had never been an aggressive man until they forced him to it, but in that getup, he felt as if he could reach out and stop the world in its orbit and rotation, black out the sun, command the gods!

  Cape fluttering behind, he walked back to the control center and keyed the computer to bring him a car. The capital lay above and ahead, and he did not wish to delay. A moment later, the small, bullet-shaped vehicle rose through the floor elevator and sat purring like a contented cat, waiting for him to lift the transparent rap and climb in. He did so, strapping himself in and sliding the roof shut again.

  The board before him twinkled with dozens of lights, the largest being a rotating map which glowed green like a radar scope and had a blinking red dot (the position of the Jumbo), a glistening shimmer of blue (his ear), and a field of pink haze slashed by fine yellow lines (the city and its roads). Punching the starter before him, he took the wheel, steered the car through the opening door, and came out in the bubble of air that surrounded the Jumbo. The shield was there to keep the sand back when he opened the ship's door. Now, door closed behind him, it blinked off and the sand came pouring back, burying him. Kicking the accelerator aside into the slot marked DIGGER, he pressed down and watched as the dull, almost invisible flame ate out at the sand, fused it into glass, and built a tunnel slanting upward, dropping unused blocks of still hot glass behind.

  He broke the surface at a gentle angle after three hours of digging. It should have been only eighty-three miles to the surface, but he had slanted the shaft and gone much farther. It was night. He cut the flames and turned on the infrared headlights. Nothing about but sand. Plenty of that, though. He decided it would be best to leave the car there, buried, and make it to the capital alone. It would not be prudent to make his appearance in a Romaghin war car when he wasn't even a soldier. That might arouse the suspicions of the local constabulary.

  Getting out, he set the car to SETTLE and watched as it slowly, like a sand crab, covered itself. When it was out of sight and the humming of its motor had ceased, he turned toward the highway that slashed the desert a hundred feet away, and began to walk. At the road's edge, he gathered his directional sense, stared at the faint glow of lights that would be the city. Lying on the ground, he activated the concealed flybelt beneath his velour, lifted, and drifted silently through the cool air toward the city.

  And Tamilee.

  Four miles later, he saw the campfire…

  Chapter Four

  HE WOULD NOT have stopped if he had not heard the screaming. But that drew him. His people had been prideful, honest, helpful people. They had known little evil in their daily lives, but they fought against that which they did find. Screams indicated someone in trouble, and he could not let anyone go unaided.

  Checking his directions so that he would not lose the pathway to the city, he banked left toward the clump of scrubby trees and bushes that stood as a solitary monument on an ancient battlefield. The tallest trees cut at the dark sky like saber points brandished by the smaller growths. The fire lay to the edge, flickering and dancing like some frolicking beast. He cut into the dark portion of the woods and drifted between the trees, seeking the forms of men he knew must be there.

  And were. A band of men in old clothes sat about the fire. Actually, he saw, they were sitting around a very small boy. The men were unshaven, gruff-looking creatures. Nomads, he thought. Traveling the deserts of Basa II in search of what little there was to find, coming occasionally to the city to satisfy themselves with women of the houses, to stupify themselves with the ale and wines of the inns. The boy was a smaller version of the men. Unscrubbed, dressed in tatters, he sat in the center of the human semicircle. But in one way, he was different. His eyes.

  White eyes…

  Snow eyes…

  They were not albino orbs, for they didn't have that pinkish cast. Besides, the boy had dark hair and skin. They were not simply light blue bordering on colorless. They were white, white eyes. White iris and even whiter pupil.

  "Do it," a large man at the end of the semicircle said.

  "One at a time. Maybe two," the boy said, his voice quavering.

  "Sure," the man said. "Sure, and the others wait an hour while only two at a time dream. You've tranced all six before."

  "I'm tired. We've been trancing all day."

  "And will all night. Tomorrow we go into the city. You will make us feel good, hone our senses to the sharpest point so that everything we do is totally experienced, so that all we drink and eat we will taste completely, minutely, so that our moments with the wom
en will seem like days, like months."

  "Like years," a fat nomad said, wiping sweat from his cheeks before it could trickle down and into his beard.

  "You'll kill me," the boy warned.

  The first nomad who had spoken, and who seemed to be the nearest thing to a leader these people had, picked up a pair of tongs and lifted a glowing coal from the fire, blew on it to heat it even more, then tossed it at the boy. It bounced from his slender arm, leaving a brown burn.

  The boy screamed again, the same scream Tohm had heard from the highway. It wasn't a scream quite like any he had ever heard. It was a dozen screams at once, each a hundred decibels above the last. Tohm thought they might go on into infinity, far above the human ear's perception, spiraling and spiraling, an eternity of screams.

  "We tie you down," said the fat man, lifting his arm and pointing at the boy. There was a great wet patch under his arm, spreading down his side. "We tie you down and lay the coals on your face, one by one, then fan them hotter. They'll eat right through your skull, right into your brain."

  The boy screamed again. Even the trees seemed to shudder, to hear. "All right," his weak voice said at last. "I will try. But I can only try." He closed the white orbs, covering them with dark lids.

  Suddenly as he hung there, Tohm felt the world swaying about him. He moved to grab hold of a limb—and then was no longer Tohm…

  He was color…

  A minimum of crimson in a sea of blue …

  A droplet of cinnabar, swirling and tumbling, surging and jailing, blending and rebelling…

  Waves of lapis lazuli swept him into currents of ocher and gamboge … Splashing wetly, he crashed upon a beach of heliotrope spotted with cadim…

  REDREDREDREDREDRED… RED… REDRED-KEDREDREDRED…

  There was no identity. The loss of self was relief, pure and fresh and wonderful…

  A gestalt, single organism of all shades of red: rouge, scarlet, vermilion, madder, lake, cochineal…