by Scott Baron
Unfortunately for Charlie, the cutter was a fairly bulky piece of equipment, and odds were the unfamiliar aliens wouldn’t have the first idea how to dismantle it to bring along. Judging by the gear they’d amassed so far, he thought that assessment was a likely one.
For the better part of the day the Tslavar stacked up piles of broken equipment. Captain Tür sorted through the potential salvage with disgust. Almost none of it seemed to have much value to his untrained eyes. Strange magic that he could not figure out how to use.
Charlie wondered if he should try to convince them to let him help select items of value in hopes of secreting aboard something that might help him free Rika and the others. But no one came to see him all day, save the lone collar-wearing slave who brought them a cup of water and plate of surprisingly flavorful porridge of some sort.
She was, Charlie noted, a stocky being with thick hair and a curvy, rather human shape. That, however, was where the similarities ended. Her orange-hued skin was definitely other-worldly.
“I’m Charlie, and this is Tuktuk. What’s your name?” he asked as the woman stopped short of the invisible door barrier and slid a pair of hovering trays into their cell.
Now that’s a neat trick, he noted.
The orange girl looked as if she was about to speak, but the runes on the slender band around her neck began to glow. She quickly turned and walked away.
“She no talk now. Used to talk much. Share news. Tslavars no like, so now she have make-quiet spell on her. Talking cause much pain.”
Charlie found the idea quite offensive. “Bastards,” he muttered. “But at least they feed us pretty well.”
“You think this good?” Tuktuk asked as he ate his portion, seemingly offended.
“Not bad, for prison food.”
Tuktuk snorted a laugh. “Is amateur. I far greater cook. But they no let Tuktuk in kitchen. Say I fill others’ heads with nonsense.”
“You?” Charlie said with a little laugh. “No offense, but you’re not the most subversive of speakers.”
“Is just bad translation spell.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Back on my world, I great speaker. I poet.”
“A poet?” he said, eyeing the blue man. “You? Really?”
“Yes, really. Among my people, many say I quite articulate.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” he replied, taking a sip from his cup. “Eww, this is not tasty.”
“Tslavar no use good spells for slave water. Us get cheap stuff.”
“I wish they’d let us have the water we found. It was delicious, I tell you, but those assholes kicked the containers over. Such a waste.”
The alien looked at him curiously, a strange look on his face. “You say you find water here?”
“Yeah, a tiny puddle in the desert,” Charlie said, a bit unsettled by the alien’s sudden interest. “But we drained it all, so there’s none left.”
He didn’t know why he felt the need to hide the continued existence of their discovery, but given all that had happened in the past twelve hours, Charlie thought it wise to play his cards close to the vest.
“Is impossible,” Tuktuk said. “No water in Balamar Wasteland. Not for hundreds of years.”
“Well, we found some, but it wasn’t much.”
“You no understand, Charlee. Much bad magic here. Great visla killed in wartimes. When Visla Balamar die, his whole realm made desert.”
That would explain the stone structures, he realized. So they actually were buildings. But some war wiped them out hundreds of years ago.
“It must’ve been some fluke, then. Just condensation in the rocks or something,” Charlie said, keeping the glowing cistern secret for the time being.
Shouting erupted outside.
“That’s Omid!” He dropped his food and rushed to the window.
He couldn’t see all that was happening, but from his vantage point he was afforded a clear view of his injured crewmates being roughly dragged together next to the piles of gear.
“What the hell are they doing?”
Tuktuk leaned in and looked out the window. “Sorting. Determining value.”
“They intend to sell us, then?”
“Of course. But them injured.”
“So? They’ll heal. I treated them, splinted their breaks.”
“No understand this word. Splinting?”
“Helping a bone heal.”
“Then why they not healed?”
“Well, it takes time for bones to set and regrow.”
“No, does not. Spell bind break immediate-like. But very pricey.”
A sinking feeling hit Charlie’s stomach, along with a horrible realization. “They’re weighing the value of their lives versus the cost to heal them?”
Tuktuk didn’t bother answering the obvious.
Captain Tür reached into one of the pouches on his belt and slid the slaap over his fingers.
“No!” Charlie shouted against the muffling field covering the window. “They’re getting better! I can help treat them! Don’t––”
“Hokta!”
The guttural word and accompanying blast of deadly energy from the alien’s hand cut him off. Captain Tür repeated the process three more times, until Winnie, Omid, Sven, and Siobhan lay dead on the red soil. The elf-looking alien then directed his men which salvage to bring to the ship and walked away, leaving the bodies to the elements.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The red sun had dipped toward the horizon, the light shifting gradually from orange to yellow as its paler twin remained high in the sky. The Tslavar workers had discarded most of the salvage, then loaded the remaining bits and bobs they thought might fetch some coin onto their ship.
Locked inside the vessel, Charlie was beside himself with grief, but as the hours passed, his pain rapidly shifted to a growing anger.
“How long until they let us out of these cells?” he asked from his cot. “They can’t keep us in here forever.”
“No sure,” Tuktuk replied. “Depending how far fly to next planet. Maybe gather more slaves, maybe go to sell us.”
That got Charlie’s attention.
“Another planet? But this ship doesn’t have anything that remotely looks like a space drive system. In fact, I didn’t see any visible propulsion means on this ship at all. Maybe it has atmospheric capabilities, but how would it even break out of the exosphere?”
“I not understand all the words, but Tuktuk believe meaning is clear. This ship is fast. Very strong. Has many Drook on board.”
“What’s a Drook?”
“Is spell caster. Person of power. Mesters, even emmik, sometimes.”
“Mesters are like wizards, right? But what’s an emmik?”
“Is more powerful than mester. Only below visla, but for visla, death is preferred to being slave. But many emmik and mester captured in battles. Wars lost. Them become slave. Get collar, like this, but much more stronger. Keep them from using magic. Them only able to cast specific spells.”
“Wait a minute. You’re saying this ship is powered by a bunch of shackled wizards, casting spells for propulsion like a bunch of hamsters on a wheel?”
“What is hamster?
“It’s a small animal that runs nowhere on a wheel for hours and hours. An analogy for expending energy but accomplishing nothing.”
“But we go somewhere. Drook race that have power to make fly, and Captain Tür have many Drook on his ship. Even backups, for to if should badness happen.”
“Yeah, sorry, I’m calling bullshit on that one,” Charlie said. "There’s got to be a logical, scientific explanation. Like the slaap, for example. It looks like a voice-activated weapon, but that doesn’t make it magic.”
“Is made work by power user. You see.”
“I saw a man with a gun, even if it didn’t look like one I’d ever seen before.”
“You strange man, Charlee. No believe what you see. It always been this way. Power to fly, power to fight, power to heal, this i
s how is across this galaxy. Each solar system gives different power.”
“Wait, that’s like some Clark Kent stuff, there. The sun gives you all powers?”
“Oh, not. Of course, no.”
“Whew, for a minute there I was thinking––”
“Only some have powers. Vast majority just normal people. Only very few born with them. Rest of us pay power people for them help us. Charge devices, do work at houses, that sort of thing.”
“You’re saying these people run your planets? Your whole world uses this ‘magic’ instead of technology? Instead of science?”
“I thinked you say science was like magic.”
“Well, it seems that way sometimes, but it’s just science in the end. There’s even an old Earth saying: ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’”
“Strange talking. You say it magic, then it is not. Seems obvious.”
Charlie noticed a nearly imperceptible vibration in the ship, traveling up the floor to his hard cot. There was no sound, no sensation beyond that, but something was definitely happening.
“You feel that?”
“Feel what?”
“That vibration.”
“Is nothing. We leaving now.”
Charlie jumped to his feet and went to the window. Though he felt no G-forces from liftoff, the ship, indeed, was airborne, rapidly ascending into the sky. The force field across the window opening prevented any wind or loss of pressure, but visually, it was just a hole in the ship’s hull. It was hard to ignore the sensation that he was about to be sucked out at any minute.
Higher and higher the ship soared, until the wreck site below was just a speck. That’s when Charlie saw the reality of their situation.
“Sonofa––” he muttered. “Of all the places to crash.”
From what he could tell, Tuktuk had been telling the truth about Visla Balamar and his great war. The desert wasteland he’d been toiling in was no more than fifty miles across, a shallow red crater where something had taken place. Something awful, by the look of it.
It wasn’t a ring of mountains bordering the dusty, red desert. A blast had forced the soil and stones to the periphery. And Charlie had somehow crashed right in the center of it.
“It’s so green,” he said, eyes darting across the vast expanse of lush forests and clear lakes spanning the planet. “And you say Balamar’s place was like that, too?”
“Oh, it were much nicer. Him very powerful visla. Was great healer and loved by many. Even spoke with Zomoki and other creatures. Many fought on his side during war. Was much good man.”
“So what happened? You said everyone liked this guy.”
“Not every. Many visla and emmik who very bad want to take from Balamar. Steal him powers.”
“Wait, they wanted to steal his power source.”
“In manner of talking. But Balamar wise. Him spend much power create way to tap source and create more power. Him said to found way to heal even a visla like him. To no die. Was secret. A rumor. But bad men want for themselves.”
“So they did what tyrants have done since forever when they find someone stronger than they are. They joined forces.”
“Exactly. Even then, was too great power them to overcome. Finally them decide if they can not tap the flow, no one can. Them spend years storing powers, then hours casting worst spell. Take turns, use many Ootaki, building bigger and bigger until finally they overwhelm even Visla Balamar.”
“The crater.”
“Yes. Was terrible spell, and them not expect it to do so much destroy. Power flow was destroyed along with Visla Balamar. Along with millions of people.”
“That’s horrific,” Charlie said.
A jolt knocked him to his cot.
“What was that?”
“We leave air shell. Guess we going to another world now.”
“That was us passing through the atmosphere?” Charlie said, moving back to the window. Sure enough, they were in space, and the only thing keeping him from dying in the vacuum was some invisible barrier over the window.
“Ship should not have bumped. Captain Tür will be angry with the Drooks on duty. Maybe punish.”
“For a little turbulence powering through the atmosphere? Hell, where I’m from, anyone would be thrilled for so smooth a flight.”
“No Captain. Him very particu––”
The blue man’s eyes went wide on their stalks.
Charlie turned to see Captain Tür himself standing outside his cell, watching him with an appraising eye.
“Your people are most unusual,” he said, ignoring Tuktuk and casually walking into the room, untouched by the force field blocking the door. “Your craft. So cumbersome. So inelegant. And absolutely full of useless clutter and debris.”
Charlie noted he could understand the lithe elfish man clearly. Sonofabitch uses the good tech for himself, I see.
“You saw it in less than perfect condition. We crashed,” Charlie replied. “It was a very rough landing.”
“Yes, I am aware. I wonder, however, where were your Drooks? We searched the vessel and found no sign of them.”
“We use engines. Fuel. Reactors. That’s how we power our ship. Or did, before we crashed, anyway.”
“Pity. A fresh clutch of Drooks would fetch a sizable price in this system. All told, your salvage was quite pitiful, but now that you’re awake again, I was hoping at least you might at least have some worth.”
“I’m not for sale. You can’t just take people and force them into slavery.”
At this Captain Tür laughed, though the edge in his eyes was anything but friendly.
“I can do whatever I please. And now, what I please is to see how much value is in your pink hide.”
Without warning he uttered a phrase and blasted Charlie with his slaap. Charlie tried to dodge, but he wasn’t quick enough, the blast sending him flying across the small cell into the wall. It wasn’t a powerful blow this time, but it still stung something fierce.
Charlie climbed back to his feet, a small trickle of blood running down his temple. He glared at the alien with undisguised hatred.
“Hmm. Resilient, at least. And decently quick on your feet. I may have use for you yet,” Tür said, then walked out the door.
“Wait. What about the other crew? My shipmate, when can I see her?”
“She will be assessed further. Perhaps she has value as well. If not, at least she can gain us some coin as a meal for the Zomoki at the Buru Markets.”
The green alien turned and was gone.
“What’s the matter, Tuktuk?” Charlie asked, wiping the blood from his head. The cut was tiny, he felt, but the head was vascular, and it certainly did tend to bleed.
“Did you not hear? They are taking us to the Buru Markets on Gilea. There most are sold for hard labor.”
“Well, then. We’ll just have to see about getting ourselves free first.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Interstellar travel aboard a “magic”-powered ship was not something Charlie ever thought he’d be a part of, but as they traveled farther into space, he found himself marveling at the strange technology, whatever it was. Call it magic, call it science, it didn’t matter, so long as he didn’t suffocate or freeze to death in the inky void.
As they distanced themselves from the verdant world on whose lone desert Charlie had managed to crash, he got a better look at the solar system in which they’d arrived so unexpectedly. It was exhilarating despite the ordeal.
Planets and their moons flew past as they moved at an incredible rate of speed. The suns at the center were a red dwarf and a yellow dwarf, each reasonably sized and locked in proximity by each other’s pull.
The yellow sun burned brighter, but that was to be expected, as red dwarfs typically had far less mass than other stars, as well as a greatly lowered rate at which they used their hydrogen stores. The orange glow of the combined stars was beautiful, and it reached all the way to the farthest
of the dozen planets Charlie had managed to count.
“We’re moving so fast,” he marveled. “Yet the ship doesn’t even vibrate. There’s not even a hum.”
“Me tell you, Captain Tür have many Drook pushing ship. Very fast, but we go much more faster when out of system. Then we jump, most likely.”
“Faster?”
“Oh, yes. Is only because of closeness of suns we cannot go full speed yet. Powers of them make Drooks weaker.”
“Is this some sort of Kryptonite thing?” Charlie joked.
“What is Kiptoneet?”
“Nothing. Just a thing from home. There’s a guy, and he has all these powers, but if he comes across a piece of his former planet, it saps his power.”
“Oh, then no, is not Kiptoneet.”
“Didn’t think so.”
“Is sun that lower power, not piece of planet.”
“Seriously?”
“Drooks almost always from blue sun system. Blue make them develop push and pull powers more than others. That why blue systems first to be invaded. Drooks valuable. Very powerful, but not in war-make way.”
Charlie found himself almost wanting to believe the odd creature’s stories, at least part of them. Maybe there really were fuel sources in solar systems with blue stars. Blue giants burned at over twenty thousand Kelvin. Blue supergiants could hit forty. There was a theory that even hotter suns were out there, blasting out radiation so intense it even surpassed blue and ultraviolet, but they had never actually been observed.
Solar radiation. He mulled over the possibilities. Well, I suppose certain materials could absorb the rays and be used as a fuel source. Earth digs up liquefied dinosaurs and radioactive rocks, after all. These Drooks are probably the ones who know how to refine it, is all. He looked at the blue-skinned alien sharing his cell. My guess is my buddy Tuktuk, here, is just some hick who believes every tall tale he’s told.
“Hey, Tuktuk. What about other kinds of stars?” he asked, wanting to test a theory. “Do they have powers too?”
“Oh, yes. Red suns are very, very old. Slow fire in them. Longevity. Them give deep, life fix power.”
“Like healing?”
