Stars & Empire: 10 Galactic Tales

by Jay Allan

  “I did. Something these poor wretches never had. I’ve committed many sins while I’ve been gone, Ari. More than I care to admit to. Abandoning you was one of the biggest, though it wasn’t entirely by choice. Either way, one day I’ll have to pay for these sins, I expect.” The numbers on the pad flashed, and Hoodwink seemingly addressed the door. “Let me in, Tanner.”

  The door slid open.

  What awaited inside was not exactly what she had expected.

  Not at all.

  CHAPTER 24

  Ari entered a control room of sorts. The stars of the night sky peered at her from a broad window, above which green numbers scrolled along from left to right. The main area of the chamber was crowded with small desks covered in dials, buttons, blinking lights, and white pads with words inside them. But it wasn’t so much the fancy desks that caught her attention. Rather, it was those who sat in front of them.

  Ari lifted an eyebrow, and glanced at Hoodwink. “This is the group you put together?”

  Almost all of them were children.

  Hoodwink spread his arms. “Ari, say hello to my little geniuses. Geniuses, say hello to my daughter Ari.”

  “Hello Ari,” the children said together, just as if they were in class.

  She walked forward. All the children were looking at her. Some seemed expectant in some way. Others, despondent, distant. Every single one of them was dressed in a white gown, and with their pale skin and haunted eyes, they seemed like little ghosts to her, the phantoms of those who had seen the truth, their previous selves burned away when they died in that cold world of ice only to awaken in a cold world of metal.

  One little girl slid from her chair and shyly approached. “You’re so pretty.”

  Ari knelt, and touched the child’s hand. “I was, once. Maybe. But not anymore. Now I’m just a hollow-cheeked skeleton.” Or so she imagined, given what the rest of her body looked like.

  “I don’t think so.” The little girl touched her cheek.

  Ari had always thought it one of life’s greatest jokes that the face closest to her was the face she hardly saw—her own. And when she did see it, catching a glimpse of her reflection in a mirror, or in the polished bronze of a sword, she rarely liked what peered back. Despite that most people, like the little girl, called her pretty, and sometimes beautiful.

  “What’s your name, sweetheart?” Ari said.

  The little girl looked down. “Caylin…”

  Ari smiled. “Caylin. That’s a nice name. I like it. I really do. I’m Ari.”

  Caylin glanced up, beaming. “Are you going to stay with us, nice lady?”

  “I—” Ari glanced at Hoodwink. She gently turned the girl around and gave her a shove. “Go back to your friends Caylin. Go on.”

  Caylin returned to the desk and sat in the oversized chair. She gave Ari a reproachful look.

  Ari lowered her voice. “Why would you do this to them?” she told Hoodwink.

  Hoodwink stiffened visibly. “What, set them free? I treat them well. Like my own family. I love them. I do. Without them I would’ve gone mad months ago. And don’t you be giving me that self-righteous look. You did the same thing with your New Users.”

  “Yes, but at least I waited until they were in their teens. And I had a reason. The young survive the ravages of vitra longer.”

  Hoodwink nodded slowly. A shadow passed across his face. “I have reasons, too. I do. Children, well, they’re growing, and they learn faster. Their bodies have a better chance of surviving the pod-birth, and they get used to walking, and everything else, real snappy. Sure, they all needed the iron legs, just like you. But only for one or two days. When your body weighs fifty pounds, your muscles grow quick.”

  “What about him?” She nodded toward the oldest among them. A young man who couldn’t have been more than twenty, maybe twenty-one. Half a head taller than Ari, with short, curly hair. Cute, in his own way. Though he had a conceit about him that stroked her the wrong way. And a darkness. Thinks a lot of himself, that one, she thought. And he’s quick to anger. Unlike the children, he wore the same blue uniform as Hoodwink and herself.

  Hoodwink looked at the man and grinned. “That’s Tanner.” He strode up to the man and beckoned Ari near.

  She smirked, but obeyed. She was no fool—she knew when someone was trying to pair her off, especially when that someone was her own father.

  “He’s one of those who woke up too early,” Hoodwink said. “Shit from the pod right when I was walking by, can you believe that? Lucky for him I was there, because the iron golems were scouting that section of tunnel real good that day, almost as if they were expecting him to come out.”

  Tanner reached into his pocket, and offered her a packet of some shiny material. “Hungry?”

  She was, actually. Ravenous.

  Reading her mind, Tanner tossed her the packet. She caught it, and regarded the thing suspiciously. The texture was smooth, almost slippery, and felt squishy inside. She bit into it, but couldn’t tear off a piece.

  “You have to open it, first…” Tanner said. He held out a hand, and she reluctantly returned the packet to him. Tanner held the edge with two fingers, and ripped the corner open. He gave it back to her.

  She regarded the packet warily. Some kind of gel oozed out.

  “It’s good…” Tanner said.

  “Looks like that stuff from the pods.” She smelled it, but the gel was scentless.

  “It’s actually pretty good,” Hoodwink acknowledged.

  She licked a small corner tentatively. Tasteless, too. She took a mouthful and swallowed. “You know, for laughs I was going to say it tastes like chicken, but I just can’t bring myself to. This is the blandest, most tasteless stuff I’ve ever had in my life. Worse than piss.”

  “How do you know what piss tastes like?” Tanner said with a wild grin.

  She smiled sardonically. “Funny.” She took another mouthful. “You’re off to a bad start, mister. First the terrible food, then the joke at my expense. I’d appreciate the same respect I’ve granted you. Try not to be so full of yourself.”

  Tanner seemed about to reply, but then he averted his eyes. She thought he reddened a little.

  “Easy, Ari, I’m sure he meant nothing by it,” Hoodwink said.

  She had a way of making men uncomfortable, didn’t she? She was judging again, when she hardly knew the man. What right did she have to say that he was full of himself? It was just her political instincts, is what it was. The need to put everyone in their place before they could get the upper hand. First rule of politics: Never let your opponent gain the upper hand.

  Her eyes were drawn to the long window beyond the desks. She hadn’t really looked out at the landscape yet. She approached the glass, edging between the children. She passed near one boy, and gave him a smile, but the child only stared back with pale, haunted eyes.

  She reached the window. What she saw didn’t at first seem possible.

  She felt faint, and pressed one hand to the glass so she wouldn’t fall.

  “Could it be true?” she said.

  CHAPTER 25

  Outside, a landscape marred with dark pits and abrasions stretched to the horizon. The pocked, yellow surface reminded her of old bone. Above, a gaseous ball the size of an outstretched fist floated among the stars. In the depths of that ball, a swirl of gases formed an eye of sorts, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that it stared at her.

  “Where are we?” she said, still feeling a bit woozy.

  Hoodwink was at her side. “In space. On a moon called Ganymedes. That jumbo orange eye in the sky? Jupiter.”

  “In space.” She couldn’t conceal the awe from her voice. Or was that terror? “This is the real world? How? Why?”

  Hoodwink sighed. His face was grave. “We don’t know the truth of it all, but we’re settlers, we think. Sent into space to escape some sort of ruin on earth. The pods kept us alive on the journey here, and amused our minds with an illusory world that was quite the hit o
n earth before we left.”

  “Are you saying we did this to ourselves?” she said. “The Inside. The gols. The collars.”

  Hoodwink nodded gravely. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. When we landed, the iron golems were supposed to let us out. They never did. We’re not entirely sure why yet, but from what we can tell, we weren’t supposed to land here. The trip from earth took six years. But this ship was built to last centuries. By our reckoning, we’ve been stuck on this moon for at least two. Centuries, that is. Generations of men and women, born into the pod world. Generations who lived and died in illusion. We’re not sure, but we think it was the attacks that caused the ship to crash here in the first place. Anyway, there’s not enough food for a bunch of active, awake people, nor enough room. Not on this ship, on this moon. That’s why the golems never woke us up. If they did, we’d all die from hunger and overcrowding.”

  “I see.” She thought she did, anyway. “So what’s your plan then? Obviously you have one, or you wouldn’t be showing me all this.”

  Hoodwink gazed at Jupiter. “My ultimate plan?”

  She frowned. There was something in his tone she didn’t like. Zeal, she thought. The maddest and most dangerous men she’d ever met had been those with zeal. Fanatics willing to sacrifice everyone and everything to achieve their ends. “Sure.”

  “Stop the attacks. Get rid of the need to fix the ship. Let it finally heal on its own. Most of the golems have devoted themselves to the ship, swarming her wounds like flies to a scabby dog. This devotion is partly what’s causing the gol mind disease on the Inside. That, and the germ the attackers have hidden in the system. That’s why we need the mayor’s control center. With it we’ll be able to change the inner workings of the gols. And track down the germ.”

  Ari shook her head. “I don’t think the control center can do that. If it could, Jeremy would have tinkered with the gols a long time ago.”

  “Well Jeremy’s a whole different nest of voles, he is, and we’ll get to him shortly. But you’re right. The control center can’t change the gols. We’ll make the changes here. But it’s hard to see the effect, given how fast things pass when you’re Outside. The control center gives us a way to watch those changes. Anyway, the nitty-gritty is, I plan to bring order to the Inside. I’m going to make the utopia we were meant to live in, rather than the hell. And save another world while I’m at it.”

  Ari wasn’t sure what he meant by that last remark—hell, she wasn’t sure what half the things he said meant—but her mind was already moving past it. “You want to stop the attacks. I can agree with that, though I’m not sure how you plan to do it. But when it’s done we should get as many people out from the Inside as we can, and start over here.”

  Hoodwink cocked an eyebrow. “You would doom the tens of thousands on the Inside to misery?”

  “Well, no,” Ari said. “That’s not what I meant. We could still help those on the Inside. All I’m saying is we should try to get as many people out into the real world as possible.”

  “The real world?” Hoodwink said it as though he knew some profound secret. “Never minding the food issue, you’ve seen the haunted look in the eyes of the children. I know you have. And you’ve seen it in my own eyes, or at least you would if you looked, really looked. So tell me, would you rather live life beneath the veil, a good life, a happy life, where all your wants are yours? Where lightning flows through your veins, and the sun shines warm every day? Or would you rather live in the real world as you call it, inside metal rooms on a sunless moon, where each day is a fight for survival, and within yourself you’re deader than dead?”

  Ari was adamant. “I’d choose the real world.”

  Hoodwink smiled patiently. “Real is only a matter of opinion, it is. But I want you to know, as things currently stand the worlds are joined at the hip, and depend on each other. If one world dies, all worlds die.”

  “All worlds.” Ari rubbed her chin. “Earlier you mentioned different levels of the mind, and I asked you if this, right here, right now, was real. So tell me plainly. Is this world false? And if so, what’s above it?”

  “Nothing.” He said it just a little too quickly for her to believe him. “As far as you’re concerned, there’s only the two. The Inside, and the Outside. Focus on these. Please.”

  A flash came from beyond the window, and a distant rumble shook the floor.

  All the children turned toward the glass.

  “So soon?” Hoodwink said.

  Outside, a dust wave swept rapidly over the yellow landscape, bringing with it the threat of utter annihilation.

  “That’s not good,” Hoodwink said, gripping a nearby desk. “Not good at all. Hang on.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Ari braced herself as the wave struck the window. The iron walls rumbled in protest. The siren started up again, and a beacon she hadn’t noticed before came to life in the ceiling, cutting that familiar revolving swathe of light across the room.

  “Damn it,” Hoodwink rushed over to Caylin, who was moving her fingers rapidly over the white pad on her desk. “They don’t usually attack on this side.”

  She saw it beyond the glass then. Some kind of falling star, streaking through the night sky. It struck the surface almost right outside. Dust and chunks of rock—or was that ice?—smashed into the glass and completely obscured the view. She felt the vibration of the impact deep in her chest, and the whole room tossed.

  Cracks began to spider along the window.

  “Uh, Hoodwink?” Tanner said.

  “Stanson!” Hoodwink said. “Get the children to Beta Station! Everyone out!”

  Stanson, an androgynous-looking child who seemed the second oldest after Tanner at fifteen or so, ran to the door, and most of the children piled up behind him. He punched in a code and the door opened. Stanson fled the room, and the children drained after him, white gowns swirling like miniature snowstorms. Tanner, Ari, and Hoodwink herded the remaining kids. Now was the time for calming words, but all Ari could think to say was go go go.

  Another boom shook the chamber. The children began elbowing one another.

  “Easy now kids,” Hoodwink said. He seemed the only levelheaded one there. “Give each other room.”

  Little Caylin was the last child to go through, and she paused at the door to look up at Ari. She seemed about to say something.

  “Go girl!” Tanner shoved the child outside.

  Ari gave Tanner a dirty look, then hurried after Caylin. But before she could make it through the door, a terrible crash shook the room, and Ari lost her balance and keeled backwards into Tanner. The two of them fell to the floor, and their faces were only inches apart. She saw something then, in his eyes. Fear. And something else. Something she hadn’t seen in a long time.

  “Warning,” a female voice monotoned. “Decompression imminent. Warning. Decompression imminent.”

  Ari quickly rolled away from Tanner.

  She spun toward the door, but it sealed before her eyes.

  Tanner scrambled to his feet, and frantically pressed the buttons beside the door. The pad flashed in confirmation, but the door didn’t open. Tanner tried again. Still nothing. He looked at Ari, his face a mask of fear. “It’s stuck!”

  Cracks continued to etch their way across the window.

  Somewhere in the room, Hoodwink moaned.

  Ari spun around, not caring then that death was coming down on them. Her father was injured. And he needed her help.

  Right now.

  She rushed to Hoodwink. A section of the roof had caved, and he was pinned beneath a steel girder.

  “Guess I’m paying for my sins sooner than I thought.” Hoodwink managed a smile, though he was obviously in pain.

  “We’re going to get you out of this,” Ari said.

  She noticed Tanner at her side, and nodded to him. “On three.” She gripped one corner of the girder, and waited for Tanner to grab the opposite corner.

  “One.”

  Though her fing
ers and arms were skeletal-thin, she would find the strength to lift that girder.

  “Two.”

  Her father was pinned. Her father. She wouldn’t see him die. Not if she could help it. She would lift that girder.

  “Three!”

  She heaved. The strength came from a part of herself she didn’t know she had, a part that was close, yet far away somehow. She couldn’t explain it.

  Her side of the girder lifted just a fraction compared to Tanner’s side, but it was enough for Hoodwink to slide his leg free.

  And not an instant too soon, because Ari lost her grip and the girder crunched to the floor.

  Ari and Tanner helped Hoodwink to his feet.

  “Tanner,” Hoodwink said. “Get to a terminal. We have to close the blast shield.”

  “Warning,” the female voice droned. “Decompression imminent.”

  Tanner rushed to one of the desks, and Ari helped Hoodwink over to him. The room shook with the resound of a nearby strike.

  Tanner studied the white pad on the desk. He swiped his fingers across it, and paragraphs of text slid by repeatedly. He entered a code.

  Tanner glanced at the window nervously. “The shield won’t respond!”

  “Try again!’ Hoodwink said.

  Tanner did. He looked at Hoodwink and shook his head.

  Behind them, the dust-obscured window cracked audibly now. It sounded all too much like ice that was about to collapse.

  “Warning. Decompression imminent.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Ari glanced at the door behind her. “Can’t we force the entrance instead?”

  “There’s no way.” Hoodwink didn’t even look at her, his eyes intent on the small pad. He shoved Tanner’s hand away, and he began swiping and tapping his own fingers across the thing. “And no time. But the blast shield will close. It will.”

  If that thing operated on the sheer force of Hoodwink’s will, she might have believed it. Unfortunately, she didn’t think the shield worked that way.

  Ari rushed to the entrance by herself and tried to squeeze her bony fingers between the edge of the door and the wall. It was useless. The door may as well have been melded to the wall. She let her eyes wander the room, looking for something she could actually use to open the door. Something like an ax.