Fleetfoot Interstellar: Fleetfoot Interstellar Series, Book 1

by P. Joseph Cherubino

  Drexler turned around and sat cross-legged on the roof of his home facing the space station. His stevedores had already wrangled the errant shipping containers and were guiding them back to the gleaming white, twin concentric rings of the space station. The perpendicular sun rays exposed a Human form moving towards him. It was Gajrup.

  The engineer piloted himself with more skill than Drexler. The Captain admired the flying and realized he should give the new guy a bit more credit. Gajrup made a firm landing about ten meters away, briefly raised his arms to seize his balance, then ambled over. He sat beside Drexler without a word, and they watched two crews push cargo.

  2

  The Queen Guardian winged through the jungle on her way to see the Sacred Arborist. The Central Cathedral was close, so she dove down through multiple canopies where the light was so dim she had to focus her composite eyes to infrared. The air was much thicker and cooler here, and her wing beats slowed. The oxygen-rich air of the jungle floor was very different from the thin atmosphere of her home in the upper canopy. High above, methane and carbon dioxide retained a greater measure of heat from the twin suns of the Insectoid homeworld.

  She used her secondary thoracic limbs to program a new heating routine for the elements built into her exoskeleton. As she weaved around the massive trunks of the Sky Trees, she began to make out the Cathedral’s heat signature through the underbrush. It had been nearly a century since she visited the jungle floor.

  She passed through a cloud of luminous aphids and took the opportunity to open her mandibles wide to consume a great swath. Their digestion lent more heat to her thorax and allowed her wings to beat even faster. The news she bore excited her so much that she could not reach her destination soon enough. Not only was the news happy, but it also gave her the opportunity to see her old teacher and dear friend again. She wondered what the old termite looked like now. He had probably molted through his last shell. She would be sad to see him consumed on his last day.

  She landed at the foot of the cathedral spire and stood tall on her hind limbs. Her stinger pointed forward between her knees and dripped venom as she spread her lower wings in greeting. The Arborists bowed deeply and skittered in circles on all six legs as she strode down their ranks. They poured from the cathedral gates and streamed out from the underbrush by the thousand. The old Arborist High Priest shuffled forward, unable to hide the pleasure evident in his quivering antenna.

  “My Queen Guardian. You delight us with your presence,” the old termite said in the ceremonial language of High Primes.

  The Queen could not contain her happiness on seeing her old friend. She stood to her full height and spread both sets of wings. She fanned him right there on the steps of the cathedral in front of all the other monks. The Arborists danced their ecstasy as the Queen wept with joy. Her visit was unprecedented. The Queen Guardian was not known to visit the High Cathedral without an entire delegation. It was a singular honor for her to meet the Monks alone like a common pilgrim.

  The celebration finally wore itself down, and the Arborist Monks scurried back into the underbrush to feast on Sky Tree root sap. The Queen bent down and cradled the old termite in her long slender upper arm. They shared pheromones like father and daughter although they were different species. She always considered him her true father. He taught her everything about the life she held dear. Tradition be damned. He was a good Insect. He’d done more to serve their race, and the planet, than any single high-born member of the winged species. She would see to it that his name and his order would rise high in the song of the Insectoid Races.

  When they reached the warm, steamy central spire, the old Arborist climbed back down his queen and stood on his hind limbs. His head rose only to the lowest segment of her thorax. They wound their way upward in silence to the Sacred Chamber to discuss the good news. They needed the Chamber’s privacy where they could be reasonably sure there were no prying eyes, eager ears or listening devices. Too much care could not be exercised these days.

  This was not the only Cathedral the arborists built, but it was one of the oldest. Along the way up the spiraling stairs, The Queen Guardian noticed many alcoves stuffed with cocooned and desiccated bodies of non-sentient simians and other warm-blooded creatures of the jungle floor. The Arborists were especially busy maintaining the precious balance of the home planet. Warmbloods were spreading out far across the Continental Rain forest with unprecedented range. Their Sentient Cousins were not far behind. Where they went, decay followed. The Arborists did everything they could to avoid conflict with Sentient Warmbloods, but the pressure between species was increasing. There were unsettling whispers of war among the less temperate Insectoid orders.

  They pushed past the outer silk curtains of the fore chamber and proceeded down intestine-like passages. The air grew warmer as they neared the sacred space. Veins of phosphorescent mold illuminated their way with pale, green light. The scent of termite pheromones intensified as the passage narrowed. The Queen Guardian promised herself never to fail in her reverence for termite architecture. The entire cathedral was built by thousands of Arborists using nothing but the Divine Earth of the forest floor and their own saliva.

  The final sets of mural-adorned silk curtains automatically parted as they passed into the Chamber proper. The light beneath its conical dome was blinding, and the mix of scents brought such ecstasy that the queen immediately vaulted into the air and flew past the Stations of Gratitude saying prayers along the way. The light blinded her, but she knew the way, having flown this path since her early pupa stages. Her eyes only adjusted to the light when she reached the dome’s pointed top where she took communion by consuming some of the purified aphid swarm that clouded there.

  She descended back down on a straight line to land by her teacher again. He had taken his place on the Holy Throne and sat wearily with his abdomen pushed far out beyond his thorax. He supported himself by bending several of his limbs against the throne arms. The Queen Knelt down before him. This was the place where his rule was prime, and hers was secondary.

  When he sat on this throne, he was the highest spiritual authority among the many billions of their kind. The old Termite blessed her, and she stood again to her full three meters.

  “Exalted Queen Guardian, please tell us your news.”

  “A clutch of our traveling children has located the Deliverer. He is a human,” the Queen announced and let the news sink in. She wasted no time with a preamble.

  The old teacher was not expecting the savior of their race to be a warm-blooded simian humanoid. All his predictive computing models pointed to a more advanced and enlightened race. The Predictors also foretold that the Savior would be found too late, and that Insectoid redemption would be symbolic as the planet died. The Priest had to tread carefully here. He had taught the Queen well, but she was not entirely dedicated to the Predictors as was his order. She was a valued disciple, yes, but that only made it more likely that she misinterpreted the signs.

  The Queen, disturbed by the silent reception of her news, said, “Learned One, you do not seem receptive to this development.”

  “My Queen, I have lived with the knowledge of the death of our biosphere for a thousand years - more than half my life. I beg your forgiveness, but I have heard claims like this before.” So much for care. He spoke to her with the respect due a Queen, but that only dressed his candor with the proper finery. He hated to see her look so hurt.

  “But this is far different, Great Scholar. I have received a sign,” the queen said. That made the old Priest worry. He had educated her in the ways of science far too long for her to be lured in by unsupported mysticism. All the Prophesies of the Arboreal Order were supported by the algorithms of the Sacred Computer that grew beneath the entire length and breadth of the Forest Continent.

  “Tell me about this sign,” the old teacher demanded bluntly, dropping the pretense of high address.

  The queen was nervous as a pupa now as she described her vision. “I always tr
ain my mind as you taught me, Great Scholar. During a recent meditation atop the Royal Sky Tree, I witnessed a parting in the clouds. My eyes beheld the star field in its pure light. Pondering the Great Problem, I saw clearly how the base activities of the Humanoids these past six centuries fit the predictive models. I saw the Humanoid paths between hundreds of stars as their numbers grew. Their wanderings will yield the location of the Lost Colony. My vision makes this absolutely clear. The vision was confirmed the very next day when I received a report from a Traveling Clutch, who serves a very special human.”

  “What makes this Human so special?”

  “First, the Human extended the Gift of Purpose to our Clutch, then risked his own life to save two Clutch Children. He is a Shepherd of Commerce — an actual deliverer. This is in line with the prophecies. My dream has shown me that his path and ours are the same.”

  The old scholar grew truly despondent. It seemed his finest student succumbed to mysticism after all. His Queen Guardian had stumbled into a literal interpretation of the predictive models. Her hope for saving the Insectoid Race was so great that she fell to delusion. He dreaded what she was sure to say next.

  “I will carry the Queen Provider’s Essence to the Lost Colony and complete the Circle,” the Queen Guardian said. There was nothing the old Priest could do. He had to let her go. Telling her the truth that their Race was doomed would serve no purpose. Better she be off planet while the secret truth slowly ate away at Insectoid genome. The Insectoids won the last battle against the Silicoids 800 years ago, but the struggle for survival was lost.

  The genetic diversity of their biosphere was hopelessly compromised. Too many Insectoids were killed in the wars. Not even an infusion of genes from a distant Insectoid biosphere could save them. Their world was in hopeless decline. In another three centuries, the Warmbloods would out breed all other species and cause a chain reaction that would collapse the entire biosphere. For the first time, the species of their planet would wage war against one another. The ancient balance of life for life would yield to desperate acts of senseless violence made in futile attempts at survival. The planet would know killing without reason for the first time in its history.

  Sometimes the old Termite wondered if it would not be easier and more merciful to turn the fearsome planetary defense weapons on themselves and be done with it. A quick incineration might spare them all the protracted pain of the creeping death that stalked them. When the Scholar set his gaze upon the face of his beloved student, he could only see her hope. He could not bring himself to rob her of the only thing that brought her comfort.

  3

  Drexler shouldn’t have been on loadmaster duty, anyway. Everyone else was assigned to offloading or critical maintenance. And that’s what made him so angry. He had only himself to blame for running a skeleton crew. It was all because of money. He knew this was no way to run a ship. He was not looking forward to the crew assembly as he made his way down through the levels of the tractor section to the cargo modules.

  It was so much easier when the family was still together. The Lizard incident would never have happened with his sister on the load bridge. Instead of sticking with the family business, she married a High Caste BJP Federal Prince and lived in a government palace complex on Kerala 2. She seduced an official with enough clout to justify his non-arranged marriage to someone who was not Indian. She was the last of his four siblings to abandon ship, and now everything fell to Drexler.

  Drex discovered there were a few exploitable silver threads in the dark cloud of his family situation. Margaret had her hands full with in-law drama and political intrigue. She was more than happy to pawn off the ruined engineer who was her husband’s third cousin. In one stroke, she scored points with the in-laws, her husband, and got Drexler off her back. Drex made a mental note to work that relationship for all it was worth down the line. Drex figured Margaret owed him.

  And that’s how the Fleetfoot Interstellar Freight Company scored Gajrup. The engineer was a good catch. He graduated top of his class at the BJP Merchant Fleet Academy. Best of all, he was hired cheap because his predilection for romance scuttled any chances of his deployment to a Planetary Merchant ship.

  Gajrup’s availability on the labor market was due to a situation regarding a dalliance with an Admiral’s Daughter and an embarrassing incident involving terrible Hindi poetry and a ukulele. The new engineer was a brilliant, pudgy little Hindu Casanova with a fond desire for unattainable women and spaceships. He’d already proven himself a hard worker. His formal education was a great compliment to the crew of career Astronauts who came up through the ranks of various Merchant Guilds.

  “You don’t see too many third-generation fusion cores in service!” Gajrup exclaimed when Drexler walked him into the engine room. It seemed the engineer got a reading on the specs by glancing at the consoles for just a few seconds. He was good, Drex thought.

  “And this one started out Revision Three. She’s more than 150 years old but has seen many upgrades. A lot of people swear by the third-gens. They never die,” Drexler proudly announced as he rested his hand on a massive metallic hydrogen line.

  The part Drex left out was that most of the upgrades he referred to were highly illegal. By the time Gajrup discovered that, it would be too late. He would have already worked on an illegally-upgraded fusion core and would be liable. Informing the authorities would damn him along with the ship’s Captain. The freighter’s AI kept excellent fraudulent logs that had ensnared more than their fair share of wayward engineers. Blackmail was something of an art form to Reggie.

  Gajrup smiled back politely and pretended to study the machinery. He allowed the Captain to believe in the deception, but Gajrup already knew the game. He was a romantic, not a sap. He’d performed an illicit deep scan of the ship by bribing the spaceport AI Wardens back on Kerala 2 while the Fleetfoot I was still in quarantine. While much of the ship was strangely unscannable, he gleaned enough secondary information to deduce that the ship was a floating mass of protocol violations and expert cover-ups.

  Gajrup didn’t care about the trickery. He just wanted out of a bad situation. His heart was broken, and his career hopelessly ruined. A dismissal from service vaporized his chances of rising through the Caste System. No Social Council would hear his Case for upward mobility. His first love had always been space travel and the technology that made it possible. He resolved to retreat to that love and pursue no other. Machines, he understood. The heart was a deeper and more abiding mystery.

  Drexler didn’t trust Gajrup’s smile, but that had more to do with Drex than the engineer. He left his new man in charge of a ten-person crew a month ago and barely spoke to him since. His ship was running fine, and Fleetfoot Freight was earning credits.

  Then they ran into the Lizards and this latest drama. Drex was on his way to assembly to give the company a dismal briefing. He strode out onto the high catwalk above Cargo Bay 2 where the crew assembled 20 feet below.

  “In spite of our best efforts, we are behind schedule,” Drex’s voice boomed into the cavernous space that was emptied only hours earlier. “We ran into a spot of trickery by our old Reptilian friends. Believe me; I will see that this is made right.”

  The insects stood passively while their Broodqueen translated for them. She passed her spindly hands across the heads of the drones nearest her who looked back up adoringly at her tall, slender green form. Their squat, black beetle bodies shone with iridescent blue marbling in the harsh cargo bay work lights.

  Drexler was distracted by the frequent impression the Broodqueen made on him. She looked so much like an Old Earth praying mantis that he had to wonder if her genes did come from the former home of humanity. He wondered this even though he learned early in VR school that this was just the way life worked. DNA expressed itself in similar forms across the Galaxy. Nobody was sure why. It seemed every space-going species had its own pet hypothesis.

  He didn’t understand why he was distracted by that now. Drexler rec
overed focus and continued, “So we missed our travel lane window. I’ve already set Reggie to recalculate. Assuming the Trade Commission approves our revised route, we’ll only be behind two weeks at most.”

  The Humans groaned, and the other humanoids made various gestures of disgust and frustration. Some of the larger Simians grunted and scratched their hairy ribs in a precursor to chest pounding. That was not a good sign. The insects stood inscrutable as always. But something was different about his bugs. Their beady little heads all faced him directly. When Drexler moved around on the catwalk, all the insect heads followed him in unison. It was disturbing.

  Normally, it was hard to tell if the bugs were paying attention at all. They would twitch and flick their wing covers and shift about according to some mysterious pecking order. But now the Broodqueen’s head followed him with those big black composite eyes set in her bright green praying mantis head. It gave him the shivers as he recited the situation report to his crew and issued their next set of orders. He ended the meeting by announcing general shore leave. The humanoids dispersed. The insects remained. Drexler made his way back to the bridge.

  “Reggie,” Drexler subvocalized through his throat mic implant.

  “What is it, Drexler,” the AI replied. It sounded annoyed.

  “Am I bothering you, Reggie?” Drex growled sarcastically.

  “Well, yes you are. I was working on a special surprise project for you. But what is it now?”

  That caught Drex off guard. He shook it off, said, “What can you tell me about that Lizard tub sharing the loading bay with us?”

  “Well, it’s funny you should mention that Sir,” Reggie said. The word “Sir” dripped with irony. The AI practically raised Drexler and often treated him like an annoying kid brother. “That is the subject of my special project. They are a private shipping concern of the Reptilian Empire, and they work out of Medina 3. They are creatures of the Saudis. They handle laboratory glassware and other scientific equipment from the Saudi Royal Conglomerate. They carry back agricultural products on the round trip. They are also trade messengers between the Saudis and the Judeo-Christian worlds.”