THIS WAS DIFFERENT from any transport experience Antares had ever been through. She was surrounded by a faint glow of violet light; but it wasn’t just the glow, there was a vibration, right through her bones, as though she were riding a high-speed train on a slightly burred track . . . except that she felt weightless. “Napoleon!” she murmured, half aloud. But Napoleon had vanished. “Napoleon!” There was nothing she could do—not until she arrived, wherever she was going—and got out of this transport field.
Eventually, the glow faded away. The vibration continued a little longer, like a motor that wouldn’t stop, but over several seconds that faded as well. Antares felt her weight again, and could see her surroundings. She peered around. She was standing under a metallic arch and seemed to be alone on a grassy knoll in twilight, at the edge of a woods. It felt a little spooky to her, and she shivered. Where was Napoleon, and why had they been separated? She stepped out from under the arch and called, “Napoleon!” Was it something Amaduse had done? Or was the transport signal controlled at this end? Where was that robot?
A voice from behind startled her. “Wait right there, frrrr, frrr, for a moment. Please!”
Antares whirled around. “Who is there?”
A creature trotted around the arch and stopped in front of her. It was four legged, but when it stopped, it reared up on its hind legs, waving its smaller front legs (arms?) in front of it. It had a tapered snout, whiskers, bright round yellow eyes, and triangular ears; also, a short tail. It was, Antares believed, a Dannari. Upright it was about a head shorter than she was. It wore a teal-colored tunic, with purple piping down the sides, like a uniform. Despite the initial canine appearance, it had something like hands, in which it held a small tablet. It said, “Th-thank you. I am, buh, Buck.”
“Buck?” Antares repeated, wondering how to think of this charming and slightly alarming creature. Not “it.” He? She? Hir? “Where did you come from, Buck? Who are you?” She tried to remember what she knew of the Dannari. Hir, she thought.
“Hah!” Buck said, and raised hirself a little higher on hir hind legs. “It should be I, huh, who asssks the krrr, krrr, questions.” Hir put a hand to a necklace medallion and seemed to be making some adjustment. When hir spoke again, hir voice was clearer and less halting. “I am the c-captain of this transit gate.” Hir tapped the tablet with one finger. “And you have just arrived without c-c-clearance.” Hir made another adjustment. “Could you answer a few questions, please?”
“How can you understand me?” Antares asked, tilting her head to look at hir from different angles. She didn’t see any knowing-stones.
Buck held up the medallion. “Trrranslation device. Now, please—identify yourself, and then state your place of origin and your purpose.”
“My name is Antares Alexandrovens, Thespi Third Female.”
The captain moved a crooked finger on hir tablet. “And, Citizen Drovens, did you come here alone? Unassisted? Unaccompanied?”
She flicked her fingers in exasperation and distress. “I came with a companion robot, an inorg.” She looked around again. “We became separated in transit. Have you seen a norg that goes by the name Napoleon?”
Buck seemed to squint at her suspiciously. Hir swung around to look behind hir, then swung back. “That norg is yours, then?”
Antares’ pulse quickened. She held her hand a little above waist height. “This tall? Yes! You’ve seen him, then?”
Buck’s whisker’s twitched. “It arrived ahead of you. It waits not far from here, near my cabin.”
“Thank goodness! Can you take me to it?”
“Of course. But can you explain this for me? Why you did not arrive together, if you are traveling together?”
“I wish I knew. We stepped through together. I don’t know why we were separated.”
Buck brushed at hir snout with a hand that Antares now decided looked more like a paw, despite having fingers. “Humm. You came, you see, via a route that is restricted. Closed off. Not, rrrr, rrrr, sanctioned. Can you tell me how you came to arrive through this arch, which is legally closed?”
Antares felt a flash of worry. Was she going to have to defend herself now? “No—I can’t. I have no idea how. But I came directly from the office of Amaduse, Shipworld Librarian. Do you know Amaduse? He sent me. Does that help explain?”
“Amaduse? Hah!” said Buck, hir eyes gleaming in the night. Hir stroked hir whiskers for another moment. “I do not know this Amaduse. But I have heard of Amaduse. That one is in the Maripose sector, rather far from here. Is that the one? What connection has he to the Scalapoorie sector?”
Antares raised her hands, then dropped them. “None that I know of,” she admitted. “But I’m sure it must be the same one. He seems to be well known, and to have considerable, uhhl, influence—even beyond, well, where you would expect his reach to end.”
“Even into sectors that are not his own?” Buck asked. Hir seemed to marvel and look alarmed at the same time.
“I couldn’t really tell you. I only just met him. But he was trying to help me find a missing friend, who seemed to have come this way.”
“A missing friend! The norg?”
She twitched her head no.
“Please answer in words. I cannot translate your gestures,” Buck said.
“Not the norg, no. The norg is assisting me in my search for my friend, a Hraachee’an.”
“Ahh—sss, a Hraachee’an.” Buck’s eyes widened, as though this sparked hir interest. Hir consulted hir tablet. “And does this Hraachee’an have a name?”
“Ik. His name is Ik. He may be traveling with a companion, but I have no information on the companion.”
“Whuh. Ssss. Yes.” Buck became agitated, rubbing at hir whiskers. “If his name is Ik, then yes, your friend came through. With his companion. Only for a short time, and they spent it . . . bzzzr, bzzzr . . . in conference with a Tintangle. They did not interact with us at all. They were a surprise, the first surprise. You were another, you and your norg. You must be very important, to be allowed to follow a friend—” hir tone wavered for an instant “—through a closed portal.”
Antares’ fingers twitched as she gestured her protest. “No. No, it is not that we are so important. But a job we need to do together—that is very important.”
“Important, you say. Important to my part of Shipworld?”
“Important,” Antares said, speaking deliberately, “to all of Shipworld.”
“Whumm?” Buck cocked hir head.
Antares gave a little shiver. “I am not in a position to speak of it,” she said. “But please, tell me: Are they here? Ik and his companion?”
Buck continued as though she had not asked the question. “Your claim is a rather large one. In other times, I might easily have granted you, whuh, the benefit of the doubt. But things, you see, are not as they once were between our sectors. Communications are difficult, and one can no longer travel freely. It is my job to ask why and how you are here, and determine if you should be allowed to move about.”
She cried with impatience, “Please! I need to know! Do you know where Ik is? I just want to find him, and take him back with me!”
Buck consulted hir tablet, stroking hir nose again. “I don’t think that will be possible, at least not from here. The Hraachee’an did not seem to be traveling under duress. His companion, by the way, was a female . . . human, I believe, was the type.”
A female human!
“But they left again, soon after they arrived. I was still establishing who or what they were, and then they were gone.”
Antares’ heart sank. “Gone?”
“Yess-ss. I am afraid so.”
“Gone where?” She grasped at the air with open hands, as though to capture Ik and bring him back.
The gatekeeper stared at her, perhaps trying to puzzle out her gestures. “I don’t know, exactly. There was a special override on the controls. I did not have access to the information at the time, but learned of it later.”
“When?” she insisted. “When did they leave?”
“A day, hum, and a half ago. They did not leave Scalapoorie directly from here. They traveled to one of our border stations on the far side. I saw their names on a list for a special departure shuttle, from there. After the fact, you see.” Buck swiped at hir whiskers. “I am not certain I was intended to see the information at all, but—well, it was not exactly kept secret. But it all happened so quickly.”
Antares stared at hir, trying to absorb all this. “That seems . . . exceedingly strange to me. I would have thought he’d be trying to find his way back to us. Does this kind of thing happen often?”
Buck made a hacking sound, as though spitting out a bad taste. “Hardly! It is highly irregular. One must presume that it was—what is the proper word?—orchestrated—at a high level, and done quickly, to prevent their being intercepted.”
“Intercepted?”
“Questioned. By people like me. By someone who might have questioned their special clearance.” Buck paused.
“Would you have the authority to question orders from a higher level?” Antares asked, trying to keep hir on the subject long enough to make sense of hir emotions. Hir seemed frustrated, and potentially sympathetic to her goals.
Hir hissed softly, hir emotions jittery beneath the smooth surface of hir calm. “Perhaps not. But I do need to remain alert to inconsistencies. There are times when the oversight authorities seem to operate at cross purposes. Not just this break between our sector and our neighbors—but even within the sector, one part with another. If you understand what I am saying.”
“I’m not sure I do,” she admitted.
“Well, I’m not sure, either.” His nose jerked up an inch. “But these things are not for me to talk about. Shall we go find your norg? And then we must decide what to do with you both.” Hir turned, and with a waggle of hir right hand, indicated that she should follow.
***
They trudged downhill along the edge of the woods. Antares allowed herself a small pleasure at the feeling of trees nearby. She’d grown up among all kinds of trees, and since leaving Thespi-Prime had seen all too few of them. These trees were deciduous in appearance, with leaf-clusters layered into large, expansive shells. It was like walking under a series of rustling rain-domes. She wished John were here to see it. Where was he now? she wondered. Still looking for The Long View? Or were they already on their way?
Buck’s quarters were a wood cabin, in a clearing at the edge of the trees. Pulling up near the cabin, Buck peered around, looking for Napoleon. “I asked it to stay right here, outside the cabin!”
Please, Antares thought. She called out, “Napoleon! Where are you?”
She was relieved to hear the robot’s voice, from within. “I am right here. Inside the cabin.”
With a muttering sound, Buck swung open the wooden door and when the light spilled out, called, “You are not to touch anything!” Hir went in ahead of Antares. She followed close behind. The doorway was low, forcing her to duck. “Norg!” called Buck. “Where are you?”
“Right here,” Napoleon repeated, from an alcove to the left of the doorway. He swiveled from his stance in front of a console. “I have touched nothing, Captain Buck. However, I have been examining your setup with respect to obtaining information that we need.”
Buck seemed about to scold him for coming in without permission, but Antares interrupted hir to ask, “Will we be able to make iceline contact from here?” She sensed hir irritation with Napoleon, and tried to apply a soothing sense of empathy.
Her host stopped for a moment, thinking. Hir apparently decided to drop hir complaint about Napoleon—who, after all, seemed not to have actually touched anything—and said, “Hoo, probably not. It is blocked, along with the transport system.” Hir rubbed hir right ear. “I don’t know, we will see what we can do.”
“Thank you,” Antares murmured. She turned and looked around. The cabin was quite cozy on the inside. The walls appeared to be of solid wood boards polished to a golden-red sheen. In the alcove where Napoleon stood were two rows of consoles facing each other. To her right, the space opened into a sitting area, with low, padded bench-seating all around the outside. A doorway directly ahead of her appeared to lead to a kitchen and back rooms. “Your house looks quite comfortable,” she said.
“I try. It is rather well equipped for guests,” Buck allowed.
“Really?” she said. “Do you frequently have guests?”
“Not nowadays. But when there was more traffic, it was not uncommon for travelers to need short-term shelter.” Buck shook hir head, remembering. “I am not certain how to explain. This portal is a backwater, never intended to be more than a—I don’t know what—far from anything. The nearest settlement is a long walk, and there is no permanent transport.” Buck hissed what she sensed was a chuckle, overlaid with a trace of bitterness. “They never built the moving walkway they promised, or an extension to the monorail. So it became part of my job—an unofficial part—to host travelers at need.”
Antares cocked her head. “Do you think it might be possible for you to, uhhl, give us shelter for the night? I don’t think we could make our way too easily from here, at least not until morning.”
“Ss-yes. Of course.” Buck put down hir tablet and looked around thoughtfully. Then hir turned to study Napoleon, and again Antares. “But tell me, please—what is it exactly you are hoping to do?” Hir suddenly seemed to realize that hir was being a poor host, because hir said, “Wait!” and then hurried to clear the seats of piles of reading materials. “Please, become comfortable. Is there anything I may offer you? A beverage, some food? Tea?”
While Buck was getting her a cup of tea, Antares tried to think how best to answer hir question without getting bogged down in explanations. Finally she said, “Our friend Ik became separated from us—from our group—and we’ve been unable to reach him. We were worried—uhhl, first, for his safety, because his translation device had malfunctioned. But also because, as I said, we hoped he could join us in this—” she gestured with a wave “—job out in space.”
“Really?” said Buck, setting an enormous, steaming mug in front of her. “In space?”
Antares inhaled the fragrant vapors, then sighed wistfully. “Yes. This is wonderful. Thank you. May I ask what it is?”
Buck’s demeanor brightened at the compliment. “It is an infusion of—” and at that point hir translation device seemed at a loss, because she heard several words that meant nothing to her. Then hir continued, “I grow them right out here, in my garden. I am pleased you like them.”
Antares bobbed her head and took another sip. She really did like it. “The flavor is quite delicate. It reminds me of a tea I used to drink, back on my homeworld. But it’s still very much its own flavor.”
“Ah,” said Buck. “You were not born on Shipworld, then?”
“No. I’ve only been here a few years.”
“That recent! I don’t meet many immigrants. What was your homeworld called?”
“Thespi Prime. I’m not sure I’d call myself an immigrant, though. I was brought here. I didn’t come to Shipworld by choice.”
“Sss. Not many do, from what I understand.” Buck sat down opposite her, resting hir hindquarters on a much lower bench, with hir tail sweeping the floor behind hir. Hir held a container with a bent, slightly flattened straw. Inserting the straw between hir jaws, hir sucked delicately. “Back to what you were saying. You hoped to bring your friend Ik back for a job. Might you tell me what that job is?”
Antares gave a little flick of her fingers. “I cannot tell you much, I’m afraid. I don’t believe I’m free to speak of it. But we—that is, Ik and I—are part of a team. And, you see, our team has been asked to do something on behalf of—well—on behalf of Shipworld.”
“So you said. In fact, you said all of Shipworld.”
Actually, more like the whole galaxy. But that would just sound messianic. “Yes. We have received an assignment, well, from a rather high level in the Shipworld . . . authority.” She lowered her mug. “I suppose that sounds implausible.”
Buck’s snout twitched and hir made a huffing sound that might have been hir own kind of laughter. She half-closed her eyes for a moment. Yes, hir was feeling amused. “I don’t think,” hir said, “that it sounds more implausible than the reason given for Ik and his companion to be moved along so quickly.”
“And what was that?”
Hir huffed again. “It was that Ik and his companion had been asked, at a high level, to do something important—something for all of Shipworld. What do you think of that?” Hir nose twitched until hir turned hir head and sneezed.
Antares was stunned. She’d assumed that Ik was separated from them by accident. That, at worst, someone wanted to undermine her group—why, she couldn’t imagine—and was simply preventing them from being reunited. It had never occurred to her that Ik had been deliberately taken from them to be given a different mission. A different, secret, high-level mission. She picked up the mug. She put it down. She tried to think of a response.
“Well,” said Buck. “This Amaduse of yours has a pretty good reputation, I think. So if he was involved in your assignment . . .” Hir waved a hand, as though to say, Perhaps I can trust you.
Napoleon picked that moment to approach, stepping forward with almost silent, mechanical precision. He clicked twice. “Would it be permissible for me to attempt to contact Amaduse?”
“Ordinarily, I would say, of course,” Buck answered. “But as I told you, the channels are blocked.”
Napoleon cocked his head to one side. “I have some ideas,” he said.
***
The evening passed, with Buck and Napoleon—furry creature with tail, and hunched metal creature with hands—working back to back, at opposite consoles. Antares sat thinking, a couple of books from Buck’s shelves in her lap, unopened. She knew she should speak up, but she didn’t want to, unless it became necessary. She opened one of the books, and found that even with the help of her knowing-stones, she couldn’t read it.
Finally she set the books aside and stood up. “Is either of you getting anywhere?”
“Not yet,” said Napoleon. “I have really only just begun, though.”
Her host rubbed at hir ear in obvious frustration. “I’m trying to learn where your friends were sent, when they left the sector. No success so far.”
Antares stepped closer. “Buck, there’s something I didn’t mention before. Maybe it’ll be helpful.”
Buck’s ears canted toward her. “You say?”
“Well, you see, I have spent some time in the Scalapoorie sector before. Near a settlement called Red Field. Are you familiar with it?”
“It is in the lowlands, near the river,” Buck said. “You did not speak of this sooner? Why?”
Antares sighed. This is silly. “Because I knew some people. I had some friends.”
Buck stopped what hir was doing. “Hah. How is this a reason not to speak of it?”
“Uhhl, you see, my friends were unhappy with me when I left. I was going to say perhaps I could contact them for help. But I’m not sure how eager they would be to help, under the circumstances.”
Buck rubbed the side of hir nose. “Why? Did you do something wrong?”
“Not wrong.” She paused, realized she might be conveying the wrong impression. “Certainly nothing illegal! But I think I disappointed them. They wanted me to become involved in a political movement.”
“Ah. And did you?” Buck arched a bushy eyebrow and touched the trim on the front of hir tunic.
Antares sighed. “No. I had sympathy with their cause, which involved some dissatisfaction with the Shipworld government. But I did not feel, as a transient resident, that it was my fight. I backed away from them. Instead of helping, I left the sector.”
Buck gazed intently at her, in full investigative mode. “And where did you go?”
“To Atrium City. Where I tried to establish new roots. That’s where I met the friends I work with now. I’ve hardly stopped moving since. Both off Shipworld and on.”
Buck bobbed hir head, tugged at hir tunic lapels, and spoke in a husky voice. “You must have an interesting work, Citizen Drovens. An interesting work, indeed.”
“Please call me Antares. And yes, I suppose I do,” she admitted. She sighed again. “I surely do.”
“Well, then,” Buck said, furrowing hir brow. Hir thought for a moment, and appeared satisfied. “Well, if you know how to contact your friends and think that would be helpful, you may try.”
She didn’t, really, and efforts to make contact didn’t go far that night. But she left a few messages, and Buck felt that they had made a good start. Hir suggested to Antares that she might want to retire to a guest room and sleep.
She gratefully accepted the offer. It had been a long day.
***
In the Maripose sector, it had been a long day for Amaduse, as well. He hadn’t expected to expend so much of his time and energy searching for people lost in what had always been a thoroughly reliable transport system. The fact that he considered these people to be key assets to certain missions just made it harder.
Amaduse was not an overly cynical individual, but he was realistic. Something was going on, and eventually he would have to make it his business to find out what it was. He had no qualms about doing so; his job as librarian was to track important streams of information, and he was exceptionally good at it.
But now he had lost track of, not just streams of information, but people. The loss of Antares and Napoleon was arguably his fault.
“Gonjee!” he called, leaning from the work station he had not left in hours. “Do you have the results of the Scalapoorie subsystem search yet? Anything at all?”
Silence.
“Gonjee?”
“Coming!” he heard at last, in Gonjee’s guttural tongue. A moment later, Gonjee appeared, herding Chakka, the six-legged dursthound, ahead of him. Shooing Chakka to get a drink of water, Gonjee squatted beside Amaduse, which made him seem even shorter than usual. “Not much,” he reported, and reached out to stroke a controller set low on the work station. “Records of arrival have been deleted.” He fiddled a little more. “Ah—here.” A transporter flow matrix appeared. “They arrived, pretty sure. But their arrival point was blocked from our view.”
“Sss. Intentionally?” Amaduse wondered. “Or unintended cons-s-sequence of blocks-s-s in place against disss-ident factions-s-s?”
Gonjee gestured uncertainty. The unfortunate political disruption taking place between Scalapoorie and other factions could easily be obscuring the facts of this incident. Amaduse had feelers out via unofficial lines of communication, but feelers could take time to yield results.
Amaduse fumed, as much as a Logothian ever fumed. This was not just an affront to his personal dignity; it was a deliberate weakening of the mission now leaving for Karellia. And that meant possible danger to Shipworld.
The Logothian librarian had been aware for some time of the Inner Circle’s growing concern over the situation at Karellia, and the possibility of Mindaru in the starstream. He had been anticipating a mission to intervene, though he had not expected the Starmaker team to be tapped for it. They had only recently returned, exhausted and wounded, from two intensive missions—and the need for rest and recuperation was clear. But still, this mission was more urgent than rest. When one compared the Starmaker team to the group the Peloi had put forward as an alternative, there was no doubt which was the better choice—even if one of the members hadn’t been from Karellia. Truthfully, Amaduse doubted whether the alternate team was ever really considered for the job. It seemed more likely to have been a goad, to get the Starmaker team to volunteer.
And now the team needed to launch, with only half of its members. Meanwhile, an altogether different mission apparently was underway in secrecy. Amaduse urgently needed to learn what that was all about.
“Gonjee,” he said, speaking to himself as much as to his assistant. “We will not stop until we’ve found our missing people.” If there was no way to help the Karellia mission at this point, the best way to learn about the other mission might well be to get Antares and the robot over there to observe it firsthand.
Their long day was far from over.