Mapped Space 1: The Antaran Codex

by Stephen Renneberg

  “This penthouse belongs to the owner of one of the largest fishing fleets on Icetop,” Sarat explained as we took in the view. “I’ve rented it from him for this occasion.”

  “I guess fishing does pay,” Jase observed as a solid looking individual with a military style haircut approached us with a portable scanner.

  The guard quickly found our weapons, but we declined to hand them over.

  “Your weapons will be returned to you, when you leave,” Sarat assured us. “My guards will ensure you are quite safe.”

  “As safe as I was in Hades City?” Jase asked sharply.

  Sarat eyed Jase suspiciously. For a moment, I thought he was going to have his guard throw Jase out, then Sarat relaxed. “You are my guest here. In Hades City, you were a potential threat. You may accept my hospitality – or you may leave.”

  “We accept,” I said, handing over my bulky MAK P-50. When Jase refused to budge, I gave him a sharp look. I knew he’d rather shoot Sarat than accept his hospitality, but he kept his anger in check and passed his twin fraggers to the guard.

  Everyone relaxed, then Sarat led us towards one of the corridors that led off from the central lounge. “We’re only ten meters below the peak of the spire. There’s a lookout up there, but I wouldn’t recommend it – the winds are strong and very cold at this altitude, particularly this time of year.”

  Sarat showed us into a well appointed apartment with a single large bed and a drift-whale upholstered sofa. My threading picked up more than a dozen tiny thermal signatures placed around the room, devices designed to ensure we had no secrets from our host.

  “Unfortunately,” Sarat said, indicating the solitary bed, “I was expecting only one of you.”

  “We’re not planning on staying long,” I said.

  “You’ll be here for two days. It will take that long to complete the bidding process.”

  I gave him a puzzled look. “Seems a long process for an auction.”

  “It’s the seller’s custom.”

  “You’re not the seller?”

  “I’m just the middle man.”

  “Who’s the seller?”

  “You’ll meet him soon enough,” Sarat said as he stepped towards the door. “Introductions and the first round will commence after lunch.”

  Sarat withdrew, closing the door behind him. Jase immediately turned to me, “Skipper, before you say anything, that bastard murdered two girls! My friends! And drugged the hell out of me!”

  “I know.”

  “I’m going to frag him into little pieces!”

  “No, you’re not! We’re here to get whatever he’s selling – and leave. Forget your vendetta now, or I’ll put you on the first transport back to the spaceport myself.”

  Jase’s jaw tightened as he fought to contain his anger. He wasn’t to know my words were for the listening devices eavesdropping on our conversation, and to reassure Sarat, who was almost certainly watching us.

  “Promise me, you’ll let me at him,” Jase demanded, “when this is over.”

  “No. I have a deal with Sarat and you’re going to honor it.” Right up until I put a slug in Sarat’s head myself, not just for the two girls, but also for the two EIS agents he’d killed.

  “Damn, what’s got into you, Skipper?”

  “This is a big deal for us,” I said, speaking to Sarat’s snoopers again. “If you want to be in on it, you play by my rules – and by Sarat’s rules.”

  Jase was ready to explode, but he started to believe I actually meant it. Slowly he cooled. “OK, Skipper.”

  “Good. Be on your best behavior and we’ll get out of here and collect the biggest payoff of our lives,” I said, silently increasing my fee to Lena, purely for Jase’s sake.

  Sarat would now believe he understood me, that I was all about the money and therefore predictable. Revenge was a luxury this mission couldn’t afford – at least not yet – although in time, I intended to complete both, then Jase would understand.

  * * * *

  We had cod for lunch, served in our room, then a burly guard in a dinner jacket led us to a rectangular audience chamber with a long pressure field covered window running the length of one wall. A factory ship was visible two clicks out, holding position as small aircraft took turns delivering fresh crew and supplies. The other walls were polished rock, decorated with images of frozen landscapes and drift-whale bones, while the rock floor had been carved to appear as if it was covered in slate tiles – a useless but expensive embellishment. At the far end of the room, circular metal plates lay flush to the floor and ceiling, emitters for a high fidelity holo communicator.

  Sarat was waiting in the meeting hall with Marie, Vargis and three others I didn’t recognize. Marie was surprised to see me, while Vargis barely acknowledged my existence. I gave Marie a sly smile, leaving her in no doubt I’d expected to see her here. It was our little game, who could outsmart who, and I might as well let her think I’d known what she was up to all along. It had been that way ever since we’d met two years ago on Galis, when she’d sweet talked a hydroponics dealer into cancelling my contract and giving it to her. I don’t think she really cared about the contract, just beating me, which was more about personal chemistry than interstellar trade.

  The three others with Sarat gave me appraising looks, assessing how big a threat I posed. I DNA locked them all, but only one, a tall cutthroat of east African descent named Gwandoya was wanted. He wore brightly colored silks, tightly braided shoulder length hair and a full beard threaded with colored jewels. He was in mankind’s top one hundred most wanted, criminal royalty with a bloodthirsty record that would normally have obliged me to ensure he didn’t leave here alive. The other two were clean skins; a small Chinese man and a tall Union business type. Both wore tailored suits and looked as if they belonged in board rooms rather than in the company of cold blooded killers like Gwandoya.

  We exchanged polite nods then I caught Vargis’ eye. “Did you find someone to do that Zen Tau run?”

  Vargis looked dismissively down his nose at me. “You’ll wish you’d taken my offer by the time this is over.”

  “Yeah, that was the chance of a lifetime,” I replied sourly, then turned to Marie. “I really couldn’t let you go skiing all by yourself,” I said, reminding her I’d seen her looking for Icetop contracts at the Hades City Exchange.

  “What are you doing here, Sirius?” she asked.

  “The same thing you are. Well, not the losing part – I expect to win.”

  “The will to win is the key to personal excellence,” the small Chinese man said.

  I suspected he was quoting something, but had no idea what. “It’s certainly better than losing.”

  “Sometimes winning is fatal,” Gwandoya said, fixing me with a stony stare, “for those who lack the strength to keep what they win.”

  “I’ve never had that problem,” I said, holding his gaze, offering him an unspoken challenge. Perhaps I could goad him into starting something that would allow me to deal with him in a way that wouldn’t draw suspicion.

  “Let me remind you all,” Sarat said, trying to ease the tension, “that everyone here is my guest, and that no unpleasantness of any kind will be tolerated.” He stared pointedly at me and Gwandoya, then took up position beside the holo communicator plates and waved for his muscle-bound butlers to hand out refreshments. “Thank you for coming to this secluded location,” Sarat continued. “I’m sure you all agree, being out of reach of the authorities makes the effort worthwhile, particularly for the successful bidder. Now then, to the introductions.” He motioned to the Chinese man first. “Bo Qiang, a lawyer bidding on behalf of a collector of rare alien artifacts from Earth. Beside him, we have Mr Gwandoya, representing . . . a large and successful cooperative.”

  Sarat was referring to the Pirate Brotherhood, whose only cooperation was in working together to pillage remote trade routes. Gwandoya was not just a notorious murderer and thief, he was the local kingpin, head of the Ravens, th
e Brotherhood’s local chapter whose reach extended throughout the Outer Lyra region and beyond. The old navy cutter at the spaceport was undoubtedly his, making it a priority that we got back to the Lining with the goods and took off before he did.

  “Next we have Mr Breckinridge, head of a major mining conglomerate and the lovely Captain Dulon, who will be bidding on behalf of the Beneficial Society of Traders.”

  I hid my surprise at hearing the Society was involved in something this shady. They were normally painfully careful to be seen to stay on the right side of the law, if for no other reason than their dependence on Earth Navy for protection and for landing rights at navy controlled spaceports across Mapped Space. Now I understood where Marie’s fake Captain’s tags and ship registry had came from. They weren’t fakes. The Society had issued them to her. I leaned towards Marie and whispered, “You must know people in high places, Esmin. Did you choose that name? I could really see you as an Esmin.”

  She scowled, whispering back, “You’ll pay for that.”

  “Whatever the price, Esmin, it was worth it!” I said with a wry smile.

  “Next we have Senor Arturo Salbatore Vargis, representing the Chairman.” Sarat gave Vargis a respectful, welcoming nod. For a moment, I wondered if Sarat showed a hint of favoritism towards Vargis, or was it simply deference to the Chairman, the shadowy mastermind behind the Consortium. The Consortium’s existence was sometimes considered a myth, but the EIS knew there really was a secret alliance of powerful companies who manipulated economies of entire worlds for their own ends.

  “And finally,” Sarat continued, “the last member of our group, Captain Sirius Kade, who will be bidding on behalf of the most venerable Jie Kang Li.”

  Marie gave me an astonished look. Bidding for the Beneficial Society was one thing, that was a legitimate business, but bidding on behalf of one of the largest organized crime syndicates known to man genuinely shocked her.

  “You’re kidding?” She whispered. “The Yiwu?”

  “I owed Li a favor,” I lied, knowing she was disappointed and that no matter what happened, I could never tell her the truth.

  Jase was also giving me a strange look. “That’s who we’re working for?”

  Marie glanced at Jase, then back at me even more puzzled. “You mean even he doesn’t know?”

  I shrugged helplessly. “It’s just a pick-up and delivery.”

  Jase looked uncomfortable, but he’d go along with it if I said so.

  “The auction will be conducted according to Irzaen tradition,” Sarat continued. “This means there will be three rounds of blind bidding. None of you will know what the other bids are, only the winning order. Two bidders will be eliminated after each of the first two rounds, with the winner being decided in the third round.”

  I’d heard of the Irzaens, but humanity had almost no contact with them. They weren’t an Orion Local Power and had no ambassadorial links with Earth. The Irzaen homeworld was supposed to be in the Scutum-Centaurus Arm, tens of thousands of light years away. They had a reputation for being shrewd, but honest traders, with links spanning the entire galaxy. That put them so far ahead of mankind, we assumed we had nothing of interest to offer them. So why were they now selling us alien-tech? And how could we even pay for it?

  “Allow me to introduce Ani-Hata-Ga,” Sarat said, pronouncing the name very quickly, with a slight guttural accent. “He is the Irzaen trade representative offering the merchandise you are here to bid on.”

  The metal floor and ceiling plates glowed to life as a holographic image of a quadrupoid appeared beside Sarat. There was a moment of unease, as humans accustomed to alien life forms that were mostly bipedal, viewed a species from an entirely different evolutionary path. The Irzaen had an ovoidal torso with four muscular arms and a slightly flattened spherical head containing a pair of evenly spaced, slat-like eyes. His arms were dexterous, each sprouting three stubby manipulators suitable for operating technology and strong enough to allow the Irzaen to walk on them like four legs. There was no way to judge his size, considering the image was a hologram without a point of reference, although he wore a complex series of belt-like straps across his double-shoulders, supporting metal objects of unknown purpose, which suggested he was somewhat larger than a human.

  “Greetings good customers,” an artificially synthesized basso voice said as one of the four arm-feet lifted and made a horizontal sweeping gesture of greeting. “We meet to determine who is most worthy of our gift of exchange.”

  Gift? Was that quadrupoid humor? If Lena’s credit-vault was anything to go by, whatever he was selling was going for more than the net worth of most human worlds.

  Sarat signaled to his butler-guards, who carried a small table into the meeting hall and placed it beside the Irzaen hologram. Sitting on the table was a silver dome a meter across. When the butler-guards withdrew, Ani-Hata-Ga motioned with one of his four arm-legs and the dome vanished, leaving only its thin metal base visible beneath a black metal octagon. A single gold metallic thread ran around the octagon’s sides, while inscribed on its upper surface was a grid like pattern of angular characters. My threading searched through every known human and alien character set, but was unable to find a match.

  “Be here the Antaran Codex for which our interaction exists,” the Irzaen hologram said. “You have the Irzaen Promise of its authenticity.”

  The Irzaen Promise might have been the gold standard of guarantees from one end of the galaxy to the other, but it was wasted on a bunch of cynical, distrustful humans about to be separated from a mountain of their credits.

  “That’s all very well, Mr . . . Ga,” Henry Breckinridge said in a politely suspicion tone, “but shouldn’t we be given a demonstration?”

  It was exactly what I wanted, but I dared not ask in case it signaled to the others I had no idea what I was bidding on.

  “A demonstration will be provided when the bidding process is complete,” Sarat said, “prior to the winner making payment and taking delivery, of course. Until that time, the Antaran Codex will remain encased in a protective field. And for those of you unfamiliar with the Irzaen Promise, let me assure you, it is worth far more than any demonstration or scan, both of which can be faked. If that is insufficient, I’ll arrange for a transport to take you back to the spaceport immediately.”

  There was uncomfortable shifting amongst the bidders. No one wanted to withdraw or be cheated by an alien they knew nothing about.

  “Is the technology stolen?” Bo Qiang, the Chinese lawyer asked.

  “No,” Sarat replied, “why do you ask?”

  “Antares is a restricted system,” Bo said. “No one is allowed to enter it.”

  “Esteemed customer,” Ani-Hata-Ga said, “the provenance of the Antaran Codex is not in doubt. As you surmise, it was obtained from the dying star system you call Antares, although it did not originate from there. It is a region you are not yet entitled to enter, although the Irzae face no such restriction.”

  I queried my bionetic memory for Antares. It was a red supergiant in Scorpius, twelve million years old and ten times larger than Earth’s sun. Because of its immense size, its life was short. Within a million years, it would become a supernova and at only five hundred and fifty light years from Earth, would become the brightest star ever seen in Earth’s sky. And Bo Qiang was right, it was on the Access Treaty’s restricted list, those star systems that no human ship could enter without triggering a treaty violation. Restricted systems were rare. Some were inhabited by advanced civilizations who chose not to be disturbed by unwelcome visitors; others contained primitive species not permitted contact with low level interstellar civilizations like ours; and then there were systems restricted without explanation. They were the rarest of all. Antares was one of those.

  “Why is Antares restricted to us?” I asked.

  “It is a graveyard,” Ani-Hata-Ga replied, “and the rights of the dead are respected by all and enforced by the Forum.”

  “What kind of
graveyard?” Breckenridge asked.

  “Of ships. Many wrecks are adrift in the Antares System, awaiting their final end. They are all that remains of a great battle that took place long ago. Much life was lost, many ships destroyed, no gainful exchange for anyone.”

  “A battle?” I said surprised. The only interstellar war I’d ever heard of had been with the Intruders, and they’d come from outside the great spiral of the galaxy. “I thought the Forum prevented war.”

  “It does, between civilizations,” the Irzaen trade representative confirmed. “Civil wars are a different matter, governed by the Great Fourth Principle.”

  The Development Principle allowed each civilization to progress in its own way, according to its own laws and customs, without interference, providing it did not adversely impact others. I hadn’t realized that extended to allowing interstellar civil wars.

  “A race known as the Kireen came close to exterminating themselves,” Ani-Hata-Ga continued. “The wrecks in the Antares system were left as a permanent monument to the dead, one that has stood for over seven million years.”

  “Are you saying the Codex is over seven million years old?” Vargis demanded.

  “Ridiculous!” Gwandoya snapped. “How can it still be working?”

  “The passing of time affects it not,” Ani-Hata-Ga replied, “for the Codex is the most durable of all devices ever constructed. It has always been this way, for without it, trapped are we all.”

  “Can it be traced back to Antares?” Marie asked warily.

  “An Observer would have the skill to determine the origin of the merchandise, however, possessing it is not the same as removing it.”

  “Can it be traced back to you?” I asked, wondering if we could blame the Irzaens.

  “We merely dispose of the merchandise. We did not salvage it.”

  “Who did?” I asked.

  “Those who sell to us, do so with the knowledge the Irzae never betray a trust.” He made another hand gesture of unknown meaning. “But I perceive your concerns. I give you the Promise of Irzae, those who ever watch the graveyard of Antares know no human has ever entered there. That is your protection.”