by Dan Worth
‘Err yes, I am. Lieutenant Summers, Commonwealth Navy and ah, it’s the afternoon sir, local time.’
‘It is?’ Rekkid looked bewildered for a second. ‘You’ll have to pardon my state of confusion Lieutenant, my colleague and I have just spent a fortnight on one ship or another. Quite frankly I’m starting to forget my own name, never mind what time or day it is. By the way, there’s no need to call me “sir”.’
‘You’re not part of the military?’
‘No, we’re just a couple of archaeologists.’
‘Oh. It’s just that the wording of my orders… I just assumed that you were from the research division like the others. Anyway, I’ve been ordered to escort you to your quarters. We’ve set aside rooms for you in the administrative complex here on the station. I’ve also been instructed to let you know of a meeting tomorrow with others involved in the project. I’ll be along in the morning at eight thirty to collect you.’
‘Very good Lieutenant,’ replied Rekkid. ‘If you’d care to lead the way?’
As they sped through the streets of the station’s interior, with Summers at the wheel of an official government car, Rekkid let out another groan.
‘What is it now?’ Katherine said, with a note of wearied amusement.
‘I’d forgotten how much I hate these things.’
‘What things?’
‘Revolving space habitats. I swear I can feel the bloody thing moving underneath me, going round and round and…’
‘It’s your imagination.’
‘It’s not just that, the perspective makes me ill. I mean look down this road, look! The buildings ahead of us are on the bloody wall for crying out loud.’
‘That’s the floor.’
‘I know, which makes it worse. At least we’re not in an asteroid habitat or a cylinder. There’s nothing I hate more than seeing land hanging in the sky above me. It’s just wrong. Someone ought to sell the Commonwealth a load of cheap gravity field generators and zero point energy sinks. Then there’d be no need for these infernal places.’
Katherine sat and watched the city go by outside, as Rekkid continued to moan, decrying the whole of humanity and their technological prowess in particular. Barstow had the definite air of a frontier town about it. Most of the buildings were of recent construction, but they seemed hastily built and many had a rather ramshackle appearance. The whole scene seemed to lack a sense of permanence, as though the inhabitants might dismantle their abodes and move on at a moment’s notice. The people themselves were an eclectic mix from across the Commonwealth and beyond. Though predominantly human, Katherine counted at least a dozen other species mingling in the streets, among them, blue scaled humanoid Hyrdians, airborne Vreeth bobbing above the crowds like tiny autonomous airships, Xeelin moving with sinuous serpentine grace, even a couple of Nahabe hovering in their all concealing sarcophagi. A handful of Arkari and Esacir mingled among the crowds as well as a number of races that she struggled to identify.
The strangeness of the scene was made stranger still by the convex curve of the street and the high ceiling above it, the glow from the illumination strips mounted there bathing the interior of the station in a wan approximation of late afternoon light. The designers of the orbital had eschewed any sort of transparent panels to allow sunlight in, owing to the disorientating nature of the rotating view outside and the effect it tended to have on station inhabitants when it reminded them that they were in fact whirling around inside a giant metal wheel.
As the car slowed to a stop at a busy junction, Katherine happened to glance across to the other side of the car. A Vreeth hovered outside the glass, the zeppelin shape of its gas-filled body floated there for a second, before it seemed to notice her with its multi-faceted insect-like eyes. The ring of tentacles about its middle gripped some sort of recording device, which it had been pointing at the interior of the vehicle. Quickly, it snatched the device away from view before inflating its buoyancy sacs and rapidly floating away.
‘Lieutenant?’ she said, tapping Summers on the shoulder. ‘I think we’re being followed, or at least someone’s taking an interest in us.’
‘Probably one of the local crime syndicates,’ replied Summers. ‘They’ve been taking an interest in anyone coming and going from the terminals on Commonwealth business.’
‘Well I’d feel happier if we had some protection,’ said Rekkid. ‘I’m not too thrilled about the prospect of organised criminals being interested in our activities.’
‘You’ll be safe enough with us. Not even the Hidden Hand would try and kidnap someone under our protection. They would draw far too much attention to themselves and our retaliation would be disproportionate. They’re just interested in who you are.’
‘The Hidden Hand?’ said Katherine.
‘They’re the largest piracy concern in the system. Most of our efforts have gone into tracking them down these past few months. Their activities were causing us something of a problem in this part of space. The Admiral tried to reason with them at first, but now it’s just become a clandestine war of sorts between us and them. Ah, here we are.’
The car turned sharply into a large gateway blocked by a security barrier that led to a collection of large, characterless buildings beyond. Summers showed his credentials to the guard before they were waved through into the compound beyond.
Above, unseen, a small shape floated up against the ceiling. Irrakit replaced the imaging device into the pouch on the belt around the middle of his ovoid body. Satisfied that he had completed his assignment, he descended back to the ramshackle curving vista below. His masters would be eager to see the results of his day’s work.
‘A clandestine war? I thought you said that they wouldn’t attack you,’ said Katherine as Summers helped her and Rekkid with their luggage.
‘They won’t. The Hidden Hand just do their level best to prevent us from compromising their illegal activities,’ Summers replied as he led them across the compound to a drab looking accommodation block. ‘I described them as pirates, but really you should think of them as being more like gangsters, organised criminals. As well as piracy they’re involved in all sorts of racketeering, smuggling, gun running and assassination. We do everything we can to put a crimp on their operations.’
They entered the softly lit hallway of a dormitory building, the cheaply carpeted corridor ahead lined with equidistantly spaced, identical doors. Similar corridors led off to either side before turning through right angles where they met the edge of the building. The sound of an automated cleaner vacuuming the carpets somewhere echoed through the quiet hallways. Summers strode ahead with Katherine and Rekkid in tow.
‘You’re not making us feel any safer. Assassination?’
‘Only of their own kind, or business rivals. Other pirates mostly. Like I said, you’ll be perfectly safe. Hey, look I work for the Navy and I walk the streets at night alone without being bothered.’ He shot her a re-assuring smile.
‘I’m sure we’ll be fine Lieutenant,’ said Rekkid. ‘We’ve faced far greater dangers than the local thugs before now. I believe we have ample protection, whether or not such a fact is readily obvious to others.’
‘Well of course the Navy…’
‘I wasn’t talking about the Navy, Lieutenant. We’ll be fine, I assure you.’
Summers looked puzzled, and then gestured at the two nearest doors facing one another across the corridor.
‘Uh, your rooms.’ He held out two room pass-cards. Katherine took them from him. ‘And ah, we’ve had some ID cards made up for you, if you could fingerprint the front panels with your index fingers that’ll be fine.’
He rummaged in a pocket and produced the two plasticised cards, each of which bore a photo and a one-time pressure sensitive panel. Katherine took those too, handed Rekkid his, removed the protective film from her card and pressed her index finger onto the panel. The whorls and loops of her print began to appear as a highlighted pattern on the material as it solidified. She looked at R
ekkid and saw him eyeing the card with a look of slight confusion.
‘Something the matter, Rekkid?’
‘Yes, it doesn’t seem to work with Arkari fingerprints. Not that we really have unique ones as humans do.’ To illustrate he held his index finger up in front of Katherine’s face, the faint pattern of regular ridges across its surface just visible in the light.
‘Oh I’m sure it’ll be fine,’ said Summers. ‘After all, you’re the only Arkari currently on the base. Listen, feel free to explore the station, but make sure you have that ID with you at all times or else you’ll have a hell of time getting back inside. The gate guards can be real jobs-worths if you forget them.’ He laughed nervously. ‘Well I’ll see you both in the morning.’
After Summers had left Katherine said. ‘Well, he seemed helpful.’
‘Hmm,’ Rekkid replied.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Rekkid, must you be so bad tempered all the time?’
‘I’m not ‘bad tempered’ I’m…’
‘What?’
‘A troubled genius.’
‘Bollocks,’ replied Katherine and snorted with laughter.
The bay doors of Barstow Station slid apart, exposing the already atmosphere free compartment within to open space. The small Vreeth craft, a finned sphere dotted with sensor blisters, slipped free of its magnetic clamps within the dock lift that had brought it from its berth to the bay door and quickly powered away from the station, negating its roll rate as it did so. The ship reached the boundary of the station’s traffic control zone at a speed a fraction below the locally imposed speed limit before breaching the nominal boundary and engaging its jump engines, disappearing in a twist of distortion.
Five minutes later the ship emerged from hyperspace in the shadow of Hadar B’s fourth planet; a gas giant of swirling, bilious clouds. The ship recharged its drive and jumped again, this time emerging dangerously close to the gravity well of the star, where it sat for a moment, a tiny black speck invisible against the blinding blue-white inferno, before jumping once more and vanishing without a trace.
Katherine unpacked her belongings and changed out of the travel-crumpled garments she had been wearing into a fresh set of clothes. The trousers, shirt and boots were about the only items in her bags that hadn’t already been worn or creased during the journey. Her hair was a mess too from freefall, so she tied it back from her face. She looked at herself in the mirror and sighed. It would have to do. Not that she was particularly fussy about such things, but she was getting a little sick of living continually out of a suitcase. The past few years had been one long field trip.
She left her room and went across the corridor to knock on Rekkid’s door. There was a muffled response from within, and then the door clicked open. Rekkid blinked at her.
‘I thought I’d go into town, have a look around,’ said Katherine. ‘Do you want to come?’
‘Hmm? Oh, no I think I’ll stay here. I thought I’d have a rest, and there are some things I need to go over,’ he gestured over his shoulder at the light spilling from the slim portable computer he always travelled with. ‘You go if you like. Watch yourself though won’t you? This place seems a little unsavoury to me’
‘I’ll be fine Rekkid, stop worrying. I can look after myself.’
‘I know, I know. Well have fun. Let me know if you find any charming local colour won’t you? Then I can avoid it.’
Katherine shook her head and bade him farewell. It wasn’t until she got outside the compound and had begun walking along the broad, busy, city street that she realised that the screen in her friend’s room had been filled with characters from the Progenitor alphabet.
She almost turned back, but then checked herself. She knew Rekkid well enough to know that he would tell her what he was up to when he was ready. She could already guess what he might have done. Rekkid was never one to rest easy if there was a chance of a find being taken away from him. Especially not after that business with the ancient Arkari shipwreck that had led to everything else.
It weighed heavily upon them both at times. It was their discoveries which had provided the catalyst that both the Commonwealth and the K’Soth Empire had needed to start their war. Worse still, the ancient Progenitor portal device that they had activated within the border world of Maranos had unleashed something far more terrible: ancient, murderous machines, the remnants of banished members of the Arkari race from an ancient time that had been erased from history and who had spilled from the portal intent on conquest and revenge. Thousands had died in the ensuing battle as the fleet around the planet had been destroyed in short order before the portal was finally deactivated by a Progenitor whose personality had been preserved through five thousand millennia inside an artificial matrix of incalculable sophistication. It was the last act in a war between two races begun before Earth’s sun had coalesced into being. The Progenitor, Varish, had entered the portal and left the galaxy, some speculated to join his own people who had used the very same device to flee the galaxy after they had lost the war orchestrated against their once great empire.
Now a new war had begun. Katherine and Rekkid had been the unwitting pawns in the opening moves of a new conflict, between the relatively young races in this sector of the galaxy and the ancient race known as the Shapers by whom the Progenitors had been brought so low.
The Shapers were so called because they sought to mould events, societies and the entire galaxy as they saw fit. Aeons of time and internecine warfare among themselves had caused their numbers to dwindle. Consequently, they usually acted through others, using their spies and parasitic creatures to tip the balance one way or another, to bring events to fruition and change the face of the galaxy to their liking before they struck. Little was known about them, even to the highest echelons of the Commonwealth and Arkari intelligence divisions, who kept the existence of the Shapers secret from the rest of their populations lest hysteria and fear take hold and further the cause of the enemy still further. Nothing was known save for their greed, lust for power and unparalleled technology; a few examples of which had been obtained. Their ultimate motives were unfathomable, their true numbers unknown, their worlds largely uncharted and even their true appearance remained a mystery. They were known through myth and through the sparse records available from the ancient civilisations that they had destroyed or enslaved.
Katherine and Rekkid were two of the handful of people who knew these terrible facts, and even then only because it had been revealed to them when the agent who had manipulated them into lighting the fuse of war had been unmasked before them: a vile grub that had inhabited the brain of a local priest. Mentith had enlisted them on the spot, as their skills and knowledge were invaluable, and now they served his quest to uncover as much information about this ancient enemy from the archaeological record.
So many people had died in the recent war between the Commonwealth and the K’Soth Empire, on both sides. The fighting had been bloody and had only been brought to a halt when the Empire had finally collapsed under the strain after the assassination of the Emperor, dissolving into civil war as clan fought clan for control of the rump that remained.
Katherine had found herself increasingly unable to cope with the daily news reports from the front, the images of ships breaking up, men and women screaming from their wounds, K’Soth worlds under orbital bombardment. She couldn’t help but feel blame, despite her common sense telling her that it would have come to pass anyway, sooner or later. She had seen the ugly face of war close up when the K’Soth had tried to take Maranos. She could never forget what she had seen there. What she remembered most was the smell. The stench of death: blood and charred flesh mingled with the smoke from a burning city and the spilt entrails of those executed by alien monsters.
If only they had turned back, if only their curiosity hadn’t gotten the better of them.
The isolation on the Dyson sphere had proved a blessing.
Katherine shuddered d
espite the warm air inside the station. In the midst of her dark thoughts she had wandered far down the station. She found herself in a street lined with all manner of shops catering to the needs of a variety of species. Shoppers thronged the broad pavements as small vehicles tried to negotiate the busy main thoroughfare.
‘Cheer up love, might never happen,’ said a reedy voice to her left. She turned a saw a small, swarthy man grinning at her from a pavement-side hatch. From the appearance of the booth he inhabited and the range of smells emitting from it he appeared to be in the business of selling fast food, although there was nothing pictured on the grubby menu board that Katherine recognised.
‘I’m afraid it’s a bit late for that,’ she replied wryly. ‘Thanks all the same.’
‘You new around here? You look like a tourist to me.’
‘Yes, something like that. I was just exploring the station, taking in the sights so to speak.’
‘Hah! Not many of them round here,’ the man replied. ‘But if you carry on down this street you’ll reach the main shopping area, such as it is. I suppose you could call it the centre of town if you weren’t being too pedantic about the shape of this place.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Don’t suppose I could interest you in an Altairian squid kebab?’ he said and tapped a picture of something with tentacles that appeared to be climbing out of a pitta bread.
‘Uh, no thanks. I just ate.’
‘Right you are then, cheerio!’ he replied and disappeared inside his serving hatch.
Katherine continued down the street and sure enough, within a few minutes she found herself in an area lined with larger shops. Some half hearted effort had been made to make the streets more attractive, but the result was a selection of tired looking trees and tubs of plants that seemed to visibly wilt under the artificial daylight. The shops, though larger than those found elsewhere on the station, were poorly stocked and rather drab looking franchises found throughout Commonwealth space. Once you got beyond brightly lit window displays and ventured inside one realised how devoid they were of any charm or quality. There was a general air of provincial malaise about most of them. The selection of goods was poor whilst the prices were correspondingly exorbitant; the result of this far flung system being at the far end of long trading routes.
