Inherit the Stars Read online

  She glanced at the pouch on the console, wondering if the gem was worth all this trouble.

  Kivita pulled the Juxj Star from the pouch and lay in her hammock. At her touch, the gem glowed from within. She tried peering through it, as if mere sight could reveal its secrets.

  “Just what the hell are . . . ?”

  Her eyes shut as the vision of the cryopod ship came back. Albino figures in gray suits watched over the cryopods. Traces of hair covered their heads, and their eyes had a light blue tint.

  They resembled Aldaakians.

  A dull, frigid ache entered her brain.

  The scene changed. The growth tubes filled with hirsute creatures she’d seen before now sat empty. Their contents had splashed onto the floor, the tubes smashed. Some of the creatures stumbled around, their bodies covered in wet fur. Thick manes flowed, damp and stringy over their shoulders.

  “Ascali,” she mumbled. The ache grew into a consistent throb in her temples.

  Coordinates clicked through her mind, as if she keyed them into a jump console. They seemed impossible, even foolish: directions to the ship she’d just seen, eighty light years outside the Cetturo Arm.

  An icy, burning sensation whipped across her temples, and Kivita dropped the gem. The pain subsided. Was it playing with her? Chest heaving, she scratched her head.

  The gem stopped glowing.

  “What are you really meant for?” she asked the Juxj Star. In its crimson surface her face looked pinched and shadowed.

  She rose from the hammock and entered her galley. Unlike Sar’s well-stocked one, hers consisted of a small, square oven, hot-wave disk, and grimy dry-disher. A crate filled with preserved foodstuffs stood nearby, along with three Susuron water drums. Kivita took two protein slabs and dried sugar reeds from the crate and warmed them on the hot-wave disk.

  Soon, she gulped down the salty slabs and sticky-sweet reeds, then drank water mixed with Bellerion turtle-egg spice. Just something to settle her stomach and fuel her body. All the while, she stared at the Juxj Star. Sure, it hurt like hell to use it, but the things it revealed . . . almost like she were there in person.

  It glowed again.

  “All right. Show me more, then.” She picked it up. A burning cold gripped her skull.

  Her mind beheld another cryopod transport and its coordinates, thirty-three light years beyond the Terresin Expanse. Rows of pods with black-armored figures filled the interior. The image changed to a sticklike vessel with one end shielded by a giant panel of shimmering material. Somehow she knew the ship measured eight miles in length, and possessed a power output greater than all the Inheritor fleets combined.

  Its coordinates, nearly five hundred light years from the Cetturo Arm, drove an icy dagger into her mind. Kivita cried out and dropped the gem. The Juxj Star rolled along the galley floor into her living quarters. Kivita cursed and ran after it.

  The images and coordinates ruled her thoughts. Blueprints for the Aldaakian shuttle she’d seen. Alternate phased fusion-dump settings, allowing faster light-jump speeds. Schematics for an energy-saving cryostasis router that cut power consumption by thirty percent. Every new piece of knowledge further seared her brain.

  “Stop!” she yelled, though whether to her racing thoughts or the rolling gem, she wasn’t sure.

  She finally snatched the Juxj Star before it rolled into the hammock’s corner. As her fingers traced over the gem, a new image coalesced in her mind. An oblong ship, with a polished hull and yellow-lit viewports. A name formed through the dreamlike relay of information: Narbas.

  Hissing between clenched teeth, she tried to hold the image in her mind while controlling the pain. Second by aching second passed. Her jaw numbed from the agony. Finally she loosed a chest-wrenching sob and let the image go.

  After tossing the gem into the hammock, Kivita paced the floor. Though her toes, hands, and nose grew chill from Terredyn Narbas’s low heating, she still didn’t grab a bodyglove. She wanted the vacuum cold to seep into her, wake her up from this crazy shit.

  She scratched her hair again, bit her lip. Shifted her underwear on her hips. “There’s no way this is real.”

  Kivita hurried back to the bridge. Tejuit Seven’s gargantuan presence, along with the undeniable time lapse listed on the life monitor, confirmed what she’d refused to accept.

  Somehow, the Juxj Star had informed her of coordinates to reach this system from Ecrol, in the seldom-traveled Terresin Expanse, in one-third the time. Coordinates entered during a stressful moment.

  She’d entered a wormhole rift, decreasing the distance. An interstellar shortcut. Kivita had heard of such cosmic anomalies, but to think of one from thin air made her shudder. Inheritor dogma claimed that knowledge remained a blessing of the Vim, and was not to be tampered with by the unworthy. The fact that she of all people had gleaned this strange data exposed such beliefs as lies.

  The information revealed to her had been gathered by someone, though whether it remained current was unknown. Even if she could travel the five hundred light years to that massive ship, it might not be there then, if it was even there now. Though Kivita had never believed in the Vim as gods, no other race came to mind that could have assembled this data.

  “Let’s try something, then.” She picked up the Juxj Star with both hands. “Okay, show me where the closest, richest salvage is.” Kivita closed her eyes and waited.

  A schematic for a deep-crust mining machine came to mind.

  “Oh, c’mon. Give me something I can use.” She thought of an uncharted paradise world yet to be discovered in the Cetturo Arm. Maybe even a planet she could claim as her own.

  Data on adapting Ascali jiir trees to various terrestrial environments drifted through her thoughts, with a renewed headache for her trouble.

  “Shit. Okay, maybe . . . yeah.” Kivita concentrated on the secrets of Sarrhdtuu beam weaponry, something everyone in the Cetturo Arm would want. The concepts of critical thought from some unpronounceable philosopher entered her thoughts instead.

  She gave up trying to force information from the Juxj Star. Before setting it back down, though, Kivita thought of her mother. The way Rhyer had spoken of her: strong-willed, brave, with great love for her baby daughter.

  Rhyer had never told Kivita her mother’s name. Whenever she’d asked, he’d grown silent or changed the subject.

  The same image appeared in her mind of an oblong ship, similar to current Inheritor designs. Crushed port thrusters; dented hull. Flickering viewports. So opposite of what she’d seen before. In the dark void behind it, a huge, gray-green crescent shape closed in. A Sarrhdtuu vessel.

  A new wave of agony spread across her temples, but Kivita grunted and continued.

  The image shifted, with humans being interrogated on board the Sarrhdtuu ship. Green jelly bodies and slimy coils lashed out at the captives.

  These new images combined with her dreams, the ones she’d seen since touching the Vim datacore near Xeh’s Crown. Now the faraway nebulae she’d dreamt of lay three hundred light years away. A Cradle. The word still remained mysterious.

  Kivita secured the gem back in the pouch and took a quick bath in the mist ionizer. Her device saved more water than Sar’s. Thinking of him made her heart thud in her chest. Even though he’d been so cold on Umiracan, she missed him. Had he been a pirate, or had he planned on using her?

  Her salvaging career in Inheritor Space was over. The Sarrhdtuu wanted her, and their reach was long. The Aldaakians probably wanted her, too. Looking all around her living quarters, a lump rose in Kivita’s throat.

  Who was she now? Where would she go? What could she do?

  She dressed in a maroon bodyglove, black leather chaps, and the same polyboots. A gold-meld cuirass hugged her breasts and stomach. Kivita strapped on a shortsword, a slim Tahe knife, and a purple half cape. She needed to look tough but clean if she plann
ed to deal with Tejuit’s merchants.

  Last, she attached the pouch with the gem to her belt, and looped the strap three times to ensure it wouldn’t come away.

  Later, as she flew into Tejuit Seven’s gravity well, Kivita frowned at the starships orbiting the equator. Refugees who refused to obey the Inheritor Charter, or ones who’d fled after the Inheritors conquered their worlds. Some claimed ancestry back to the feudal kingdoms centuries ago. Those aristocrats had become known as the Tannocci, with their own small armies and fleets. United, for the time being, against Inheritor aggression. Maybe they would help her.

  Cylindrical Tannocci ships orbited in tandem with oblong Inheritor craft. The curved, graceful vessels of Naxan merchants had magnetized their airlocks to create hive ships of fifty vessels and more. Bulbous, saucer-shaped craft from Bons Sutar stayed close together, housing renegades, merchants, or refugees.

  Had Sar been right? Did the Juxj Star contain information so priceless it would be worth more than a thousand of these ships? Kivita’s mouth went dry, and she urged the manuals forward.

  Tejuit Seven’s swirling hydrogen and methane storms caught the sun’s rays and bathed the bridge in indigo, lime, and rose shades. Kivita flew past four small asteroids and a tiny cratered moon caught in the planet’s orbit. Good; she still could maneuver despite the damage she couldn’t fix yet.

  “Here we go, girl.” Kivita nudged Terredyn Narbas alongside a Naxan hive ship with a gleaming silver hull. Some spacers claimed the Naxans blasted their starship hulls with sand from their homeworld to achieve that characteristic polish.

  An automated greeting crackled over the console speaker, but Kivita thumbed a button to accept Naxan trade regulations so she could board. Three seconds later, a code sequenced with her beacon, clearing her to dock with the shining vessel.

  The Naxan hive ship played host to dozens of human craft and even a few Aldaakian shuttles. After orbiting it three times, Kivita finally found an unoccupied airlock on the ship’s underside. Terredyn Narbas shuddered a moment while she magnetized its port-side airlock with the Naxan one.

  “Yeah, here we go,” she repeated in a whisper.

  17

  The muffled beat of Susuron drums reached Kivita’s ears while she passed the airlock checkpoint. A Naxan trade rep in a dark green jumpsuit with silver piping and tassels clicked his tongue in greeting. Like all human cultures in the Arm, the Naxans spoke their own deviation of Meh Sattan.

  “May your transactions go smoothly,” he said, then clicked once and handed her a chit stack. Like on Haldon Prime, once a chit was activated by glue pen, it bound her in agreement with a merchant. Hack attempts met with permanent expulsion from Naxan consortiums, sometimes even a beating from their mercenaries. Not that she’d ever tried that.

  Trying to look casual, Kivita glanced into corners, down aisles. Had anyone followed her here?

  Kivita walked by an antiquated pathogen detector, where an Ascali male played the conch drums. A nearby stall sold Naxan clapper sticks, in case travelers could communicate only in yes or no answers. Years of detritus and carbon filth caked the metal-grate floor. Multicolored ceiling lamps lit her way into the first cargo chamber.

  Twenty wall platforms contained an airlock, with each magnetized to a customer vessel. Decent heating, gravity, and life-support systems kept everything comfortable, but the air scrubbers needed changing a decade ago.

  Aisles crammed with stalls lined the circular bay, while mercenaries hired by the Naxans patrolled the area—Ascali, human, and Aldaakian freelancers, armed with swords or batons. Firearms were prohibited, as much to protect hull integrity as customer safety.

  Kivita hurried along, disregarding the proffered wares. One Inheritor carpenter sold wooden Vim idols, with each piece resembling a tall humanoid with solemn features. A Naxan florist sold cultured roots, fruit shrubs, and vegetable pots, though some already wilted from the carbon-heavy air.

  “Give thanks unto the Vim for their blessings of technology! Without their wisdom, we would not be able to survive in space!” An Inheritor prophet walked the aisles, waving a yellow banner. “Who taught you the secret of artificial gravity? Who revealed to you the faster-than-light capabilities all starships now enjoy?”

  A Solar Advocate, dressed in a shimmering silver tunic, preached in an adjacent aisle. “From the stars we were born, and to the stars we shall return. Heed the wisdom of the Solars! We all contribute to the structure of the universe. We are all centers of gravity and energy.”

  Sighing, Kivita strolled into another aisle. When she’d visited Tejuit as a child, all the products and the worlds they came from had fascinated her. Now they were all shallow bits of cracked nostalgia. Most people possessed the same tired, lonesome look of spacers who had left behind homeworld, family, and friends.

  She paused to finger the glittering merchandise of a Naxan jeweler, though the necklaces and bracelets didn’t interest her. All those years spent in cold stasis, all those trips to debris fields and disparate worlds . . . all of it the empty glories of a fool blinded by wanderlust. But she’d seen so much. Kivita touched the Juxj Star in its pouch.

  She wanted to see more.

  A Tannocci woman attired in a studded black skinsuit traded in cloaks, shawls, smocks, and even rare ply underthings. The fabrics glimmered as Kivita thumbed them, silky smooth and durable.

  “You would look even more gorgeous in my wares.” The Tannocci woman’s Meh Sattan had thick glottal stops after each e sound. Red rouge stretched from her eyes in a thin line to her chin.

  Kivita chose her words with care. “You have great stuff here, but I’m looking for any Tannocci Sages that might be aboard.”

  From the corner of her eye, she could see an Inheritor merchant studying her.

  “Then find him with this. My relatives sewed this fine red cap, maybe just for you,” the woman said, then lowered her voice. “Two cargo bays over.”

  Kivita scrawled two packets of Haldon bread on a computer chit and handed it to her. “Will this cover it?”

  The woman took the chit and grinned. “Stay gorgeous!” She blinked three times slowly—an old Tannocci warning sign.

  Kivita donned the pillbox-shaped cap, which matched her bodyglove and cape well. Leaving the aisle, she jostled through the crowd. A few hands brushed her bottom. A pimple-faced teenager bumped into her, but Kivita slapped his hand away from the pouch.

  She winked. “Wasn’t born last sleep cycle, you know.” As the teenager fled, a figure darted behind a stall in her peripheral vision. Flesh prickling, she walked faster.

  Even this far from Inheritor space, the prophets had agents searching for any sign of heretics. Sages, outlawed by the prophets, might know something about the gem.

  Deeper into the hive ship, merchants from across the Cetturo Arm called out offers of Naxan sauce garnishes, Tannocci sword training, refined Freen copper, and dozens of other goods. She fought salvager instincts to inspect the best deals. In the next cargo bay, thick aromas from food stalls made Kivita’s mouth water: fried Susuron algae, Haldon bread, and Bellerion reed cakes. An Aldaakian booth doled out protein slush and Touu gelatin, while an Ascali one traded jiir juice, alcohol, and bark powder.

  A slight tingling irritated her scalp. Kivita’s body flushed with heat, and she licked her lips. Was more alien data about to enter her thoughts? She couldn’t blame it on a cryomalady anymore. Something had changed within her.

  After several minutes of pushing through hungry crowds, Kivita reached the bay mentioned by the Tannocci woman. Extra mercenaries patrolled its dim-lit aisles, and refugees huddled near the bulkheads, begging passersby. Contrasting the fare offered in the previous bays, prostitutes, drug purveyors, and Sages sold their services.

  “Look like you come outta a lonely, cold cryopod, honey,” said a male prostitute in chaps and skinsuit. “I’ll get you warm and wet real fast.”
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  Kivita continued without answering. Other prostitutes tried to woo or beckon her along the way. Now, though, Kivita wanted only one man, and he’d rejected her. Just seeing Sar had made her feel alive again, in ways she’d thought herself long dead. Damn him.

  Aldaakian armorers and tool smiths watched her pass with flat stares. One sold cryomasks for those addicted to the chilled air. Other dealers sold varieties of vapor-producing mollusks and decanters to inhale the fumes. Several spacers stumbled or lay near such stalls, no doubt having bartered away a full cargo hold for a few minutes of bliss.

  At the end of the aisle, a Tannocci man in a black cloak and jumpsuit studied her with bored blue eyes.

  “I’m looking for a Tannocci Sage,” Kivita said in a low voice. Behind her, a mollusk-vapor addict moaned and urinated on a stall.

  “So you think all Tannocci men in a Naxan hive ship might be a Sage?” he asked in a soft voice.

  “No, and I don’t think all Tannocci men are assholes. Are you the guy or not?”

  He rubbed his chin. “Did a woman who sold you that red cap send you?”

  “Yeah.”

  He smiled. “Then enter. I don’t get as many customers like the others in this bay. The Naxans always place low-traffic merchants with these types. I am Jandeel.”

  Kivita stepped into a collapsible stand built from metal and canvas. The thin walls allowed little privacy. Jandeel sat at a table fashioned from a scrapped terminal, and crossed his arms.

  “Now, what would a comely Inheritor like you want with a Sage?”

  Hmm, how to answer . . . A Sage memorized everything he or she saw from texts, songs, poems, to starship blueprints. Though honored as scholars on Tannocci worlds, the Inheritors arrested them as heretics.