Starstuff (Starstuff Trilogy Book 1)

by Ira Heinichen

  “I don’t have a reset button,” Haber replied disdainfully. “Unlike your crude metal companion behind you, I was designed for automatic revival after cold hibernation, along with a multitude of other functions that I’m sure would make your head spin.”

  Balta frowned at the sass Haber was throwing at her, then turned to Petrick. “Your friend has a mouth on him,” she said. “Makes me want to break it.”

  “You are welcome to try,” Haber said.

  “Haber,” interjected Petrick. “Be nice. Captain Balta is heading to the Wall. She’s going where we need to go!”

  Haber tilted his head as if it helped him process that information. Then he reached his hands down to the deck grating, folded his legs, and vaulted himself into a standing position. He wiped his hands on his pant legs, and then offered one to Balta in greeting. Balta shook it warily.

  “My name is Habersham Cornelius Franklin Windsor the Third,” he said. “I am a personal multiservice android; Petrick is my master. Thank you for allowing us onto your ship.”

  “I didn’t allow you on my ship, android,” Balta said correcting him. “You snuck on, and you’d be dropped right back on your stupid planet if it weren’t for the fact that a capital ship just passed us on its way there.”

  “An Authority capital ship?” Haber said.

  “Biggest one I’ve ever seen.” Balta nodded. “No idea why it’d be heading to your backwater planet, but they were in a hurry. That hurry saved our behinds.”

  “Indeed,” Haber said, looking like he was deep in thought. Whatever it was, however, he left it to silence.

  “The kids tell me you’re handy with a skillet,” Balta said, breaking the moment.

  “Do they?” Haber said, looking over at the trio of kids.

  “You’re hands-down better than anyone they ever had at Childer’s!” Barry exclaimed.

  “I told them kids they’d be pulling their weight around here,” Balta said. “That goes for you too, android. Fair is fair.”

  “Fair is fair,” Haber said back to her.

  They all just stood there for a moment, waiting.

  “Well?” said Haber. “I assume you have mess facilities of some kind.”

  Balta harrumphed and waddled down the corridor toward the cabins. The rest of them followed.

  As they walked, Balta called back to Haber.

  “Oh, and one more thing: on my ship, I’m your master. Don’t you forget that.”

  25

  THE MASTER PURVEYOR stepped from the clean hard grating of the shuttlecraft’s gangplank onto the crunchy dirt and rocks of the path that ran down the middle of Childer’s commons. He looked down and saw golden wisps of dust settling onto the seams of his boots where the uppers were stitched into the soles, and along the edges of the soles themselves. The powdery brown and gold particles dulled the polished shine. Were he a less controlled being, he would have stopped and cleaned them after every step he took on this pathetic planet.

  It wasn’t how he’d imagined.

  His senses were assaulted as a slight breeze wafted into his nostrils, and he could smell the various scents of cut grass, wet dirt, trees, and animals. And people. Mostly people, in fact. He took a scented tissue from his front uniform pocket and held it up to his nose.

  He was instantly glad that he had, given that the line of Separatists on their knees the advance troops had gathered along the path stretched quite a ways. He would have to walk past each of them to get where he wanted to go. He noticed that the majority of them were young children.

  “Slink?” he called out.

  His aide was at his side in a blink. The Master Purveyor instantly noticed the slight man was without his usual tethered Companion. He was nervous, jumpy. “Yes, master?”

  “This is all of the village?”

  “This is the compound.” He was flitting his eyes back and forth as they walked. “The villagers are outside, keeping their distance.”

  The Purveyor nodded. “Round them up too. In case I need to question them as well.”

  “Of course. Shall I have them brought up to the ship or remain here?”

  “Here, for now. No need to soil the air of the ship any earlier than necessary.”

  “Yes, master.” Slink quietly murmured commands to his group of advance troops as they walked together.

  The two reached the front stoop of a medium-sized building at one end of the commons. The Purveyor looked up toward a small round window at the very top front of the facade.

  “Up there, you say?” the Purveyor asked.

  “The signal was traced precisely to that room.”

  “Then let’s see what’s up there, shall we?”

  The two made their way inside, and the Purveyor was pleased to see that Slink had positioned each dorm entranceway with a guard, just like he had set up a guard every few paces behind the natives lined up along the path outside. An overwhelming show of force was always important. They had climbed several flights of stairs before Slink led them inside a room on the top floor. They paused and looked around. There was nothing to see.

  The Purveyor turned to Slink.

  Suddenly remembering, Slink muttered an apology, and he reached up to pull on a rope hanging from the ceiling. With the tug, a ladder descended from above, touching down on the floor right by the Purveyor’s feet. He nodded and ascended to the attic above. Slink went up right behind him, taking special care not to follow too closely.

  The first thing the Master Purveyor noticed was the circular window on the far wall set above a tousled bed. The next thing he noticed was that almost every square inch of the room was covered in drawings, schematics, models, mobiles, and the like. All were handcrafted.

  He took one drawing off the wall, of a particularly complicated-looking piece of machinery that was built into a rock. His eyes narrowed. He then looked around further and spotted a plate with moldy food on it sitting on top of a pile of dirty clothes.

  “The transmission came to this room?” he asked Slink again.

  “Yes, master.”

  “And you found no one occupying this room when we arrived?”

  “No, master.”

  The Purveyor nodded.

  “Bring me the mistress,” he said.

  Slink nodded, and moments later, he was hauling a salt-and-pepper-haired woman up the narrow ladder into the attic room. The Purveyor kept his back to her when addressing her.

  “Mistress,” he said, “whose room is this?”

  “I demand that you let our children go,” she said, chin up.

  “You, for once, Mistress Fris, are in a position to demand nothing,” the Purveyor said to her. “Even if those words have never really been mine to say, it still feels sweet to say them.”

  Fris frowned. “Do I know you?” she asked. “Who are you?”

  The Master Purveyor turned to face her. “I am the Master Purveyor of the Authority on Interstellar Space Travel,” he said, stepping toward her. “And you do not know me. But I know you.”

  She narrowed her old eyes, looking him up and down with a sour purse to her lips.

  “Were you a child here?” she asked skeptically. “We have so many come through these halls.”

  The Master Purveyor smiled a cruel smile.

  Fris stepped forward, and her eyes widened. “You?” she said. “It can’t be . . .” She narrowed her eyes again and looked even closer.

  “I’m afraid you’ve mistaken me for someone else,” he said. The Purveyor’s smile dropped and he gestured to the slovenly appearance of the room, particularly the moldy plate of food. “It looks to me like someone left here in quite a hurry,” he observed. “Several days ago, in fact. Is that right?”

  Fris’s eyes hadn’t left the man’s face. “You are not how I remember you.”

  “Where did they go?” he asked, ignoring her. “Did they go out to the old lab, perhaps?”

  Fris stood as solidly as a wall. The Purveyor looked at her, and she spat on him. “You defile us
all by coming here with your wickedness,” she said. “I will not help a sinner.”

  The Purveyor calmly wiped off the spittle from his forehead and took a sniff from his handkerchief. “I see you Separatists still have all the vigor and vitriol behind your backward and ignorant religious spoutings.” He gestured again to the room around them, this time to the various drawings of technological contraptions that hung about the walls. “I wonder, do you have as much disdain for the boy’s defilings that he pegs to the sacred technology-free wood planks around us?”

  “You will never find him,” Fris said, and was about to spit at him again when Slink stepped in to intervene.

  She struggled against his wiry grasp for a moment, then stopped as the Purveyor took a couple steps forward to look right into her face. He pocketed his handkerchief and smiled again.

  “You are going to answer my questions one way or another,” he said to her. She stood silently defiant in front of him. He stepped back, out of spitting range, and gestured to Slink. “Indacarans are hard workers. Bring them up to the ship for processing.”

  “Yes, master. Oh, and about the children, master . . . I was hoping I could select several of them for my Companion project?”

  “I suppose that’s fine.”

  “How many would you like taken up to the ship then, master?”

  He locked eyes with Fris.

  “I want all of them.”

  26

  HABER, of course, complained the entire thirty minutes he spent banging around in the mess hall kitchen. “Mess” would be the operative word in that sentence; it was dusty and cobwebby, and smelled like it hadn’t been used in at least a couple years. Balta confirmed as much. But there were preserved-food stores, and since everyone had raised their hands for the who-is-hungry poll, Balta had led them there rather than her quarters.

  To Petrick, it seemed as though the Red Robert was a relic of a grander time long gone into the past. The fact that there was a mess hall indicated that more people were meant to be manning this ship, as opposed to just Colossus and Balta. The mess hall hadn’t been touched except for junk storage in at least a couple years, which likewise indicated that the Red Robert had missed its merry crew for quite some time.

  Balta wore her ship as she did her ill-fitting clothes. It was too big for just her. It was an empty house with all the children gone, neglected and falling apart, with only time to keep it company.

  Petrick gave a sidelong glance at Balta, who was sniffing her food skeptically. She reached down with her utensil and slid a munchin’ strip into her mouth. She chewed carefully for a moment and then swallowed.

  “Well?” Haber asked. He was standing on the other side of the table from the captain, and his hands were on his hips with an expectant scowl.

  “This doesn’t taste like the strips in the program database,” she said slowly.

  “Program database,” Haber scoffed. “You think I’m going to work with that drivel? I cook with my recipes, Captain. You’ll never convince me to do otherwise.”

  Balta took another bite and nodded her head. She reached into her coat and produced a small silver flask, uncorked it with a practiced ease, and poured a clear brown liquid into her steaming cup of brew. She then recorked the flask and replaced it in her coat, and sipped her spiked drink.

  “They’ll do,” she said.

  Petrick got the distinct impression that was as close to It’s delicious as Haber was ever going to get from the surly captain.

  Now that their host had eaten, they all dug into their food. Petrick took an opportunity between giant mouthfuls to toss a piece of meat to a patiently waiting Clarke down by his dangling feet.

  “It’s so good,” Barry called out. “You’re the best cook, Haber.”

  “I’m glad you approve, Master Barry,” he replied matter-of-factly.

  From the other end of the table, both Dedrin and Arris quietly each told Haber the food was delicious. The smiles on their faces said to Petrick that they meant it, too.

  Haber sat next to the children and watched as Balta devoured her meal, grunting now and then.

  Taking the noises to mean the pirate captain’s mood was, perhaps, improved, Haber addressed her. “Captain, if I may inquire, what is the current state of space travel in this region? And beyond, in the Outer Rim?” Balta looked at him like he was crazy. “I couldn’t help but notice Aaron’s Landing looks quite abandoned,” Haber said.

  “Everything has been,” Balta said with a wave of her fork. “Where have you been?”

  “He was asleep until we found him in my father’s laboratory,” Petrick offered.

  “Deactivated,” Haber said, correcting him, “but mostly factual. I’m afraid I am quite underinformed.”

  Balta grunted and turned back to her food. “The Authority banned travel ten years ago when the new Master Purveyor took power. There is no space travel here anymore.”

  “You’re a space traveler,” said Suzy.

  “No man stands between me and my stars,” she said, and then added with a smirk, “I’m sneaky.”

  Petrick flipped Clarke another piece of strip, and a thought then occurred to him. “Haber?” he asked. “So, you don’t need to eat, right?”

  Haber frowned. “I am an android,” he said, as if the answer were as plain as the nose on his face. “I have a self-sustaining power core built into the center of my chest.”

  Petrick nodded. “Does Clarke have one of those?” he asked.

  “He does,” answered Haber.

  Petrick tossed Clarke a veggie slice. The dog munched on it happily. “Well, then, why does he eat food?”

  “Ah,” Haber replied, understanding where Petrick was going with his line of inquiry. “Clarke is a unique android in that he was designed from head to tail to look and behave and feel precisely like a real Tzunian Temple Dog, a breed commonly found across known civilization.”

  “That dog is an android?” Balta asked, her utensil paused halfway up to her mouth. She squinted her eyes in her usual manner and looked the dog up and down in disbelief.

  Barry piped up. “He is. We saw his blinky insides and everything when we got the message out of him.”

  “Why was he made so lifelike?” Petrick asked. “Why did you make him like that?”

  “I would think the answer to that would be obvious,” Haber responded. “Imagine if Mistress Fris had seen Clarke’s ‘blinky insides.’”

  “They’d have taken Clarke away in a microsecond,” Petrick realized.

  “And you’d have been left without your guardian,” Haber added. “That’s why your father designed him so uniquely.”

  “So, he doesn’t need food, then?” Suzy asked.

  “Would he starve to death?” Haber asked rhetorically before answering. “No. But Clarke is programmed to eat food just like any dog. He desires it like any normal dog, and he will go after it and beg for it like any normal dog.”

  “Tell me about it,” Barry said. “Remember the time he ate our lunches on the hike up to Summit Top?”

  Suzy and Petrick chuckled at the memory.

  “You’re saying your father built that android dog?” Balta asked.

  Haber and the children turned to look at her, not realizing that she’d stopped eating.

  “Yes,” Petrick answered. “And Haber too.”

  “I’ve traveled a hundred thousand light-years across this galaxy,” Balta continued, looking at Clarke, “and I’ve never seen anything like that. Who is your father?”

  “His name is Fenton, and he’s the greatest man I’ve ever known,” Petrick answered. “He left right after I was born and my mom died to go find the source of the starstuff.”

  “You know,” said Barry, “to save the galaxy and whatnot.”

  “That’s right,” Petrick said. “But something went wrong, so he sent a distress call, and we’re going to find him and help him.”

  Balta stood abruptly. “Your father is Fenton the Seeker?” The question was an accusation
.

  “Uh . . .” Petrick stumbled uncertainly.

  “Fenton,” Balta said, challenging him further, “from the Fringe Worlds. Seeker of the Source?”

  “Yeah, that sounds like my father. But I’ve never heard him called that.”

  “He sent Petrick a message for help,” Barry interjected. “Like Petrick said.” Haber shot Barry a Shut up look, and the pudgy boy clamped his mouth.

  Balta stood in front of Petrick, face reddening and looking dangerous. She raised a fist and extended a finger toward the boy. It was quivering. “I should have thrown you out that airlock,” she said.

  “Captain—” Haber reached out for Balta’s shaking arm, but Balta slapped him away.

  “You stay away from me, you hear?” It was not a request. “And the first microsecond I get to put you off my ship, I’m leaving you weeping pups behind. You got it?!”

  “Yes,” Petrick said, his voice beginning to quiver.

  “Don’t talk to me I said!” Balta yelled at him.

  Petrick just nodded this time.

  Balta grabbed her partially eaten plate with a grimy paw and headed out of the mess hall. “And clean this place up when you finish!” she called behind her.

  There was a stunned silence in the mess hall after she left. Suzy, Barry, and Petrick all exchanged confused glances with each other, then looked at Haber for an explanation. He appeared to be deep in thought. Even Dedrin and Arris seemed taken aback by the captain’s sudden outburst.

  Suzy narrowed her eyes at the door where she had left so abruptly. “Well, that was very rude,” she said.

  “We’ll just have to try to stay out of her way,” Petrick said, attempting to calm himself.

  “It would seem,” Haber chimed in, “as though your father may be more well-known than we had perhaps thought.”

  “That could be a good thing,” Barry said hopefully. “Maybe it will make him easier to track?”

  “Perhaps,” Haber said.

  “Or perhaps Captain Squints is just another bully,” Suzy said. She was red-faced and staring at the door she’d left through.