Starstuff (Starstuff Trilogy Book 1)

by Ira Heinichen

  “Clarke!” Petrick said in vain.

  A sound from outside, muffled voices, made all three of them look back. Through the old glass of a single uncrushed window, they could see two floating yellow-orange points of light bobbing outside. They were lanterns, which meant the adults had followed them.

  They were heading directly for the shed.

  “We’re gonna be in such big trouble,” said Barry.

  9

  FAR AWAY FROM INDACAR, in the frigid cold of the Dark Sky, a small, wiry man rubbed his hands together for warmth and hovered them over the control panel that he had been assigned to on this particularly dreary “day.”

  Using terms like “day” and “night” was difficult to justify when one was so far from any globe of dirt that circled a light source. There was no morning, no high noon, no evening twilight as the sun traveled from horizon to horizon. Out in the deep space of the Outer Rim, time bled seamlessly into itself. Or it would have, if not for the giant blinking chronometer on the wall that ticked relentlessly forward, enslaving those within its view to the arbitrary confines of “hours” and “minutes.”

  Barmer was twenty freezing “minutes” away from the end of his duty shift. He’d be relieved by his counterpart and get a turn to warm himself underneath a pile of blankets below decks. It was that pile of blankets and only that pile of blankets that kept him from taking a nice one-way trip out an airlock.

  Heat for the purposes of comfort was not something that the Authority had deemed a priority for Listening Post Alpha-17. Their power core had been operating at a tepid 37 percent of full capacity for the past three weeks. While a repair order had been filed and assurances made that the problem would be dealt with, Alpha-17’s crew of two poor souls had been told in the meantime to cut life support down to the minimum to keep the antenna array in full operation. That was a long-winded, bureaucratic way of telling them to bundle up and get used to the kind of temperatures extreme tourists might endure on the ice planet Fessik: flubbing freezing.

  As a stopgap measure, Barmer’s supervisor and lone coworker, Lissat, had agreed to run shifts in six-hour increments instead of eight. It wasn’t clear if she’d run that change by Command or not, but Barmer didn’t care. He was sure he would completely freeze solid if he had to sit at this damned panel for two more hours. He glanced at the large red chronometer again and cracked his fingers. Ten minutes.

  That was when his panel lit up like a thunderstorm.

  Lights flashed in a flurry of activity that stunned Barmer into stillness. A loud beeping sound accompanied the strobing indicator lights. Finally snapping into action, he flicked on his command-line interface and looked at the readout on the signal that he was receiving.

  “Glory be to the ’stuff,” he breathed.

  Carefully, deliberately, he punched in various lines of code that he’d been drilled on thousands of times over—a drill he never thought he’d ever actually put into practice. He cursed himself for his inattention and slowed down even further to put in the last few commands. His hands were shaking. The screen went dark.

  After an agonizing moment, the readout came back with the simple word this listening post had been designed to produce:

  Verified.

  “A transmission?” came Lissat’s voice behind him, and he nearly fell out of his chair. She was half-dressed, and her eyes were bleary from being awakened so suddenly. “Did you input the protocol?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Correctly?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well?”

  “It’s verified,” Barmer answered. His voice was hushed and low.

  It wasn’t the answer she was expecting. Barmer pointed to the word “verified” still lit up on the center screen. The realization of what had happened slowly sank into her and Barmer.

  “We need to hail the Master Purveyor.” Lissat sprang into action, adrenaline instantly shaking off any sleepiness. She dove into the command seat next to Barmer and her hands flew across the panel. “Find out where that signal was directed.”

  10

  “DOUSE YOUR LIGHT!” Suzy hissed.

  The adults, marked by their bobbing lanterns, were heading straight for the treasure shed.

  Barry had turned off his torchless before Suzy had even finished her command. “They’re going to be so mad,” he whisper-moaned, looking at the cluster of lanterns heading their way. “I don’t think I can take back-to-back trips to Fris’s office, you guys.”

  “I don’t care. We have to get Clarke,” Petrick whispered back, rubbing his forehead. He peered through the darkness of the hole that Clarke had just disappeared through. He could barely make out the shadowy forms of the forest beyond.

  “Out there?” Barry said. “There are coyotes and vreen out there!” His eyes went wide, seeing each of their distinctly menacing furry forms in his mind’s eye.

  “Exactly,” Petrick insisted. “That’s why we can’t just leave him.”

  There was a pause, and all three of them considered the opening in the wall before them, and then looked back at the glowing lanterns that were most definitely heading straight in their direction.

  “Please,” said Petrick. His expression was desperate. “We have to follow him.”

  “Let’s go,” said Suzy, pressing forward. “We’ll get caught if we don’t, anyway.”

  She slipped her small body into the opening and disappeared. Petrick followed. Whether from Clarke’s digging or the rest of the shed’s collapse, the opening was just tall enough and broad enough for Petrick to squeeze through if he stooped slightly. Barry grunted his way to the other side right behind him.

  Just like that, the three children were on the other side of the wall.

  They took a tentative moment to consider their new world, letting what they’d just done rush over them. No child from Childer’s had ever been on this side of the wall without being chosen. It was quiet, except for a gentle whoosh as a nighttime gust filtered through the woods directly ahead of them. The wall surrounding Childer’s stretched on as far as they could see in either direction, lit by the moons.

  Barry grunted. “It looks pretty much the same on this side,” he said of the wall. “Don’t you think?”

  Petrick and Suzy were busy scanning the area. There was nobody else in sight. Petrick resisted the urge to call after Clarke, lest the adults behind them hear. He doubted that they knew the small hole through the wall existed, and he didn’t want his voice leading them right to it.

  He winced in pain again as the headache returned.

  “You okay?” asked Suzy.

  “Yeah,” he replied. “We need to see where Clarke went.”

  Just then they heard a bark ahead of them, hidden in the woods. Petrick took off in its direction without hesitation and within moments was enshrouded in darkness. Suzy gave Barry a punch in the arm.

  “Come on, Barry,” she said, leveling her gaze at her reluctant friend. “We’ll lose them both if we don’t keep up.”

  With that, she disappeared into the woods as well. Barry let out a giant, overdramatic sigh and began to jog after her.

  “Guuuyyyssss!” he called in as loud a whisper as he could muster. “Wait up!”

  “It’s official, he’s gone crazy,” said Barry, huffing from the back of the group. “Clarke’s gone insane. Maybe he wants to just rejoin his ancient wolf ancestors, and we should just let him?”

  The woods were eerily quiet. The soft padding of their slippers on the fallen leaves was all they heard among the trees. They walked single file, Barry in the back with his bobbing torchless, Suzy in the middle keeping an eye out, and Petrick leading the charge.

  Every so often, one of the three children would catch sight of Clarke standing alert and waiting for them. But he would dash off before anyone got close, and they’d set off after him once again.

  “Stop complaining, Barry,” said Suzy, swatting away a spider’s web that she’d failed to notice before walking into it.

 
“I’m not complaining,” he retorted. “I am stating a fact. Who else but a crazy person, dogs included, runs out into the woods in the middle of the night?”

  “He’s leading us somewhere,” said Petrick.

  “Yeah, he’s leading us right into the jaws of a vreen,” Barry muttered.

  Suzy reached back to give Barry a hearty smack on the top of his head, which he was able to sidestep at the last moment.

  “Ow!” Barry rubbed his crown and looked at Suzy with a death stare.

  “I didn’t even get you,” Suzy said, rolling her eyes.

  Barry was unimpressed. “You really have a hitting problem, you know that?”

  “That crazy dog has saved our butts more times than you have,” she said in Clarke’s defense.

  “So, you think he’s crazy too!”

  It was true, though. Clarke had saved them on several occasions, whether it was by sniffing out snakes in the garden while they were pulling weeds, or scaring off bullies like Litz and his goons. Clarke had always looked out for them all.

  “Think of it this way,” offered Petrick, “we’ve always wondered what it was like to leave Childer’s.”

  “Not quite as I pictured it, Petrick,” said Suzy.

  “Let’s just get Clarke and get back as quickly as we can,” Barry grunted.

  Each was certainly nervous to their own degree, but even Barry would have been forced to admit it was thrilling to be outside the walls. Only a few of the adults in the village ever ventured into the forest for wood.

  No children ever did, and especially not those from Childer’s, who never left the grounds unless it was with a new family. As for the tall tales the adults told children, Petrick was fairly certain they were just that. Vreen were uncommon—he’d read that—and they were far too often used as scary stories to be such a scary reality. Far more threatening were the darkness and the likelihood of taking a spill.

  Fortunately, the summer moons were high and bright, and Barry’s torchless did a good job chasing away the shadows. Our trio had found it surprisingly easy to navigate among the shrubbery, fallen branches, and other bumps in the terrain.

  The forest was old, which made navigating it easier. The trees had grown tall with thick trunks, and their branches were all high enough to create a weblike canopy a good thirty to forty-five feet off the ground. The shrubbery below was low and sparse, which meant there was ample room to move around. The thick layer of fallen leaves that carpeted the ground even softened any stumble or spill. Were one to let one’s imagination run wild, it could indeed become a frightening place . . . but it wasn’t really. The kids instead found the quiet darkness to be rather thrilling.

  Even Barry felt it, despite his complaining. I’ve been hanging out with Petrick for too long, he thought, and shook his head. The feeling was there nonetheless. No one, at least that Barry knew, had been out this far. It was exciting.

  Just then, Clarke came into view once more, standing up on top of a sloping bank to their left. He barked at the sight of them, tail wagging, and this time instead of running off immediately, he stayed and panted.

  “Clarke, stay there,” commanded Petrick, and the three of them rushed up the embankment to get to him.

  It looked as if they were finally going to grab the little monster that had led them so far from home. Clarke stayed at the top of the mound, just watching as they ran toward him. But, as dogs are so often able to do, he jumped at the last second away from their lunging arms, and the three kids went tumbling down the other side of the small hill. Their landing at the bottom, thankfully, was cushioned by some tall grass, and they lay there for a moment listening as Clarke continued to bark at them some few yards away.

  Petrick was the first to rise and dust himself off. As he did so, two things occurred to him. First, the pain in his head was suddenly gone. Second . . .

  He knew this place. From where he stood among the grass that had pillowed their tumble, a meadow opened up before them, and the stars were brilliantly bright above them. It all looked so very, very familiar.

  “Guys . . . ,” he said, spinning himself around to get a complete view, “I think I’ve been here before . . .”

  “Oh, no,” wheezed Barry as he struggled back to his feet. “Don’t you go crazy, too. You just said it yourself; we’ve never been out here.”

  “No, really, I feel like . . .” He struggled to put a finger on it.

  “Petrick?” asked Suzy, a worried tone starting to creep into her voice.

  Petrick caught sight of Clarke’s bounding tail up ahead of them, running toward a shadowed form in the distance, and suddenly . . .

  Suddenly he knew.

  He took off sprinting in the dog’s direction.

  “Hey!” Suzy called, going after him.

  “Guys, this is it,” Petrick shouted behind him. “This is where I meet my dad!”

  “Petrick, wait up,” wailed Barry, further back.

  “Come on,” shouted Petrick. “You’ll see!”

  It all made so much sense now. He could almost make out the blackboard in the moonlight ahead, and Clarke was bounding right for it. The field was the same, the grass was the same, the stars above them, even the smell of the breeze was the same.

  He was almost there, nearly caught up with Clarke, when Clarke reached the shadowed form and then disappeared down into the grass. Petrick sped up, sure that his father was ahead of them.

  And then the shadow moved.

  Petrick frowned and started to slow his all-out sprint. Something wasn’t right. The shadow wasn’t a blackboard, nor was it a man.

  Too late, Petrick realized what he was looking at. He tried to slam down his heels and brake, only to go tumbling forward headfirst onto the ground. Suzy and Barry saw him go down and stopped just in time to see two shining eyes in the night move directly toward them with the telltale howl that every child on Indacar had been told to fear.

  It was a vreen, large as life and nightmare, and it was coming right toward them.

  11

  “THIS IS VICE PURVEYOR SLINK,” said the hawkish man on the dingy communications monitor. His eyes were narrow, suspicious. Even in the static-laden image, he looked ancient and imposing.

  “This is Listening Post Alpha-17 for the Master Purveyor.” Lissat was nearly shouting so that the old equipment would pick up her voice. Barmer sat next to her, practically quivering he was so nervous and excited.

  “Yes, yes,” Slink said, waving her off. “We have confirmed your identity, Alpha-17. Out with it. I was told you have ‘eyes only.’”

  “Uh, yes, which is why I was under the impression that I would be speaking with the Master Purveyor himself, Vice Purveyor.”

  “Commander . . . Lissat,” Slink said, his eyes flicking offscreen as if to read her name, “you will tell me, and I will tell the Master Purveyor if what you’re calling about warrants it.”

  Lissat pursed her lips, then continued. The vice purveyor was still her superior.

  “Of course,” she said, and she keyed in a message packet to be sent to the vice purveyor. “We’ve picked up a transmission from inside the exclusion zone. It’s been verified.”

  Slink’s face disappeared from the comm monitor. Barmer rubbed his hands together for warmth, then brought them up to his mouth and breathed on them.

  “See if you can get them to fix our power core,” he said to Lissat in a hushed tone. “Or maybe get us off this rust can.”

  “With what we have, I’d say a promotion might be in order,” Lissat said, cracking a nervous smile. “Maybe a transfer.”

  Slink’s head popped back into view.

  “Your transmission has been received,” he said, all business. “End transmission.”

  “Wait!” said Barmer off to the side. “That’s it?”

  Slink’s grainy image stayed on the screen, frowning.

  “What was that?” he said.

  “Nothing, sir,” Lissat said, trying to cover, and glanced at Barmer to shut his mou
th. “It’s just . . .” Barmer looked like he was about to speak again, but Lissat cut him off. “I’m so sorry, uh, to bother you with this, Vice Purveyor, but while we have you on the comms, sir, our power core has been at thirty-seven percent for the past month, and, well, we’re downright freezing in here, sir. I was wondering if you might be able to send someone out to fix it for us?”

  There was a long pause from the vice purveyor. His face was blank, and his eyes didn’t blink. For a moment, Lissat thought perhaps the stupid comm systems had gone out and their transmission had been frozen. She was about to slap the screen to unstick it when Slink spoke again.

  “Your power core shall be dealt with,” he said.

  Barmer whooped for joy, and Lissat allowed herself to break into a broad smile. “Thank you, sir,” she said. “Thank you! Blessed be the ’stuff.”

  Slink did not smile. “End transmission,” he said, and his image winked off the small screen.

  Barmer leaned back into his chair in relief. “Oh, stars, I’m happy you said something,” he said.

  “I’m happy that you didn’t ruin the whole thing!” she shot back at him. “The vice is not someone you want to piss off.”

  “Oh, come on,” he said. “It turned out fine.”

  “No thanks to you,” she said.

  Barmer let out a phfft and closed his eyes. “It’s going to be so grand,” he said. “I’m going to sleep naked, I think.”

  When he didn’t get a response from Lissat in vehement denial of that idea, he opened an eye. His superior was staring at a flashing indicator on their control panel.

  “Did they fix it already?” Barmer said, sitting up to get a look.

  The indicator was unfortunately not flashing that their core had been fixed. It was flashing for the exact opposite reason. There was a shutdown in progress that had been remotely triggered.

  A second later, every light in lonely Listening Post Alpha-17 shut off and did not turn back on, no matter how much its two lonely human inhabitants tried to wrack their freezing brains or scrambled to make repairs. If they’d had more time, perhaps they might have been able to get down to the core and restart the reaction chamber. But they didn’t have that much time. Alpha-17 had already been so close to freezing, and there were only two of them to huddle together. Perhaps if it had been more than just the two of them . . .