Four Tomorrows: A Space Opera Box Set

by James Palmer

  “Thanks for your help,” Bal said. He turned and walked away from the small Riorlan, but abruptly halted when he heard Rebani say, “Before we leave, I’d like your expert opinion about this.”

  Hairs on the back of his neck bristling, Bal turned to see the Sabour handing his gem to Pyx.

  “The Sacred Heart!” gasped the Riorlan. He took the crystal in one small, pink hand, and his oblong face tightened suddenly, then relaxed sadly. “This isn’t the Heart.”

  Rebani’s left eyebrow raised in surprise.

  “How do you know that?” asked Bal in a shocked tone.

  Pyx blinked twice. “I can feel it,” he explained. “It looks like the Heart; in fact, it’s a very good imitation, very good, but it’s not the Heart. Of that, I have no doubt. No doubt at all.”

  As Bal digested this news, Pyx handed the gem back to Rebani. “The angles are also wrong, now that I have observed it. Yes, all wrong.”

  “Do you know what the inscription means?” asked Rebani.

  “No idea,” replied Pyx in his shrill little voice. “No idea at all. Although I was curious.”

  “If I may ask,” said the Sabour, “why didn’t you ever allow the Heart to be examined?”

  The Riorlan blushed and snorted. “I don’t know how to tell you this and have it make sense, but I’ll try: The Heart didn’t want to be examined. Really it didn’t.”

  “I see,” said Rebani, as if the explanation made perfect sense to him. “Thank you for your time, Doctor. Farewell.”

  5 In Which a Snake

  Slithers from the Grass

  Years ago ...

  The trade ship Tiree was a boxy, ugly vessel. It had been referred to in a derogatory manner by nearly every spacefarer who had laid eyes upon her, and not unjustly so. She was a hundred years out of date, a flying relic whose best days were long since behind her. There was no doubt that the most valuable thing about her was her bdellium core, the energy source that powered the ship.

  Over Bal’s protest, the Sabour led the way from the chamber. “You’re just going to accept that?”

  “Pyx has told us all he knows. There is no more to be learned here.”

  The two departed Dr. Jardin Fackler Pyx’s home, each with their own thoughts about the Sacred Heart.

  The engine room of the Tiree was always an active place. Among hums and beeps, the crew – all three of them – kept busy making minor repairs and monitoring equipment that would soon need repair. Captain Tanzas, her skipper, was a minor figure at best in the annals of space travel, and it was his misfortune to own a ship that swallowed all of its profits in repair costs. But Tanzas flew the spaceways, and there was no substitute in all the Milky Way for that experience.

  A Tethpanic, Tanzas was a large being, dusky-skinned, broad-faced with two small tusks, one of which was sawed off, peeking out from his lower lip. A gold ring pierced one grayish flap of an ear high atop his head. Small, beady eyes nervously examined the metal box in the small hold of the Tiree.

  Tanzas didn’t know what was in the box. It was sealed, and covered by a leather carrying case. He knew only that it was to be delivered to the University on Pherticon. And that a feeling of dread had settled on the normally jovial captain soon after taking the case on board.

  That had been several days ago.

  Captain Tanzas’ instructions had been simple: Don’t open the box; deliver the box to the University of Pherticon; don’t tell anyone about this delivery before, during or after the journey. In return for this simple task, Tanzas was to be paid enough to replace – not repair, mind you, but replace – every worn component of his propulsion system.

  It was too good to be true, thought Captain Tanzas. He had said so aloud.

  No, the box does not contain anything illegal, he was told. Nor does it contain anything inherently dangerous, such as radioactives, or explosives, or toxins. In fact, he was assured, the box contained nothing particularly valuable; it was more a matter of urgency than anything else.

  This didn’t sound right to Tanzas, who had much experience dealing with spaceport riff-raff. Still, his instinct told him the unusual cargo – whatever it was – was not illegal. The being who had hired him was not that sort, if Tanzas was any judge of character. If anything, the being had struck him as the scholarly type, speaking in a precise manner usually reserved for teachers and philologists.

  Captain Tanzas peered at the metal box, hidden by its hide carrying case. He ran a pink-and-gray slab of a tongue over his sawed off tusk. Tanzas was sorely tempted to examine the box’s contents. But the thought nagged at him – what if it is dangerous?

  Tanzas realized his tongue was hanging out, and drew it back into his cavern of a mouth.

  A seasoned space traveler got to be a seasoned space traveler by trusting his instincts, Tanzas reminded himself. His instincts were telling him the box represented a terrible danger. Of what kind, he did not know. But he felt it, deep in his bones. The box was plain, and unmarked, giving no hint as to its contents.

  An alarm claxon, loud and piercing, sounded.

  Something told Tanzas to grab the box, take it some place safe.

  Unable to control his fear, Tanzas bellowed loudly, and turned, and ran back into the hold, stumbling once against a bulkhead in the darkness. He retreated to a corner of the large chamber that he found by touch and luck.

  The hissings followed Tanzas into the hold, and crept nearer until the noise blocked out even his own thoughts. Tanzas cried out as a sharpness tore at his flesh. He struck back at his attacker, but came into contact with nothing. The stabbing pain pierced Tanzas again, and large limbs flailing wildly as he struggled vainly against his bodiless foe, the sharpness bit into him at several points on his skin, rending the thick, dusky flesh. Tanzas cried out in agony as thick, dark blood poured from the wounds. Every time he struck at the attack the sharpness was gone. Tanzas felt as though he was being eaten alive. His screams drowned out the loud hissing. And then Captain Tanzas saw blackness, permanently.

  The hissings faded away as a short, dark being strode into the hold. Ignoring the darkness, he went to Tanzas’ corpse, and pried the box from the captain’s grip.

  The dark being opened the box, and dim light poured forth, illuminating his awful features – shiny, hairless head, large round eyes, nearly-absent nose, and whisker-like fins protruding from his jaw. His black skin glistened in the dull light radiating from the interior of the metal box.

  Formless shapes moved in the gloom behind him, undulating restlessly. Ever so softly, they hissed among themselves, careful not to intrude upon their master’s concentration.

  Gripped by an awful fear, Captain Tanzas scooped up the box in two pole-like arms. Though not small, the box seemed to disappear in his grasp, dwarfed by the size of his limbs. Tanzas waddled to the entrance to the hold, waiting for one of his crew to call to him the cause of the alarm.

  No call came.

  Tanzas, cold terror clutching at his very being, crept along the passageway, silently as his great bulk would allow. No sound came from the abovedecks.

  Darkness fell on the passageway.

  A cold sweat broke out on the enormous, hairless forehead of Captain Tanzas. He silently told himself that he was overreacting. There could be any number of reasonable explanations for the events taking place. But somewhere deep inside huge Tanzas, a small, quiet voice told him that death was on its way.

  Tanzas waited for the emergency lighting to switch on, but it did not.

  From somewhere ahead, a hissing sound, like the noise of a snake, startled Tanzas. Another voice joined the first, then another, and another, until a chorus of serpents sang in the passageway.

  Thin lips pulled back over sharp teeth, the dark being hissed at the contents of the metal box. He studied what was inside for long, silent moments, and when he finally spoke, his voice was soft and grating, like sandpaper scraping across wood.

  “You’re not what I expected to find,” the dark being said softly to
the contents of the box, a small gem which glowed as if lit by an inner flame, one face of the crystal covered by runes.

  6 In Which Two Links

  are Forged into a Chain

  The authority of a Sabour was no ephemeral thing. Rebani Kalba had talked with the Director of Planetary Security for Narbossa, and the reports of the officers who had investigated the shield outage and the disturbance at Pyx’s residence were being forwarded to The Vagabond Lady in orbit above Narbossa, where the ungainly ship had withdrawn after the meeting with Dr. Pyx.

  Josef monitored the transmission as the reports came in, and dutifully compiled a program that would systematically analyze the file of reports.

  In his cabin, Bal Tabarin studied the etching he had made of the inscription on the gem. Hunched over the large all-purpose desk that took up most of one wall, he had yet to find a match for the runes on the gemstone with more than a twenty-eight percent accuracy. Lost in thought, he almost didn’t hear the door signal chime.

  The cabin door swished opened with a slight hiss, and Rebani Kalba noiselessly entered the chamber. “Have you had any success translating the inscription?”

  “Contrary to what you may have seen in the holovies,” Bal said ruefully as he turned to face the Sabour, “you don’t just sit down with an unknown language and decipher it like some secret code using a child’s decoder wheel.”

  Bal Tabarin sighed audibly. “And you?”

  “The reports I requested are being received from the Security Office even as we speak,” Rebani replied.

  “This might interest you,” Bal said. He turned back toward the desk.

  With a finger, Bal pressed a flat area on the desk’s console, and a hologram of the gem suddenly appeared in the air, floating silently above the desktop. It rotated slowly, giving observers a full, three-dimensional view of it.

  “The gem from Jabareen,” observed Rebani.

  Bal nodded. His finger moved again, pressing another switch, and a second gem joined the first, dancing an eerie dance beside the other.

  “Pyx’s Sacred Heart,” suggested Rebani.

  “Yes,” confirmed Bal. “Now watch this.”

  At the touch of Bal’s finger on the console, the two floating images moved toward one another, until they met, and joined seamlessly, and moved as one gem.

  “They fit together,” Rebani said, surprise limning his tone.

  Bal Tabarin smiled at the feat of surprising the Sabour.

  “But they’re not halves of a whole,” Bal continued.

  “Which means there are more pieces which fit together,” Rebani said slowly, as he grasped the significance of what Bal meant.

  “Originally, there must have been one gem,” Bal postulated, his tone taking on a scholarly quality. “The inscription was carved onto it, which is why the inscriptions don’t go all the way around either gem, but only across one face. The gem was split, fragmented into perhaps a half a dozen pieces, judging by the size of these two pieces and the way they fit together,” Bal said rapidly, almost to himself, caught up in the scientific aspects of the situation. “But how was it broken? The Sacred Heart was reportedly uncuttable.”

  Bal Tabarin looked directly at Rebani. “We should try to chip a fragment off the gem.”

  “I can’t allow that,” Rebani said gravely.

  “Why not?” protested Bal.

  “It may be ... injurious to the gem.”

  “You talk about that thing like it’s alive,” Bal growled irritably.

  “It may be,” Rebani said in a curious tone. “It’s difficult to be certain. I had intended to take the gem to Brotherhood headquarters to have it more thoroughly examined, but this new information means we must forsake that course of action.”

  “You seem to be forgetting the most pertinent fact,” Bal said pointedly. Rebani raised an eyebrow in curious response.

  “The gem belongs to me,” Bal Tabarin said.

  In a smooth motion so rapid Bal could barely follow it, Rebani, hard-faced, reached inside his jacket, and withdrew a datacard. He flung it at Bal, who deftly caught it in one hand. “That is a voucher for one hundred thousand econs – our original bargain of fifty thousand econs, plus enough to cover any additional expenses you’ve incurred at my behest. You may redeem it at the Order of Voth headquarters on Palinquane. If you’ll return me to the surface, you can then do as you please.”

  A thick silence shrouded the cabin.

  Bal suddenly realized he wanted to find the other missing pieces as badly as the Sabour, albeit for different reasons. Wealth, to be sure. And fame – already his name would grace history texts with the discovery that the Sacred Heart was but one piece of a larger whole. But most importantly, there was History itself, History with a capital “H”. What had broken an unbreakable crystal? And who could imagine what an inscription carved into an uncarveable gem might reveal?

  Bal Tabarin carelessly tossed the datacard voucher back at Rebani. “Keep your money. I’m in this to the end.”

  Bal gazed levelly at the Sabour. “But as equal partners. I’m not your flunky. I have as much to contribute to this as you.”

  “Have I suggested otherwise?” Rebani Kalba bowed slightly to Bal, eyes hooded. “You offered your services to me in exchange for remuneration.”

  “That was then, this is now,” returned the Corruban, whose race was known for its malleable temperament. They were a mercurial race, capable of great rage one moment, and great passion the next.

  “Equal partners,” said the Sabour, and left the cabin.

  Cursing aloud, Bal kicked a chair violently, his blue-gray eyes blazing. Either the Sabour was the most forthright being Bal had ever met, or a master manipulator. Either way, the Corruban wasn’t happy about it. He hated the feeling of having been gotten the better of, and he felt that way now, even though he was getting what he wanted.

  Shortly, Josef signaled that the information from the Security Office had been received in its entirety, and the valet-bot’s program began analyzing the data. An hour later, Bal read the analysis in his cabin, and let out a loud whoop when he read the medical report of the slain shield operator.

  The chime to Rebani’s door sounded, and the Sabour’s voice penetrated the metallic door. “Enter.”

  Bal Tabarin, wearing a cat-that-ate-the-canary smile, entered the cabin, displaying a datacard in one hand. He stopped abruptly when he saw the Sabour.

  Bal watched curiously as Rebani, wearing only his trousers, went through graceful motions, body sheathed in perspiration. Though fluid, the movements were systematic, and obviously of a martial nature, consisting of hand and foot strikes. Judging by the pace of the motions, Bal guessed Rebani was moving at half-speed. A fast half-speed.

  “Derived from the Noghrin kamerat, isn’t it?” Bal observed.

  “Yes,” answered Rebani, without drawing his attention away from his exercises. “Modified for use with the Art.”

  Rebani glanced at Bal. “What you call psionics,” he explained. “Designed to bring spirit and body into alignment, making them an unstoppable force,” the Sabour said. “What have you learned?”

  “How did you know – never mind,” Bal said. He went to a small desk that was little more than a holovisor, and inserted the datacard into a slot designed for it. A chronology of events on Narbossa appeared on the holovisor screen.

  “The computer compiled this chronology,” Bal explained, leaning against the small desk. “The time of death for Aldous Drim – that was the name of the shield operator – is approximate. So naturally I read the medical examiner’s report, and do you know what I found?

  “The time of death was never fully established because it closely coincided with time Aldous Drim was last seen leaving his post. It was assumed that he was killed shortly after lowering the shield. Of course, since no connection was made between the burglary at Pyx’s residence and the shield lowering because Pyx told no one of it, Drim had no apparent motivation for lowering the shield. But we know othe
rwise because of Pyx’s story, if we can trust that. It seems as though he was betrayed by him who hired Drim to lower the shield in order to burglarize Pyx, as Pyx suggested. And, as Pyx suggested, monetary gain was the only obvious motivation for Aldous Drim to lower the shield.”

  “That makes sense doesn’t it?” Rebani asked.

  “Of course. But I hate loose ends, so I had the ship’s holo-doctor estimate a more precise time of death based on the medical examiner’s report. And do you know what it came up with?”

  Bal Tabarin paused for Rebani to answer – or for dramatic effect – and continued. “Aldous Drim died before he lowered the shield.”

  Bal observed the slight hitch in Rebani’s movement with pleasure. “Interesting, wouldn’t you agree?”

  The Sabour halted his motions, and looked directly at Bal. “I would. How accurate is your holo-doc?”

  “Accurate enough,” answered Bal, shrugging. “But just to be sure, I asked Narbossa’s medical examiner to re-examine his report. He agrees with the holo-doc, and apologizes for his lapse in professional judgment at not being more thorough the first time. It seemed open and shut to him. As it was probably intended.”

  “So where does that leave us?” asked Rebani, between deep breaths, as he started his cooling-down stretches.

  “With a very good imposter. Although Aldous Drim’s co-workers did notice he was more withdrawn than usual, none suspected he wasn’t himself – literally,” Bal said. “The imposter probably kept to himself in order not to give himself away.”