Auggie Gorrizán loaded his pipe with the last of his tobacco. The King Bat was still down in the Well, but he ignored the risks and opened the aft-viewport shutters anyway. He struck a match and puffed, watching the thin streaks of violet and gold swirl outside the starship. The tobacco was from a good crop, he told himself. Better than most grown in a deep-space hydroponic farm. It’d be at least another standard day until the old freighter docked at the Avakian highport. On any other voyage, he’d try to ration his supply. But he smoked and enjoyed the rare moment of time alone. A killer was onboard. Tomorrow, he might be dead.
A green light flashed atop the metal squawk-box on the wall.
“Auggie, are you in engineering?”
He flicked a toggle switch on the main-control panel.
“What can I do for you, doctor.”
“I’m in my clinic.”
“And I think that’s a great place for you to be.”
He listened to a long burst of white noise from the speaker. The ship-wide intercom was among the numerous outdated systems and instrument consoles onboard the King Bat. Ancient, but functional.
“Well?” the doctor finally said. “I’m waiting.”
Auggie puffed hard, filling his lungs before letting the smoke roll out slowly through his nose. He tapped the contents of his pipe into a small metal tin he kept in the tool locker beside the control panel. He waited a little longer then flicked the intercom switch and said he was on his way.
“Hurry,” the doctor said. “We have a dinner to prepare for and I’ve no desire for this meal to be my last. And what have I told you about smoking? Or looking outside? You’ll turn into an imbecile.”
Three years in the Allied navy, eight in the Exploration Corps, Auggie knew all about the risk of staring too long into the alternate dimension known as the Well. He’d had shipmates who experienced constant night terrors, at least one went mad, trying to make sense of what they saw. A kaleidoscopic swirl of exotic particles, exquisite, grotesque and foreboding, which the human brain lacked the capacity to fully comprehend. Auggie limited himself to brief peeks, often when he needed to think. And when he tried to describe it, almost no one believed him.
He’d gone to engineering in the first place to listen to the rhythm of the main drives. To locate the source of an irregular knock nagging him for weeks. But he tightened all the manifold valves. Inspected the intake coils for fuel and radiation leaks and found none. Auggie decided to take another crack at the problem when they reached the starport. If they made it. It’d been more than a standard century since the King Bat rolled off the assembly line. Always the risk her hull would shatter while dropping out of the Well. If he’d botched the navigation coordinates, deep-space salvage hunters might discover the ship adrift in an uncharted system. Passengers and crew mummified in their vacuum suits.
In the entertainment vids, starship engine rooms were dark, grimy compartments, with steam venting from leaky pipes. All for dramatic effect. Hard to troubleshoot and fix components that couldn’t be seen, the reason Auggie made sure the King Bat’s engineering sections were kept well-lit and tidy. Before leaving, he checked to make sure the powerplant still held a full charge. Then he walked a lap through the upper-drive compartment, ducking under all the cables and ventilation tubing. Wiped a few grease spots off the floor tiles with the rag dangling from the back pocket of his olive-drab coveralls. He nearly forgot to close the aft-viewport shutters before opening the iris valve and climbing through, heading forward. The overhead LEDs automatically switched off and he heard the air purifier kick on, inhaling the lingering pipe smoke, spicy and sweet, like a marinade. The scent made him think of the important dinner they’d planned. What might be on the menu. If he or his crewmates would end up as an appetizer or the main course.
* * *
The League of Allied Planets boasted the most fantastic merchant fleet in the history of galactic spaceflight. Starships bearing the Exploding Moon crisscrossed between tens of thousands of worlds, satisfying the needs and cravings of trillions. From the last outposts of the once-mighty Terran Federation to the Mazulo Frontier, the Axis of Loch’Mai, and Kingdom of Infinite Stars, across the Islands of the Vast Empty into the Colonies of Exile, the scattered planets loyal to the Supreme Minister and, unofficially, even the Verboti Republic at the edge of the known galaxy.
A massive interstellar commerce armada, protected by Allied battle fleets, functioning to keep the trade routes safe, efficient, and flowing. No one in the halls of Parliament, or minister’s inner circle, wanted a repeat of The Era of Emptiness brought about by the Rebellion of Royals, when order and industry collapsed and entire star systems, isolated from their neighbors, starved.
The corporations controlled the bulk of this trade and the profits for ensuring civilization endured. They delivered foodstuffs, livestock, technology, culture, information, and passengers to the established worlds, negotiated trade deals with the newcomers. Their huge freighters fitted with drives enabling the vessels to travel several parsecs during a single trip down the Well, and cavernous cargo holds able to carry enough goods to resupply a bustling metropolis.
The King Bat was not one of those ships.
A Model T-5 cargo and passenger hauler resembling a massive shipping container, fitted with a nose cone and tail fin, pair of short, horizontal stabilizers, two thrust pods mounted on top. The streamlined hull was rated for atmosphere and measured roughly forty-meters-long, twenty-three meters across, three decks tall. The cargo bay could only hold about sixty tons, a trade-off for larger fuel tanks. There were seven passenger staterooms—six built for double occupancy. This model featured a retractable defense turret inside the belly, mostly for peace of mind. Before the shipyards on Trossario shut down, civilian merchant craft like the King Bat were selected from a catalogue, manufactured by the hundreds. The quintessential, interstellar tramp trader. A reliable workhorse. One of the little guys.
The Winthrop Sector sat outside the spinward border of the League of Allied Planets, and the most updated star maps registered dozens of planets. A vast region of space with a little bit of action, and enough action for everyone. Overpopulated worlds flush with advanced technology. Backwater planets home to indigenous people who barely scraped by. There were mineral-rich worlds, garden worlds, water worlds, vacuum worlds, and several others unsettled or explored. The space lanes were dotted with naval bases and Exploration Corps outposts, orbital science stations, cities tucked inside the asteroid belts. Home to roaming gangs of pirates and a handful of psionic cults. Until scientists cracked the secret of faster-than-light communication, numerous private and public courier firms ferried mail, news, even banking transactions between inhabited systems like an interstellar Pony Express.
According to the vids, the Winthrop Sector was up for grabs. A fine place to do business, colonize, start over, raise a family. So long as the merchandise kept moving, the League and the corporations maintained political and economic influence. But there were cracks in the system. Always a shipment of air filters headed to a refinery located off the main trade routes. Circuits for hovercar control panels, precious gems, rare spices, knock-off designer clothing. Salesmen, workers, miners, colonists, spaceport bums, refugees who needed transport to worlds where the luxury starliners and large freighters didn’t go.
And that’s where the little guys came in.
No shortage of jobs for the freelance merchant. Tramp traders. Decommissioned starships converted into prospectors, asteroid drillers, or long-range salvage vessels. Any spacecraft with a sturdy hull, room for cargo and a R.A.T.S. drive. Captain and crew creative or desperate enough to hustle for an honest, or dishonest credit. Little guys, like the King Bat.
* * *
The catwalk stretching across the cargo hold was out of range of the floor and ceiling tiles built into the bulkheads creating an artificial gravity field inside the ship. Auggie grasped the railing. Once he began floating off, he pulled himself along, unconsciously kicking, like swimming the deep oceans of his homeworld. The rumble of engines and air recyclers echoed loud inside the hold. Smell of hydraulic fluid and the chemicals sanitizing the air. He looked below at the huge shipping containers stacked and strapped down in the bay, the all-terrain vehicle parked by the starboard hull. After reaching the other end of the catwalk, he pressed a palm against the wall scanner before crawling through another iris valve. He stood and stretched, spine popping as he worked out one of the kinks. Auggie wasn’t tall for a human. In a couple months, he’d celebrate turning forty standard years old. But moving through the King Bat’s tight spaces reminded him he’d been careless and sometimes cruel to his body and was now aging faster than he’d like.
When the King Bat was built, the clinic down on deck one had a bank of ten cryo-berths. Deep-freeze pods for passengers who didn’t want to spend too many credits, who were willing to risk ending up crippled or dead if they weren’t revived properly. The capsules had been removed during the ship’s last overhaul at the doctor’s request. The examination table remained, but now the cramped compartment was a mad scientist’s playground. Cluttered with various computers, processors, analyzers, and scanners. Other little gizmos rarely secured, which floated whenever there was a loss of gravity. Crashed and scattered once it was restored.
The iris valve shut behind Auggie with a hiss. Doctor Vonte Duval sat hunched at one of the workstations. Duval was in his early sixties, lanky and fit, even though he came off as a frail, elderly man approaching the end of the line. Long, dark face. Nose like a beak. Bundled up in an orange parka with a fur-lined hood he almost never removed.
Even with the overhead LEDs set to dim, Auggie could tell the doctor had redecorated since his last visit to the clinic. The medical diplomas had been framed and mounted along the walls, beside his advanced degrees in archeology, xenomorphic biology, and cryptozoology, all from prominent universities in the known galaxy. A long shelf held several printed volumes of poetry and plays he’d translated into the standard dialect. On the far wall hung a bronze plaque in recognition for the doctor’s exemplary service chairing the now-defunct Institute for the Study of Unexplained Xenomorphic Phenomena.
A thin ray of light shone from a wall fixture onto a stone figurine. An artifact the doctor had discovered in his younger days, while excavating ruins of a temple on a long dead, forgotten world. A planet once home to the Forebearers, an advanced alien civilization that’d thrived for at least two-hundred-thousand years before it vanished without explanation. Universally recognized as the creators of humanity and nearly everything else in the known galaxy. Understanding them was Duval’s obsession.
The doctor had become distracted in the time it’d taken Auggie to arrive at the clinic. He now sat in the dark studying the figurine using a jeweler’s loupe fitted with a spectral-analysis microscope—a device he designed himself, mumbling, tapping notes onto a slim data pad beside him on the countertop. The figurine was carved from a type of natural stone, uncatalogued in the doctor’s vast memory or in any digitized library in the galaxy. Smooth and polished, as long as an index finger, resembling a humanoid with an oversized head, cradling a bundle or a swaddled newborn. Whenever he gripped the little artifact tight in his hands, the doctor said he felt a great power. Auggie had held it once. All he’d felt was a cold rock.
He waited for a minute then cleared his throat and tapped an icon on the wall console to brighten the room.
The doctor looked up. He removed the loupe from his eye and scowled.
“My research will never be completed if I have to endure constant interruptions.”
Auggie leaned a shoulder against the bulkhead and crossed his arms.
“You told me to hurry. The encounter? Dinner party? Unknown sociopath onboard?”
The doctor made a face then waved a hand, like he was swatting an insect.
“There’s a development more interesting to show you. I’ve just made a breakthrough.”
“You have my attention,” Auggie said. “Especially if this breakthrough keeps me alive.”
“Unfortunately, no. But if I’m correct, I’ll be famous. The rest of the crew, filthy rich.”
* * *
The doctor wore a set of navy-blue technician’s coveralls under his parka. The knickknacks in the pockets jingled as he shuffled over to one of the terminals. Colored lights flashed. A monitor beeped as he began flipping switches then punched icons on the data pad. Auggie sidestepped closer to the buttons for the alarm and fire-suppression system on the wall. The last time the doctor unveiled one of his breakthroughs, the powerplant overloaded and life support failed.
A large, holographic image of the figurine hovered in the center of the room.
“Note the set of runes engraved at the base of the figurine,” Duval said, magnifying the holo image. “After more detailed study and research, I believe the carvings indicate this is more than some form of sacred totem.”
“So, it has a mechanical function?” Auggie said.
“Precisely. This is a key.”
Auggie thought about that then massaged his forehead.
“Doc, we’ve talked about this.”
“But it’s function is more complex than opening a simple lock,” Duval went on. “That’d be too easy. My examination of the runes presents a bold, new theory: It’s a highly sophisticated game piece. Perhaps a competition like the older variants of chess. Regardless, whoever has the artifact must utilize it within a specific location, in a precise sequence then, presto, mysteries of the Forebearers revealed at last.”
Auggie brushed his fingers through his wavy, pitch-black hair then tugged his little beard.
“But there’s a catch: You still don’t know what planet the artifact originally came from?”
Duval switched off the hologram. “Correct.”
“Or if there’s more little figures to track down in order to play this—”
“Game.”
“Or how the game is even played?”
“Not a clue.”
“Or if the game’s been won already and the—let’s call it a treasure chamber—is empty?”
The doctor shook his head.
“This is nuts.”
“This is big, Auggie. If it’s what I think it is. I just need more time.” The doctor squeezed the artifact in his palm, closed his eyes then smiled. He slipped the figurine into the pocket of his parka.
“And that,” Auggie told him. “Needs to be kept somewhere safe. Like the ship’s vault.”
Duval made a face and shook his head.
“Did someone give you a lobotomy?”
“Forebearer relics are supposed to be secured in labs or museums,” Auggie said. “There’s a reason they passed a law. What if it’s cursed? We get caught in possession of that, we’re in big, legal trouble.”
“Let me ask you: If you’re a thief. Or police. Where’s the first place you look?”
“The ship’s vault.”
“And then the entire crew goes to prison,” Duval said. “Who would believe something so valuable and illegal would be kept in an old man’s coat pocket? And, if the artifact is discovered, it’s only me who’s on the hook.”
“I’d be more worried it’d accidentally slip out of my pocket.”
“Young man, not once, in all my days have I—”
Auggie pinched the bridge of his nose and held up a hand.
“No more. Not until you’ve solved your puzzle. This ship hemorrhages credits. The cargo runs barely pay enough to cover docking fees and life support. I can cook the books only so long. The bank has us in the crosshairs and a repo squad on standby if we miss a payment. And there’s a killer xenomorph onboard, remember? Who you supposedly have been working on a scheme to unmask and capture.”
Duval shrugged. He shuffled to the examination table and snapped back the sheet with a flourish, revealing a shiny, rectangular serving platter. The edges were intricately engraved with twisting branches and tiny flowers.
Auggie looked at the tray and blinked. “We’re all gonna die, aren’t we?”
“Give it to Mister Harrington,” the doctor said. “You’re the one who said absolutely no gunfire inside the spaceship. That tray is pure argentum. Gift at my wedding. Best option I could come up with on short notice.”
Auggie stared at the platter for a long time before finally picking it up. He regarded his light-brown complexion reflected in the shiny surface. Noted a few new wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. A lone, white hair in his beard. Then he turned the tray in his hands to get a feel for the weight. Listened to the whoosh in the air when he swung it hard several times.
“Maybe,” he finally said. “I’d have to get close.”
“Now that’s the spirit,” Duval said. “I do appreciate your patience and confidence, my friend. In what we’ve already done, what we’re doing at present, and all the things we intend to accomplish in the future. This might seem difficult to imagine, but did you know some of my former colleagues think I’ve regressed into a sad, washed-up, megalomaniac?”
Auggie rocked on the heels of his boots. “Whatever gave anyone that impression?”
“I’ve no idea.”