Interim: On the run from the Galactic FTL Police

by P. K. Lentz

  “I’m not sure I want to see the thing that finds that comfortable,” Kearn muttered, only half-kidding.

  They had just finished an initial survey of the room when Isaak’s voice burst over the comm with barely contained excitement.

  “We’re in, Captain!”

  “Great. It’s looking more and more like we won’t have any owners to answer to, so just get to it. Keep us posted on your progress. We’ll keep poking around and recording down here.”

  ***

  Eight hours and several dozen chambers later, Kearn and Serenity each lugged behind them a large mesh bag stuffed to capacity with the most portable bits of alien technology they could find. Some items they had collected as they were; others they had ‘creatively liberated’ from larger pieces. Now, unable to carry more without a return to the hauler, they passed time trying in vain to decipher a room-sized alien machine.

  More accurately they were pushing buttons and watching for anything interesting to happen. The glowing shapes and symbols they pressed did seem to react to their touch. A few times their actions caused displays (?) to light up with yet more indecipherable symbols. More often their efforts yielded a strange--to human ears--howling tone they took to mean ‘ERROR!’

  One might argue that it was criminally irresponsible to play with incomprehensible alien hardware. Yet, to the extent that human parallels were applicable, it seemed to Kearn that barring the most miserable of bad luck one could key random patterns on a starship bridge for months without ever doing much harm. Systems designed by any reasonably intelligent being should all but preclude accidental activation of anything really dangerous.

  It proved an amusing diversion for some time, but since they really couldn’t claim to be learning anything useful Kearn made the decision at length to return to the hauler with their bounty. Locking his suit display to the locator beacons that now littered the place, he commed Castro.

  “We’re heading up now,” Kearn said. “Any progress?”

  The two engineers had been checking in regularly but had declined to engage in any ‘distracting’ conversation apart from brief assurances that they were getting somewhere. This time, after a short delay, Castro offered a real report.

  “We’ve isolated and disassembled two types of what must be alien drive units,” he said. “One of them is fairly comprehensible, though I can’t figure what it uses for fuel. The other is like nothing I recognize but is certainly significant. I’ll show you when you get here.”

  Castro’s ‘significant’ find, Kearn discovered upon meeting him back at the hauler, was a black metallic sphere roughly the size of a human head and marbled with glowing green lines.

  “What is it?” Kearn asked.

  “I’m not quite sure. Readings are all over the place. Two facts make me take notice. One, it exerts weak but measurable gravitation, the equivalent of something trillions of times its mass. And two, it produces enough energy to run all of Halo’s electronics and then some.”

  “Engines?”

  “If we had more of them, which should be no trouble.”

  “So it’s some kind of power plant?”

  “Well, let’s say it can function as one. But I don’t think that’s its purpose, given the low output. All I can say with certainty is that it forms the core of some system I can’t very well comprehend. Yet.”

  Kearn ran a suit gauntlet over the black sphere. He probably imagined the slight tingling in his palm. “Is it dangerous?”

  “No emissions harmful to human tissue, if that’s what you mean.”

  “I want as many of them as we can pull,” Kearn said. “Plus at least one complete example of the system it was part of. Ren and I will take the hauler back to the surface, let Halo know we’re alive and ask them to send the other flyer to help with transport. Provided we can escape, of course. I hope you’re all prepared to eat stims for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next eight days, because there’ll be no sleep.”

  If there was any alien presence to be found in this place, Kearn now wanted to meet it less than ever. No doubt if their actions here were to be used as evidence in weighing the worth of humanity, the captain and crew of Lucifer’s Halo had just succeeded in giving their species a bad name.

  ***

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  LOG: LUCIFER’S HALO

  L155-0918 departure +3h

  We’re safely underway toward civilization, ETA 121 ship-years. We return with our holds stuffed with technology that is not only conclusive proof of non-human intelligence, but which is also undoubtedly of immense practical value. It blows my small mind to think that I’ve just looted a site that in all likelihood predates the human race by millennia. What excuse can I offer but to say that anyone else in my position would probably have done the same?

  Castro, Ilias and I will remain out of hibe initially while we attempt to work out some means of using the alien components to speed our arrival at Reissa. Castro is optimistic, but I’m insisting he proceed with caution. Halo doesn’t need any more unforeseen catastrophes.

  Speaking of the unforeseen, we returned to Halo from the Artifact to find Lisset revived from hibe. Moriet informed me that her capsule had popped on a timer he assumed I had set myself. I had done no such thing. Under normal circumstances something like this might bother me, but given everything else we’ve been through, I’ll ignore it.

  Besides, she’s not bad company. Interesting, at any rate. --MK

  ***

  “What are you going to name it?” Lisset asked, breaking a long silence.

  Kearn looked up from studying--or rather playing with--some trinkets collected from the Artifact. The real treasures, the drive components, he’d left to the professionals.

  Lisset had been hanging around Kearn for the past hour or so, conducting her own casual examination of the alien booty. Her question tore Kearn’s attention away from something unfathomable.

  “Pardon?” he said.

  “The system, the Artifact. I think you have the right to name them now. Kearn’s Star, Kearn’s Folly, Mayweather’s Luck. Whatever you like.”

  Kearn scoffed and shrugged her off. “Hadn’t really thought about it.” Actually he had, just not very seriously. “Anyway,” he added, “we wouldn’t be here if not for you. You name it.”

  “You’re the one who should be remembered. I’m a footnote at best. Besides, I don’t think my name has much cosmic potential.”

  Resuming his work, Kearn continued the conversation absently. “Well, how about pets, nicknames, favorite colors...family members?”

  This last suggestion of Kearn’s was a spontaneous and none-too-subtle attempt to coax out of Lisset a long-overdue reaction to the Beshaan tragedy. It might have been cruel had he believed there was any real chance of success.

  “Well...” she said after a prolonged pause, “someone very close to me once called me angel.”

  This first reference to a past of any kind took Kearn by surprise. “Father, mother, brother?” he probed.

  “Something like that.” Lisset spoke the words with finality, effectively closing the topic.

  The interest Kearn had felt in the subject quickly waned. Not inclined to exchange one insoluble puzzle for another, he resumed stabbing inappropriately at the object in his hands. “I’ll think about it,” he said disinterestedly, and let the conversation lapse into comfortable silence.

  Some thirty minutes later Serenity drifted in, making the silence less comfortable. Which of the room’s two occupants Ren had entered in search of, if either, was unclear.

  Lisset made the decision for them.

  “I’ll leave you two alone,” she said, disingenuously, just prior to a hasty exit.

  Kearn looked up to face Ren. It was just as well he speak with her now. He hadn’t exactly been looking forward to this encounter, but now there was no sense in putting it off.

  Anyway, it was good news he had to deliver, wasn’t it?

  “Ren,” he said humbly. “I’ve thou
ght a lot about our...situation.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Let me go first. When we get back to civilization, I’m going to use some of our profits to trade Halo for a better ship. A bigger one, with a hab module.”

  He paused for a moment, considering his next words. The phrasing of the offer he was to make had to be clear and unambiguous. “I’m not promising we’ll be a family,” he said, “or that I’ll be any kind of father to this child. But there will be quarters set aside for you both on my next vessel. You’re welcome to stay there as long as you like.”

  Ren’s icy expression gave way to ill-disguised confusion. Kearn could tell he’d caught her by surprise. Realizing suddenly that his careful clarity might have come across as callousness, he moved to amend the offer.

  “What I mean to say,” he added, fully aware that he might in reality be lying, “is that I’d like to have you aboard. I hope you’ll consider staying.”

  Ren took several moments to overcome a stunned silence.

  “This is sudden,” she said at length. “I’ll...think about it.” She looked away. When she faced Kearn again, she was the closest he’d seen to the old Ren since their brief association had gone sour. “Thanks,” she said, with a sad half-smile.

  Kearn just waited awkwardly, unsure what else to say. Truth was inappropriate, while more lies could only serve to compound future hurt.

  “I’ll be entering hibe soon,” Serenity said eventually, to Kearn’s relief. “I’m just counting stars at this point. Anyway, I think I’d rather sort everything out when we’re back to reality. I feel like I’ll wake up and this whole trip will turn out to be a hibe-dream.”

  “I know the feeling,” Kearn said with a smile. “I also know about not feeling useful. This alien junk is a mystery to me, and Castro won’t have me anywhere near his engines. I’m really only staying awake on principle.”

  After a final dose of awkward silence and a stilted exchange of farewells, they parted.

  ***

  LOG: LUCIFER’S HALO

  L155-0918 departure +2,144h

  Boredboredboredboredboredbored.

  Castro tells me he’s made considerable progress, but none of it makes much sense to me. Fuck it, I’m going under for a few months. --MK

  ***

  LUCIFER’S HALO

  L155-0918 departure +4,391h

  Castro and Isaak have managed to power our engines with a dozen or so of the spheres. With the added acceleration our ETA at Reissa is 34 ship-years. --MK

  ***

  LOG: LUCIFER’S HALO

  L155-0918 departure +82,870h

  We’ve had the first hibe failure of our return voyage.

  Lisset expired four ship-months ago.

  I don’t know what else to say. --MK

  ***

  LUCIFER’S HALO

  Hawthorne’s Star departure +82,884h

  L155-0918 has a name. --MK

  [NO FURTHER ENTRIES.]

  ***

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Martin Ascher felt like the walking dead. His mind seemed barely to function from lack of sleep, and when it did it was only to reflect upon his own dementia. If he continued to hear messages from this phantom voice urging him to commit treason, he decided, he would have no choice but to submit himself for medical review.

  Currently he was on his way to the Hunter in the Dark’s medsuites on a task unrelated to his own mental health. He wasn’t keen on going back there, but an item on his duty schedule demanded it. Exiting the lift, he turned down the corridor and walked with bowed head toward his destination, guiding the loaded supply palette in front of him.

  As he neared the medsuites, he sensed motion from behind and turned instinctively. Approaching with her hands bound, flanked by four Fleet guards and a medical staffer, was the woman whom Ascher couldn’t help but view as the source of his current troubles.

  Now, instead of a medical gown, the woman that the mysterious ID badge in his locker identified by the unlikely name of ‘Hellene Hawthorne’ wore the bright red coveralls of a prisoner. Ascher paused at the medsuites’ entrance and yielded to the procession escorting her. He stared, maybe even gaped at ‘Hellene,’ unable to avert his heavy eyes as she approached.

  It took his dazed mind several seconds to realize that she was staring back at him. The dark-haired woman’s eyes held not only the fear he’d witnessed earlier, but something else as well that filled Ascher with sudden shame.

  She hated him. Hated him because he wore the same uniform as her captors.

  When she passed, the prisoner’s gaze fixed on Ascher’s identity badge and her eyes went wide. Looking up squarely into Ascher’s face, she mouthed a desperate, silent plea in Commonwealth Standard.

  “Help me!”

  As the guards ushered her past, scarcely noting Ascher’s presence, she craned her head to keep wild eyes locked on him. The contact was broken only as she vanished into the medsuites.

  Ascher stood dumbly through the whole encounter, and continued to do the same now that she had gone.

  “Do you have business here?” This inquiry from one of the guards who’d remained outside the medsuites in the corridor snapped Ascher out of his trance.

  “Yes,” Ascher managed to spit out.

  “I suggest you get on with it.”

  Ascher nodded and started forward, shoving the supply palette ahead of him. Once in the suite he looked around, but found no sign of Hellene.

  “What’s this?” a tech asked.

  “Supplies you requisitioned,” Ascher answered, still glancing around hopefully.

  The tech gave him a confused frown and shook his head. “I don’t think we’re expecting anything.” He turned and started off. “I’ll double check.” He returned moments later with confirmation: there had been no such request.

  An hour later, Ascher lay sleepless in his berth, staring at the image on Hellene Hawthorne’s ID badge. Was it a forgery, or was she really a Fleet ensign? What had been her crime? Ascher’s phantom tormentor insisted she was innocent.

  Help me. Her silent plea haunted him.

  Some time later Ascher walked to the panel by his door, typed a string of letters and returned to his bed to slip at last into a welcome sleep.

  >>TELL ME WHAT TO DO.

  ***

  “Sulking time’s over, Kearn.” The Social Engineer’s grating voice was an unwanted intrusion in the silence of Kearn’s darkened quarters.

  Kearn swiveled in his chair to face the entry, where Fyat stood framed in soft light flooding in from the corridor.

  “Time to contact Sallat and arrange the fugitive’s transfer,” Fyat said.

  “There won’t be any transfer,” Kearn answered dully.

  Zerouali stood a step behind the assassin, an aloof watcher in shadow, as if her own fate weren’t the topic of discussion.

  “There will be,” Fyat insisted. “We are out of options and the choice is simple. We sacrifice one for the many. I remind you that I will be on the winning side no matter what. If your prospects grow dim I simply have to honor my orders and liquidate your crew. Command will never know I was anything but loyal.”

  “Maybe,” Kearn replied from the darkness. “Then again maybe they’ll believe the recording I made a while ago of Coleridge spilling everything about you two. If it’s part of her cover, then no problem I guess--but if not, I don’t think your masters would be pleased.”

  “You’re bluffing.”

  “Could be. You’re welcome to scour the ship and find out. See, I know a thing or two about leverage myself.”

  “So it would seem,” Fyat returned. “The Interim fears that even in death you might unleash forces that would destroy them.”

  “The Interim’s fears are no concern of mine,” Kearn said.

  Fyat stalked deeper into the room. “You are the discoverer of the thing from which the Interim derives its power,” Fyat said. “They assume the worst, that you managed to keep some Drive cores, and maybe more, fo
r yourself. That even in death you could destroy their monopoly by means of a failsafe. That is why they haven’t risked an attack, and why they consent to bargain with you.”

  Kearn wasn’t sure how much of what Fyat said was common knowledge within the Interim, and how much he’d learned from accessing the incomplete Halo logs in datastores. Though Kearn’s instructions to unlock the logs had been intended for Zerouali, the assassin’s spymotes were everywhere and he had almost certainly overheard.

  Listening silently to Fyat now, Kearn affected disinterest. Even with so many cards already on the table, he couldn’t afford to let anything slip. As an adversary Fyat could not be overestimated.

  “If any such failsafe exists,” the assassin continued, “you would be wise to tell me about it. Fleet’s hesitation will only last so long. At some point the implied threat must become real. My contingency orders to capture you prove their willingness to take a calculated risk.”

  As Fyat went on, Kearn grew increasingly tense. Finally, in an instant of the closest thing he’d felt to clarity for quite some time, he realized why. He knew what game this killer was playing. And worse--it was not just him but Zerouali, too. How could he have been so lazy and careless as to think he had fooled the most powerful force in all of human history?

  While Kearn silently cursed himself, Fyat droned on.

  “Properly handled, your leverage can get us all safely out of this system.”

  Kearn fought to cool himself. He needed a level head to confront the unshakable, almost robotic Fyat.

  “Your only hope to emerge safely from this crisis,” the assassin continued, and his words only confirmed Kearn’s newfound conclusions, “lies in full disclosure.”

  With hard-fought calm, Kearn stared up at Fyat from his chair. “I understand now,” he said. Then to Zerouali: “He knew right where to find you when he came aboard, didn’t he? Not one bit of this is coincidence. Every event of the past two days was arranged for my benefit. It’s all just to find out whether or not I managed to keep any Artifact tech for myself. If I do have a so-called ‘failsafe,’ you two learn how to neutralize it. If not, you kill me. Clever.”