The Star-Keeper Imperative Read online

  Rheinborne let out a long chuckle. “Chythex, seriously? I thought all their scraps had already been discovered.”

  “Not all of them.”

  “Come on. It’s been, what, fifty years since the last discovery?”

  “Well, it’s a big galaxy, isn’t it?”

  Rheinborne snorted. “So, is it a weapon?”

  “Not as such,” answered Gwynne, “but it could be quite revolutionary.”

  “And also used as a weapon?”

  Gwynne shrugged. “That’s not up to me.”

  “So whatever it is, our government will, of course, share it with the rest of humanity, right?”

  Gwynne emitted an exasperated sigh. “To continue. Something has happened, and the artifact is currently out of our reach. I need you to help recover it.”

  “Why me?”

  “The person who knows where it is specifically asked for you.” Gwynne set the dataslate on the table. A holographic portrait image of a woman sprang up from the surface of the device.

  “This is Dr. Valicia Parzo, a freelance archaeologist who’s worked with us on many missions,” Gwynne said. “She led the team that recovered the tech.”

  Rheinborne studied the image. Dr. Parzo had shoulder-length dark hair, brown eyes, and an angular face. Her skin had the tanned, weathered look of someone who spent much time outdoors. Though he didn’t recognize her, she seemed familiar. The caption beneath her image gave her age as thirty standard years.

  “Sorry. No idea who that is.”

  “I think you do.” Gwynne tapped on the dataslate, and the image shifted. Dr. Parzo now had short blond hair, pale green eyes, and younger, more delicate features.

  Rheinborne’s heart nearly stopped. The caption now read: “Kaye Henstler, age 17. Status: deceased.”

  “What—what is this?” he sputtered, staggering back from the table. “A sick joke?”

  “No, Mr. Rheinborne. The girl you were going to marry did not die. She is alive, and she needs your help.”

  CHAPTER 3

  KAYE IS ALIVE?

  Rheinborne found it hard to breathe. Memories flooded back to him: the news of her accident, the frantic visit to the hospital, the sight of her in a cryosleep pod, her funeral.

  “How?” he finally said.

  “I can’t give you those details as of yet,” Gwynne said. “All that’s relevant at this point is that Kaye Henstler and Valicia Parzo are one and the same person. She underwent permanent facial reconstruction, as you can see, as well as biometric alteration.”

  Rheinborne put a hand to his chest, felt around for the small pocket. Finding nothing, he remembered he wasn’t wearing his flight suit anymore.

  “Where is it?” he demanded, fighting a rising panic.

  “Your things are in the medbay,” Gwynne said. “But I need an answer right now, before we go any further. Are you interested in undertaking this mission?”

  Rheinborne composed himself as the image reverted to that of Dr. Parzo. He studied the woman’s lifelike hologram and grew increasingly skeptical.

  “Okay, you actually had me believing it for a second there,” he said at length. “I mean, there’s some resemblance, but that person is not Kaye.”

  “So you’re saying you’re not interested.”

  “I would be, if you were telling the truth. And let me just add, trying to manipulate someone like this is completely reprehensible.”

  “No manipulation intended,” said Gwynne. “As I said, she specifically asked for you, even though there were others that I could have called upon. I’m just giving you the right of first refusal. If you exercise that right, we’ll put you back as you were, and you won’t recall a moment of your time here.”

  “I need more than just your word that it’s Kaye.”

  Gwynne shut off the dataslate. The woman’s image vanished.

  “Do you really think that I’d be wasting my time on you if it weren’t?” the DSI man said, his brow creasing. “But, she did say you’d require proof. She told me to ask you this question. What is buried in the Inland Preserve?”

  “The Preserve?” Rheinborne echoed, taken aback. He stifled a long-forgotten sense of guilt.

  “I don’t know the answer,” Gwynne said. “But apparently, the question alone should be enough.”

  Rheinborne pressed his lips together. He and Kaye had made a pact to never speak of the incident that had occurred there, and he couldn’t think of a reason why she would have told anyone the story before she died. There was only one conclusion he could draw, for now at least: Gwynne was telling the truth about her being alive. Still, he needed time to think.

  “How...why should I trust you?” Rheinborne asked.

  Gwynne’s eyes narrowed. “Should we just proceed with the memory wipe? You can forget everything I just told you, but then you’d go back to missing her every day for the rest of your life. Would that be more preferable?”

  Don’t answer that, Rheinborne thought. Keep him talking about other things.

  “Why the trap-and-snatch?” he asked. “You couldn’t have talked to me down on the island?”

  “I needed a controlled environment, obviously.”

  “But you do realize how many laws you broke, bringing me up here? I mean, what you did with the robot alone—”

  “I could make a case for exigent circumstances. But enough of your stalling. What’s it to be?”

  Rheinborne’s shoulders slumped. No use in prolonging the pretense. He had already decided, the moment he saw Kaye’s image.

  “All right,” he said. “I’m in. But I want full disclosure first.”

  Gwynne raised an eyebrow. “Are you certain?”

  “Yes,” Rheinborne answered. “I want to know everything. Where she’s been all this time, what she’s been doing.”

  “That information will be made known to you,” replied Gwynne. “But right now, the mission to extract her takes priority. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  Gwynne smiled. “Wonderful to hear it. Let’s go and start the briefing.”

  “What, like this?” Rheinborne gestured at himself. He didn’t even have any shoes on.

  “I’ll have some new clothes brought down for you.”

  “And what about my module?” Rheinborne asked, tapping the side of his head. “Unauthorized alteration is a crime.”

  “As you pointed out, I’ve already broken dozens of laws, a few more won’t make a difference. For security purposes, your module’s been locked into sectac mode. It’ll be released when the mission’s complete. Now, if there’s nothing else, we should get started right away.”

  Rheinborne sensed the man’s patience was running thin, so he held his hands up and said, “Fine with me.”

  A SHORT TIME LATER, Rheinborne sat alone at an oblong table in the ship’s spacious conference room. He was now dressed in a plain gray jumpsuit and soft mini-boots. With mounting irritation, he glanced down at the food cube wrapper and empty drink bulb on the table before him, then at the clock mounted above the viewscreen at the other end of the room. Why was Gwynne taking so long to get back? Wasn’t he the one who wanted to start this briefing as soon as possible?

  Rheinborne’s only company was the security robot that stood motionless beside the door. It was a different bot than the one that had stunned him; presumably, that unit was off somewhere getting repainted.

  Next to the remains of his meal was a sheet of live-paper. It contained several pages of legalese that, in essence, said that the government would hunt him down and kill him if he talked to anyone about the mission. Well, not in those precise words, but the meaning was there. It also promised a generous amount of compensation if he was successful.

  Rheinborne got up from the table and walked over to the wide window along one side of the room. The ship was still in orbit around Brontania, a green world with a single planet-spanning ocean. Though it had been home for the past nine months, he couldn’t say that he was sorry to be leaving it.

>   The door hissed open. Rheinborne turned to see Gwynne hurry inside. The DSI man had traded his lab coat for a dark business suit.

  “Sorry, some last-minute business to deal with,” he said. “Did you look over the agreement? Did you sign it?”

  “Yes to the first, no to the second.”

  “Well, go ahead then. No need for a ceremony.”

  Rheinborne pressed his thumb in the appropriate square at the bottom of the sheet. The borders of the paper turned red, indicating that the document had recorded his print and was now unalterable.

  “By the way,” said Gwynne, “your incident with the trampler made the perfect cover story. You were fired for damaging company property, and went offworld on the next outbound freighter. Simple.”

  “It wasn’t intentional,” Rheinborne began, then realized it didn’t matter.

  Gwynne took a seat at the table, motioned for Rheinborne to do the same. As soon as he was settled, Gwynne placed his palm on the table’s shiny black surface. It accepted his bio-signature and lit up, projecting a holo-image into the air: the insignia of the Adventurer. Below that were the words “ECM link active.”

  “All right, here’s the timeline of the situation,” said Gwynne. “A little over a week ago, I sent a recovery team to a planet outside Treilath space, where a Chythex light transport shuttle was discovered, intact.”

  The previous holo-image dissolved and was replaced by that of a black-hulled spacecraft, half-buried in a desert location.

  “Dr. Parzo was in charge of the civilian part of the team, while the government side was led by this man, Ellis Norland.”

  A holo of Norland’s official identification photo sprang up from the tabletop. The fact-box below the photo read:

  Name: Ellis Norland

  Age: 32

  Place of birth: Predoria 3

  Title: DSI Field Agent

  The man himself looked a bit young for his age, and while his expression was neutral, there seemed to be a trace of a sneer around his mouth.

  Gwynne explained that the scientists explored the craft and discovered a piece of technology that they hadn’t encountered before. The tech was extracted and placed aboard the DSI ship Skyward.

  “The scientists first conducted field tests of the tech while on the planet. But once it was aboard the ship, Agent Norland refused to let anyone examine it further.” Gwynne said. “I figured that it was simply Ellis being overcautious, but...” He gave a rueful shake of his head.

  “What happened?” Rheinborne asked.

  “The tech was stored on the Skyward’s survey craft and kept under guard. Dr. Parzo found this suspicious, and she was right. A few hours into the flight home, Norland’s STAR squad began killing the civilians.”

  “Great Lord!” Rheinborne exclaimed. “Why?”

  “I’ll get to that. The good news is that Dr. Parzo was able to overcome the guards and take off in the ship with the Chythex tech. She made some random hyperjumps to throw them off her trail, and hid the component on another planet before heading back to Treilath.”

  “That must have used up a lot of fuel.”

  “It did. The survey ship hadn’t been fully fueled, and she didn’t have enough to make it back home, so she had to land on the nearest civilized world.”

  A holomap of the Jurintho star system appeared over the table. Dalajur, the fourth planet, was highlighted.

  “This is where she is now.” The map zoomed in on the planet, stopped above one of the main continents. A dot appeared, with the label “Langensbern.”

  “That’s one of the underground cities, isn’t it?” asked Rheinborne.

  “Yes, one of the few that the Chythex didn’t destroy during the Occupation.”

  “She couldn’t have just topped up and left?”

  “Norland reported the ship as stolen. Which, technically, was true.”

  “Couldn’t she have gone to the Treilathan embassy, or consulate?”

  “No, because Dalajur’s an enclave world, isn’t it? It has no formal diplomatic ties with Treilath. But the main problem is that Langensbern is mostly controlled by the Devorne organization.”

  Rheinborne groaned. “Yeah, that is a problem.” He had once helped bust up a Devorne human-trafficking operation back when he was in the PSR, and some of the people he had fought against were the worst sort of galactic filth.

  Gwynne looked down at the floor, rubbed his face.

  “Something worse?” asked Rheinborne.

  “I’m afraid so.” Gwynne dismissed the holomap. “The reason that Norland and his team executed the civilians is that...”

  “Yes?”

  Gwynne gazed up at Rheinborne with an expression of shame. “Agent Ellis Norland is a Devorne infiltrator.”

  CHAPTER 4

  RHEINBORNE ABRUPTLY stood. “He’s what?”

  A computer voice came over the shipwide comm. “Attention all hands. Attention all hands. Orbital departure in ten standard minutes. Ten standard minutes. Please report to duty stations. Thank you.”

  “I didn’t know it at the time, obviously,” Gwynne said when Rheinborne sank back into his seat. “But when I had my people back at the Department peel away his past, they found irregularities, and links to the Devornes.”

  “Unbelievable,” Rheinborne said. “How’s he linked?”

  “As it turns out, Norland’s late father Harris was an associate of this person,” Gwynne replied. The holo-image of a craggly-faced man appeared above the table. His fact-box read:

  Name: Simeon Prester

  Age: 55

  Place of birth: Treilath

  Title: Director of Operations

  Affiliation: RaxiCorp Imports & Exports

  “It’s all a front, of course,” said Gwynne. “Prester manages the Devorne criminal dealings in many of the city’s districts.”

  “Prester and Norland are working together?”

  “That’s the assumption. In fact, the Skyward arrived at Dalajur twelve hours ago. According to the chatter we’ve intercepted, people there have been looking for Dr. Parzo.”

  Rheinborne shook his head in disbelief. “What you’re saying is that she picked the worst possible planet to land on.”

  “It’s my sense,” said Gwynne, “that Norland decided to break his cover when the Chythex component was found. It’s natural to assume that he was planning on delivering it to Prester, or to someone in the Devorne hierarchy. Thank the Great Lord for Dr. Parzo’s instincts, though.”

  “And you’re sure she’s safe? She hasn’t been found yet?” asked Rheinborne.

  “For the time being, yes.”

  Rheinborne got up and went to the window, turned back to Gwynne. “When you told the DSI about Norland, what did they have to say?”

  “No one but my people back there knows, at least so far. I’ve been using every shred of my influence to keep it quiet.”

  “But this breach, it’s catastrophic!”

  “That much I know,” Gwynne snapped. “What I don’t know is how far up this goes. It’s why Dr. Parzo hasn’t told me where she hid the Chyth component. But if Prester gets to her first, he’ll torture the location out of her.”

  “How long will it be before your superiors figure it out?” Rheinborne asked. “I mean, Norland himself—”

  “I’ve quietly had his access limited. But you’re right, the higher-ups will eventually get wise.” Gwynne rose from the table and moved to stand beside Rheinborne. “Don’t give a thought about the political fallout, that’s my concern. Your task is simple. Find Dr. Parzo and bring her back.”

  Rheinborne nodded. “Understood.”

  “Good.” Gwynne returned to the table and closed down the display surface. “I’ll have a slate with the operational plan sent to your quarters. Look it over—” He paused, touched his earlobe.

  “Sorry,” the DSI man said after a few moments. “More business to deal with. As I was saying, look over the plan, and if you have any questions, we’ll discuss them. Oh, but b
efore that, please report to the medbay. Dr. Seldra wants to do a full physical.” Gwynne jerked a thumb at the security robot by the door. “He’ll escort you there.”

  “One last thing before you go,” said Rheinborne. “How did Kaye become this doctor archaeologist person?”

  “Everything we know about that will be on the slate,” Gwynne answered. “But please, refer to her only by her present identity. The person you knew as Kaye, as far as everyone is concerned, no longer exists.”

  “She does, to me,” Rheinborne said.

  CHAPTER 5

  RHEINBORNE TRIED TO talk to various crewmen as he walked down the antiseptic-white corridors of the Adventurer, but the security robot at his side scared them off. No matter; Rheinborne was able to glean some facts about the ship by the architecture alone. He was certain the ship was an Outrider-class midweight spacecraft, with an L6 stardrive and a crew complement of thirty or so. Ships of this class were usually civilian vessels, but if this one was in the service of the DSI, it surely had some hidden armaments.

  The two of them arrived at the medbay entrance. The robot touched the wall-mounted sensor plate, and Rheinborne stepped inside as soon as the door opened.

  The long room contained four diagnostic beds, an operating chamber at the far end, and various medical machines scattered about. Seated at a computer workstation was a slender woman. She looked to be around Rheinborne’s own age and had on a red uniform beneath a white lab coat.

  “Hi there!” the woman said, turning and rising from the workstation as Rheinborne entered. She crossed over to him and shook his hand. “I’m Dr. Seldra, Chief Medical Officer, and you must be the man Mr. Gwynne told me to expect.”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” Rheinborne said. He glanced over his shoulder. “Does it have to be here?”

  “It? The robot? Uh-huh, it’s protocol, I’m afraid.” She gave a little laugh. “Not that I fear being alone with patients, but, you know, they’re here for our protection.”