The StarMaster's Son

by Gibson Morales

  "Maybe. Maybe not. A lot of sapients loathe him."

  A common joke on the scholar realms popped into his head. He's as cold as an Anunnaki. Others argued that Oberon had become more of a bot than a Terran due to the extensive number of persona upgrades and mods he'd downloaded.

  Hayland's forehead creased. "If Megas wins, we're all going to see constant little 'Megas' network signs in our HUDs," he said in a low voice.

  Felik's chin dipped. "I assumed the Watchers network had a foolproof plan to prevent it."

  It was all but an open secret that Oberon's consort's family, which owned major media streams, had been running propaganda in his favor and hit pieces on Megas to turn the tide. Still, the leaks about Oberon supposedly stealing sapients’ cores had spread as quickly as the most effective malworms. And the Free Minds were releasing more daily.

  "I hear you got a look at the StarMaster compiler logs. Notice anything funny about them?"

  Unfortunately, he hadn't. "No."

  "Between you and me, investigators noticed some abnormalities in the rates Megas's karma levels have recovered after every new piece of damaging news on him comes out."

  "How do you mean?"

  "Well, it's almost like they're being artificially manipulated. Every time it's expected to plummet, it does, but it's extremely brief. Barely occurs for a zeptosecond, which is lower than most nexuses are set to perceive. Then the karma rises up within another zeptosecond to maybe only five percent less than it was. So to just view the fluctuations normally, it appears that his karma drops only a little."

  But in reality, it was dropping much more only to be almost entirely reset.

  "What, does he have some special karmor?"

  "Karmor? Oh...you were trying to make a new word there, huh?" Hayland said then paused. He turned away. "Almost feels like he does."

  "Okay, but this is where you reveal a secret weapon or something, isn't it?" Felik said.

  "You remember when Megas declared his self-directive to be StarMaster if Arteyos ever stepped down?" Hayland said, a faraway look in his eyes. "It seemed silly. But then he outright challenged Zurvek to a fleet skirmish. Your brother refused, of course, and gave up his chances of ever being the StarMaster. That was the time to stop Megas. It's too late now I think. It's all up to the protocols of the pylons."

  Felik remembered that. As a major player in the mining of helium-3 and boron, his older brother Zurvek of the Scorpio network possessed a powerful personal fleet. Yet he'd refused to directly challenge Megas.

  A flood of white light exploded from the holodisplay above. Thankfully, the missile was detonating remotely, not in the Nisto Cloud.

  Hayland gazed into the endless spread of white and issued a sigh. "To my brother, Arteyos."

  "To Arteyos," Felik said.

  Right about now billions of nexuses outside the upper echelons of the Union Omega were pausing all non-essential functions to honor Arteyos. No realms, no chats, no mod downloads, no warping. Two sols earlier, Oberon announced the idea to disable all nexuses for ten seconds. In waves, not at the same time. Felik wasn't so sure it would please everyone, but Oberon had seemed confident during the announcement speech.

  "I honestly wonder if we'll be saying this if or when the next StarMaster dies," Hayland said dryly. "Whoever it is."

  "You sure you favor Oberon?"

  "Of course, I do. He is, objectively speaking, the best successor. It's what he's trained for his whole life. My brother altered him to be an improved version of himself. A more politically inclined version. But," Hayland said, drawing out the word, "pleasing trillions upon trillions of sapients is less of a science than we think. Or at least, it's a technological obstacle we haven't overcome." He cleared his throat. "Don't get me wrong. I'm Oberon's right-hand man..."

  His uncle took a long, uneven breath.

  Felik rarely saw him caught off guard like this. It was disarming to be sure. "I think I get it. All politicians are inherently selfish. Even the StarMaster. If I'm being objective."

  "Maybe you should try to petition for the position of StarMaster," Hayland said, clapping him on the arm.

  Felik wasn't sure what to say to that and wished he owned an auto-response service. He rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm no fourthy," he said, referring to fourth dimensional entities, "but I don't see that in my stars."

  "Excuse me Uncle Hayland, the scions need to speak. You've been holding Felik hostage long enough."

  He looked to see his older brother and starkeeper, Dryker.

  Hayland met the jest with his own. "Abusing your connections as a scion to invade my construct, huh?"

  Felik was fairly certain his uncle had invited him, of course. Even scions could not simply hack into constructs.

  "Now you know why I argued for lowering the fleet's budget."

  "If it were down to you, we'd all be living in a single hive mind, sharing the same pool of resources, wouldn't we?" Hayland teased, borrowing Megas's fearmongering claim.

  "I believe you're mistaking me with our brother, Oberon," Dryker said, nudging Felik with his elbow.

  "I'm surprised to see you at this funeral. A lot of sapients say you and Megas aren't so different," Felik observed. And it was no secret that Dryker had always envied Oberon's position as the defacto StarMaster heir.

  "I resent that. They should be saying Megas and Oberon aren't so different."

  "You're closer than me and Arteyos were," Hayland said.

  "True," Dryker said, lifting his index finger. "Very, very true." He fixed his gaze on his brother. "So Felik have you given any thought as to how much you want to sell the Nassatar for?" Word had spread fast. He could probably assume all of his brothers knew about it.

  "You can't be serious," Hayland scowled.

  "Felik's the Envoy now, and he's got the StarMaster's flagship. If he can defend himself from an onslaught of destroyer-class vessels, he can defend himself from me," Dryker said.

  Felik nodded to confirm this. Hayland shrugged and dematerialized.

  "So you are serious?" Felik asked. "You want to buy it?"

  Dryker grinned. "You assume too much. I never said I wanted to buy it. I only asked if you'd decided how much you would sell it for."

  "Who says I am selling it?"

  "Your spectacular gambling habits."

  Felik tilted his head in irritation. Dryker was unfazed. "Am I right? Because if I am, then I'm left wondering why you aren't selling it. Which means everyone else is, too."

  "Is this a warning?"

  His family seemed keen on those lately.

  "Not a warning. A suggestion. A number of interested parties are going to request a quote from you today. I wouldn't disappoint them. We live in interesting times. Don't be the interesting one."

  Doubtless he was on sapients' radars, especially if word had spread about his visit to the karma pylons and Nebiru. With multiple investigations into the StarMaster's demise running, it would be unwise for him to act suspicious. Not that he expected to be framed, but a simple allegation might cause his karma to plummet.

  "Duly noted," Felik said.

  "Glad I could help," Dryker winked.

  Felik fought back a snort. "Who said you helped?"

  "Oh, you will. You will." At that Dryker dematerialized.

  Sure enough, Felik discovered a flood of offers to buy the Nassatar in his feed plus more subtle requests to simply meet. He almost laughed out loud over the audacity of some.

  A snail-like Quallian starkeeper requested Felik donate the Nassatar as a means of protecting a species known as the Ubosadians.

  As part of the request, he included a simulation. Felik ran it and his nexus delivered him to the lush, roving jungles of Ubosad. The Ubosadians were two-foot tall orange-red balls of silky fur with squat arms and no discernible feet.

  Dozens of them covered the peak of a hill, carrying spears. Others rested inside pouches of bulbous insect-like creatures that floated around the hilltop, their minds synced in harmony.<
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  The starkeeper suggested that Felik's charity would serve as a great help to fostering the development of a species that lived in harmony with nature. And it would generate great karma gains. Felik was highly skeptical. When Terrans first met the Ubosadians, they were referred to as "those little furry tree-hugging bastards."

  In reality, the Ubosadians didn't realize their bio-linking with the other creatures emitted deadly chemicals that would lead to a mass extinction event in a couple centuries.

  They had barely discovered weaponry and the starkeeper wanted Felik to offer up the Nassatar to watch over them. Right.

  Several archbishops of the frail Neo-Catholics network begged him to lend them the strength of the Nassatar in order to "preserve the Lord's peace amongst the planets of the Children of Muhammad network."

  Another starkeeper requested he use the Nassatar to aid in the rebuilding of the Zendants' planet. They were a species who'd suffered a sort of zombiepocalypse a few decades prior.

  Felik ignored these fringe requests and karma bit offers. And that's when a wave of automated holofeed and living frame inquiries hit him.

  Chapter 19

  KAI

  Kai wanted to be alone in her bed niche. At the same time, she craved a dreamer. She was trying to save her karma bits and with no sense of urgency, she could simply wait things out in her capsule. But she needed a damn dreamer to feel better.

  She contacted Jace.blek and asked him to buy her one and he did. In it, the rogue ship had never attacked her.

  Instead, she'd traveled to Burkos, eliminated her target, and reaped the rewards. Thanks to her success, the Hellion network overtook the Starbleeders, and her mother never betrayed her father. The Starbleeder network's proto, Voke-lanaris, lost all his karma bits and the Union Omega seized his core as payment. Kai purchased his core and ran racing sims on it.

  When the dreamer ended, she still felt giddy and high on her success in the false reality. Usually, you were supposed to purchase a transitory dreamer to ease yourself back into reality. But she didn't feel like asking Jace.blek again, and she let the sense of power linger.

  It was all she could do to hold back the reality. The Hellion network was screwed. Her mother was a heartless bitch, her father at the woman's mercy. And her brash brother was in legal trouble. She was the network's only chance at redemption. But to achieve that she needed to find the unknowable. You can't know what you don't know. Well, not with a Terran core anyways. Some species possessed the intellectual creativity to imagine experiences they'd never actually experienced.

  She realized Raksamat was not in their room.

  "How?" she breathed as if he might respond. She'd ordered him to remain in the cabin.

  A message from Jace.blek sat in her feed.

  She balled a fist. If the Buejentoe wasn't careful, he might find himself on the wrong side of her anger. As far as she knew, he was very careful, though. And very clever. His invitation to Raksamat was almost certainly part of a scheme. A trick of some kind.

  Unfazed, she checked the terminal's map and found her way to the remains of the ship's mess hall. The expansive chamber flowed with fungus and streaks of slime extended from floor to floor to floor, because artificial gravity had made every surface in the room a floor.

  Groups of various humanoid sapients gathered at the different terminal hub stations that existed all around in lieu of tables and chairs. She couldn't help comparing the terminal hub stations to big, flat mushrooms or even tree stumps covered in fungus, but with little holodisplay menus inches above their surface.

  "Welcome," Jace.blek said, looking down from a terminal station. He and Raksamat were directly above her.

  She walked all the way around to them, the gravity tugging her forward each time she moved to a different surface. "I assumed you were trying to gain my trust."

  "Not your trust, only a breaker link to me," he said. "Don't worry, your ally remains linked to you. Besides, what I'm going to tell you will piss you off a lot more."

  "Oh, good."

  "I monitored your conversation with your mother," he said.

  Her face fell. Of course he had. "Go on."

  "Do you believe the rogue ship that attacked you was the black goo?" Oddly, she didn't get the sense he was going to call her crazy. Although crazy was a very relative term among sapients.

  "I don't know what it was."

  "I believe it was. You see, I didn't truly contact you to offer you a place in my network. I contacted you because I am searching for traces of the black goo and, based on my sensors, there's a piece inside you. I've been monitoring it in you, and I am ready to conduct tests."

  Kai burst into obnoxious laughter. "I've heard this story way too many times. A sapient seeking a military advantage tries to exploit the power of a dangerous unknown. You want it to battle against the Invectials or something like that, right?"

  Jace.blek's blank fungus face gave away nothing. "Kai, what originally drew me to the Engineer institutes was the possibility I could become all-knowing. That would be much easier if I were still there. Would you believe me if I told you that I was never really iced from my Engineer institute? I revolted."

  "Why?"

  "Because the instructors were so corrupt that they didn't realize the black goo had infected their institutes."

  "That's another nice story, but for all I know you're lying. What is it you want me to do?"

  "Trust me."

  "Fine. I trust you," she said dully. She still felt drunk on her own false power from the dreamer she'd purchased.

  "You will," Jace.blek said, his form melding with the fungus. As soon as he was gone, a nearby sapient looked around nervously, tore off a chunk of fungus and stuffed it into its mouth.

  Kai cocked her head at Raksamat. "What did you talk about?"

 

  "Nah, that's boring to me, too." The situation with her mother reminded her of how ruthless she needed to be. She forced herself to discard any feelings of empathy for Raksamat. He was nothing more than an asset to her now. Not a friend, not an ally.

  A new figure invaded the corner of her vision. She looked up to see a Zeven. A generic gray oval served as its headpiece. Its body structure was a seven-foot cylinder. Its godweb let it hover—limbs were deployed as needed.

  At once, she tensed, her nexus tagging this particular clone as 16GX937. Like all Zeven, it was created in a factory of sorts—though some were reconfigured after their initial creation. One of millions of designer sophonts. Whatever the buyer wanted, the buyer got. A friend, a scientist, an extra core to rent out, a sexual partner. In this case, a designer inquisitor with all the right traits and talents altered for optimal effectiveness.

  "Jace.blek believes he can flee the Invectial assault without getting his hands dirty. I know from experience that an effective escape requires dismantling your enemies and getting them to fight amongst themselves. I'd say the Starbleeders did a fine job of that with your network."

  Just like you did with me and my brother. It took everything she had to hold back her rage. Because the universe was too large for 16GX937 to show up here by chance.

  "What's Jace.blek want with you?"

  "A member of his network suggested I could be a useful ally."

  She was disappointed her core didn't reveal it as her target. Not that she would have had an easy time eliminating it. She'd failed the first time even with a fully equipped inquisitor frame.

  "He doesn't know about our history," she said. "But whoever suggested you does."

  "Maybe an ally of theirs told them to make the suggestion."

  Kai rubbed her shoulder. She doubted her mother would go out of her way to taunt her like this. The woman was cruel and callous, but efficiently so. There was little value in this. But her mother would've mentioned their conversatio
n to the Starbleeders. Or else they'd monitored it themselves. Meaning Voke-lanaris had most likely sent in 16GX937. "How's Voke-lanaris doing these sols?"

  "A lot happier now that you've come back into the universe. You always were his favorite challenge."

  Kai almost tried to eliminate 16GX937 then and there, but she didn't have a godweb. Her nostrils flared in frustration. She was still too drunk on the power she'd possessed in her dreamer. "How would Jace.blek feel if I told him who you really serve?"

  "I've psi.hacked you. I'll be gone as soon as you message him."

  She hesitated. If he'd actually done that, she couldn't know how much was real and how much was fake. For all she knew it wasn't standing in front of her. It might be safe, light-years away.

  Quickly, she ran an internal diagnostics test. Sure enough, it suggested her nexus security had been compromised.

  Yet an intense rage kept her fear at bay. Suddenly, a blur appeared behind 16GX937. As she stared, the visual distortion sharpened slightly into a lingering black smoke. Was this part of the hacking? Something moved in the haze. Time slowed down as she felt the center of gravity sway around this strange new entity. Two legs like whips stumbled back and forth. In a series of violent jerks, a head emerged and formed a gaping beak jaw, two thin twisting fingers or antennae spawning from it.

  An emotionless voice as cold as space pierced her nexus.

  She studied 16GX937's form, frozen in time with everything else around her. Suddenly, she was back in her dreamer sim, commanding the same power she had with her inquisitor-class living frame.

  If this was part of 16GX937's hack, she couldn't understand the logic behind it.

  "I don't know who the fuck you are, but sure, why not?" A tiny voice in the back of her mind warned not to trust this stranger. But she was the heiress of the Hellion network, she was not afraid of taking a few risks.

  the unknowable entity whispered.

  The next thing she knew, 16GX937's body lay sprawled among fungus. Lifeless. This made no sense, so she assumed her nexus was still compromised. Yet when she ran a diagnostic test, it showed that nothing was currently hacking her. While it was entirely possible she was being hacked so effectively that even her diagnostics test was lying to her, psionic attacks like that were exceedingly rare.