“What did you hope to find?” I asked, trying to keep my anger in check. It wasn’t going to do any good to be hot-headed. I needed to be on the same page as the Keppe to get Magnus and Nat back in one piece.
“Dean, we’re tired of war, as I know you are. You’re building something new with your Alliance…”
I cut Crul off. “Our Alliance. Remember, the Keppe were there on the ground level by our side.”
Crul kept going. “As were the Shimmal” – he glanced at Suma – “and the Bhlat.” He almost spat out their name. “We want to discover new worlds beyond our previous reach, don’t you understand that?”
I did and told him as much. “That’s why we have the Gatekeepers, Lord Crul. Rulo is part of us, and we can explore as much as we need to…”
“Only with the help of the portal stones, which, from what I’ve been told, aren’t going to be around forever,” Lord Crul said, and I noticed his gaze darting to where Karo sat, before coming to focus on me.
Crul was informed; I had to give the old Keppe that. I felt like everything was being delayed, and I wanted to go over to Crul and squeeze the details from his mind. “Continue, please,” I said through clenched teeth.
He motioned to Kimtra, who tapped her device again, and the image changed to a star map. “Magnus’ crew sent us daily updates. Once they were past what we’d call ‘charted space,’ the messages came more infrequently, and we weren’t sure our communication was even getting relayed to them. It didn’t surprise us at all, seeing how we’d never been there, and they were reporting irregularities.”
“What type of irregularities?” Suma interjected.
“A few minor things, but enough that they were adding up.” Kimtra sped along the line of Fortune’s trajectory, and eventually, it stopped moving; a red light blinked near a planet. “This is where our mapping ended, but we did receive a few more sporadic transmissions, spread out until almost a month ago.”
A month. That was about the right timing as when I’d last spoken to Magnus. He hadn’t mentioned anything out of the ordinary.
“And what did you learn from those transmissions?” Karo asked, finally engaged in the conversation. He was leaning forward, his white hair contrasting against his black uniform.
Kimtra stared at the Theos for a moment, probably unsure what he was, and answered him. “They found a system without a star. Four planets were orbiting something, but the star that had to have been there was…”
“Vanished?” I said out loud, even though I hadn’t meant to.
“That’s right. We didn’t hear from them again,” Crul said. “We don’t have the exact location of this system, because the map ends here.” He motioned to the planet where the red light blinked on the 3D map.
“Why have you waited to do anything about it?” I asked.
“Look, Parker, we have a lot going on. Billions of people, colonies, at least a dozen exploration vessels scouring the universe in search of answers and undiscovered life. We hoped they would resurface and everyone would go on, happy and healthy.”
“But they haven’t.” I put my hands behind my head and flopped on the chair, letting out stale air from my lungs.
“But they haven’t,” Crul reiterated.
“How quickly can we make it there?” I asked point-blank.
“They took a roundabout way to arrive at that point.” Kimtra showed us on the map. “If you cut this way, avoiding system 8X36, you can get there in twelve months.”
I stood up. A cushion flew to the side, knocking my drink over. “Twelve months! We can’t wait twelve months. There has to be another way!” My head was reeling, thinking of a way, a portal, a wormhole, anything that would allow us fast access to Magnus’ last known location.
Suma raised her hand, her snout flipping back and forth. “Dean. I know of a portal closer to there, but the people are… a little odd. At least, that’s what my research tells me.”
I didn’t like the sounds of that. “How close?” I asked, knowing she’d understand what I meant.
“Two months with our standard hyperdrive. The world is the farthest portal world on record in that vicinity. It’s listed as the edge of the universe in the study material,” Suma said.
“The edge of the universe.” Karo’s eyes were alive as he spoke. “Dean, what other choice do we have?”
“None, it appears. Tell us what you know about these people on the other end of the portal,” I urged Suma, not excited to again venture through the stones so quickly after they’d failed us. I only hoped the device J-NAK gave us would continue to work.
Suma stood and began telling the room everything she knew about the race nicknamed the Traders.
____________
Someone knocked on my door, and even though I was running on fumes, I wasn’t sleeping quite yet. My thoughts were drifting over the day’s events and where tomorrow would take us. At least we were one step closer to discovering where Magnus and Natalia were, and that kept me going.
I was in the same room Mary and I had shared with our newborn Jules a couple of years ago while we waited to go home through the Keppe portal back to New Spero, and the late-night knock was oddly familiar.
Last time, it was Rulo, and as I opened the door after covering up with one of the beige robes everyone seemed to be wearing, I was startled to find Kimtra waiting there for me to answer.
“Kimtra, what is it?” I asked. One of the devices strapped to her arms translated quietly, and she pointed inside my room. After peeking my head out the doorway and scanning the residential halls to find them empty, I waved her in and turned on the light to a comfortable level.
She closed the door behind her, and I could instantly tell she was nervous, not her normal cool, calculated self.
“Dean, I’m worried about a few things,” she said, and I motioned for her to have a seat. The room was like a suite you’d find in an expensive hotel. The bed was in a separate room, then a comfortable living area with space to hold half a dozen guests. She perched on a couch, and I sat opposite her on a hard chair, leaning toward her instinctively.
“Tell me,” I urged her, anxious for what she had to divulge. I still hadn’t slept, and knew we were getting an early start tomorrow, but I’d rather have all the details I could than jump into something missing some pertinent facts.
“The portals are failing, as you’ve indicated. Perhaps Fortune’s disappearance is linked in some way?” She said it like a question, but I didn’t see how that was possible, and told her as much. “I’m not sure. If something that ancient isn’t functioning any longer, then what else out there could falter?”
She was the scientific and mathematical one, so her random speculation caught me off-guard. “Kimtra, you understand this stuff far better than I do. The stones are failing because of the Theos. From what we know about them, the Theos are inside, powering them. When they banished and destroyed the Iskios, isolating them on the crystal world, the Theos thought they were doing the universe a great favor.
“When the Iskios were gone, suddenly, there wasn’t room for the other end of the spectrum. Black holes and other dangerous phenomenon were popping up, and the only way to regain Balance was to make this ultimate sacrifice.”
“They put themselves into the stones, thus regaining the Balance again. Yes, Dean, we know this, but why are they leaving now?” Kimtra asked.
I’d thought a lot about this, and had lengthy discussions with Karo about the subject. “Karo thinks that because the Iskios are gone for good, thrown into another time and place by the Shifter, the Theos, even dead, need to disappear forever to restore universal Balance. They aren’t alive as you or I are, but they do possess an energy.”
“This must be hard on Karo,” she said, and I nodded. Few knew that he was the last remaining Theos alive, but a limited amount of Keppe had been told in secrecy.
“What else? There has to be more for you to look so worried,” I told Kimtra.
She ran a hand over her smoo
th dark head, her teal snake eyes staring at me. “There have been a few reports from other races over the last decade about the area Magnus went into.”
That had my interest piqued, and I cracked my fingers nervously. “What do you mean?”
“We aren’t the first vessel to attempt an exploratory mission into that galaxy. Actually, we’re the fifth in our records,” she said quietly.
My heart raced as I considered her statement. “So why is that important?”
“Only one of the other race’s vessels ever made it home.”
No wonder she was so worked up. I had a bad feeling they hadn’t told Magnus about this risk. “What, so you decided to use the human captain to do your dirty work, because who cares if Magnus and his wonderful family die in the name of science?” I was standing up, shouting the last bit.
Kimtra looked abashed and cowered in her seat. The Keppe were such a strong and proud race that the action was unexpected. “Dean, you have every right to be angry. I was fuming when I found out Crul changed their mission plan. I wanted to reach out to them, and even tried a month ago, right when the transmissions began failing,” she said.
“Convenient timing.” I believed her, but wanted to take my anger out on someone, and she was the only other person in the room. “What’s wrong with the system? Why’s everyone going missing?”
Kimtra met my gaze, her unblinking eyes staring hard into mine. “We don’t know. The ship that left claimed an energy abnormality, and they hightailed it away.”
“What about the story of the missing star? Do you buy it?” I asked.
“If a star went supernova, the planets wouldn’t have much chance of survival. Either way, the supernova went. But from what little we’ve pieced together, these worlds still exist. It doesn’t add up,” Kimtra said.
“But they don’t have any life on them, correct?” I asked, doubtful a planet with no star would survive very long.
“We can’t be certain. If a star vanishes, perhaps a world can survive for a brief time, depending on how advanced they are. We can only speculate.”
“And if you were to make a hypothesis?” I asked.
Kimtra shook her head. “I’d have to say that nothing lives in that solar system any longer.”
These details were only enough for me to know this much: Magnus had unknowingly traveled into a dangerous region, one that the Keppe knew to be risky. It was shaping up to be the Bermuda Triangle out in space, and I was going to be chasing him down and endangering my team at the same time.
I didn’t have a choice. We were going to find out what happened to Magnus and Fortune.
But I still sensed more. “What else?”
“The Traders. They’re unique. Be wary of them, Dean. Don’t make any deals you can’t accept, because even though they appear simple, they have more technology than any other race, including the rich and powerful Garo Alnod, and even the Bhlat. Do not underestimate the Traders,” she warned.
The cautioning words set off alarm bells. “What’s with everyone’s bargains? Magnus needed help to find Mary and me, and the Keppe made Magnus trade three years, and now he’s missing with his family. I land on a damned robot-run world and have to trade the return of their founder in order to leave. Whatever happened to good old-fashioned helping out a neighbor?” It used to be the same way on Earth, and I supposed it was going to be the same throughout this universe. Nothing came without a price, a cost, a deal.
“That’s the way of things, Dean. Don’t be naïve,” Kimtra said. I knew I’d come a long way since the Kraski cubes had lifted everyone away from Earth years ago. But deep down, I was still the same good old American boy who loved baseball and running his own accounting business.
Kimtra stood up, and I walked her out. “Thanks for telling me. I appreciate it.”
She turned and smiled. “Find them, but watch yourself. There’s something in that system that won’t want you to leave, whether it’s sentient or not.”
She started to walk away, and I had to ask, “What happened with you and Admiral Yope?”
“Too many secrets, Dean. Too many secrets,” she said, and kept walking.
Eleven
“How’d everyone sleep?” I asked as we got together in a common room, cordoned off for our use.
Slate was the first to answer, in the midst of doing a set of push-ups. The guy was always working out and making me think I should be too. “Like a baby, after a day playing with blocks and bouncing in one of those chair thingies.”
“I think you spent too much time babysitting Jules, buddy.” I was glad to see my friend cracking jokes. I needed him to be focused and diligent as always, and he performed best when he was happy.
“Karo?” I asked the tall gray-skinned Theos.
“I slept a little, Dean. How about you? You look like you’ve been up all night,” Karo said, and he was right.
“I got a couple of hours,” I lied. After Kimtra left, I’d typed a note to Mary that went on for longer than I’d anticipated, filling her in on every detail I had. I used a code that only she had the key for, so no one would be able to intercept and decipher the message. Mary was going to be angry with the Keppe too, but I’d asked her to keep it in her pocket for the time being.
Then I’d used the Keppe relay system to send the message to her. It would take a day or so to arrive on New Spero, where she was with Jules and Maggie. By then, I hoped to be on a ship heading away from the Traders’ world.
“Sure. Suma?” Karo asked the young Shimmali woman. She appeared animated, and I noticed a pot of Keppe-style coffee.
“I’ve been up for an hour, and I’ve been drinking this… stuff. Dean, you want a cup?” she asked, and I nodded, happy for something to stimulate my brain and make my body feel energetic, even if it was a mask.
W stood at a console, typing away, and I didn’t bother asking what he was doing. Rulo wasn’t there, and she was the last of our group to arrive. The portal stone was beneath the building, and we all wanted to get suited up and transport to our next stop, before starting the real search for Fortune.
The hot drink was slightly bitter, but strong on the tongue, and I sipped at it while eating some Keppe fruit. The world was beyond hot, like Arizona in the middle of summer, all the time. The food they grew outside was hearty and resilient. Everything had a thick protective peel or casing on it, but once you got to the sweet meat within, it was delectable.
I hadn’t told the others the news Kimtra had dropped on me a few hours ago, and wouldn’t until we were at least gone from Oliter. There were too many hotheads here, and I didn’t want this mission blowing up before it began. I already felt like the entire trip was taking far too long, and we were only beginning.
Rulo came from the far end of the hall, with three Keppe trailing behind her. She looked every bit the warrior she was at that moment: armored suit over her large build, her black skin gleaming, her eyes colorful and attentive. For someone so bulky, she moved with a grace that betrayed her size, and I was glad to have her on our team as well as part of our recently expanded Gatekeepers.
The Keppe behind her dropped three packs to the floor with a clunk, and I recalled how much gear Hectal had brought to the tropical island where we found Polvertan. If there was one thing about the Keppe, they were always prepared for whatever came their way. That was why it was a little disconcerting to know they’d purposely sent Magnus and the others head-first into danger.
I peered over to Slate, who rolled his eyes. “Maybe we should find Hectal. I don’t want to carry all of that.”
“We’ll assist you, Slate,” Karo said.
W walked over to Rulo’s side and reached for a pack handle, easily lifting it in the air. “Captain, I am able to carry these if you so please.”
I grinned at Slate, and he laughed in return. “Good call on bringing the robot, boss. Finally, I can save myself some pain.”
Rulo glanced over at me, holding my gaze for a second before gesturing to the rest of the gr
oup. “The portals await us. Let’s get on with this,” she said, and we followed her through the white marble halls, down the stairs, past the guards, and into the portal room.
Suma held up the device J-NAK had created for us. “Are we going to use this?”
Karo knelt at the glowing stone, and when he touched it, the crystal dimmed and pulsed faintly. “I suggest we do. I’m not sure how long they’ll be around.” Karo didn’t have to tell us who they were.
Suma lowered the panel, activated the table and screen, and together we searched for the icon Suma knew to belong to the Traders world. They were actually named something else, but from what Suma understood, everyone called them some version of the word, and never their race’s real name. It was simple enough for me.
Their symbol found, we switched to the Modifier, matching the icon.
Our mixed group stood around the portal stone and table, wearing our EVA suits, weapons quickly in hand, with enough supplies for three months. I really hoped it would be less time, but one thing I’d learned was that things rarely worked out like you wanted them to.
Suma waited for me to do the honors, and I tapped the icon, silently urging the stone to bring us where we needed to go. When the light lowered again, dozens of creatures hurried into the strange new portal room.
I jumped away, and so did Suma, leaving Rulo and Slate to step forward, each of them raising their guns. “Stop where you are!” Slate shouted, and we didn’t know if the locals understood him or not. They held firm, and I got a good look at them.
Junk was everywhere. Metal bits stuck to their clothing; the walls of the room were covered in welded cast-off material, forming into the symbols and hieroglyphs like every other portal room. They were oddly humanoid: short, stocky, and pale with bulbous noses, like gnomes who had a penchant for too much ale. Every one of them wore outfits comprised of miscellaneous garbage, but when I looked closer, I saw steel in their gazes. These weren’t seven simple little dwarfs, they were hard negotiating Traders, and each of them also had an assortment of jumbled weaponry on their bodies.
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