Inherit the Stars Read online

  Something clicked above them, and a boom lowered on fleshlike stalks. The mildew smell strengthened. A dais resting on coiled tentacles slithered into the chamber as the boom sprayed green jelly over it. Dunaar forced his face not to scrunch up as the mildew stench became so overpowering, his nostrils burned.

  The jelly built up and morphed into a sleek humanoid torso, complete with a half-crescent head and two arms ending in coils. Four purple eyes opened and stared at Dunaar. Inside the transparent jelly body, organs pumped and liquids ran along thousands of veins. A puckered mouth hissed open.

  “Prophet of Meh Sat. You have initiated our request?” The Sarrhdtuu’s voice contained a heavy lisp.

  “Indeed I have, Zhhl. I hope your operations have gone well?” Sweat dribbled down his nose and past his lips.

  Zhhl writhed back and forth across the floor. “What of the rebels of Meh Sat? Luccan’s progeny.”

  Dunaar smoothed his yellow robes. “There is a slight change I must discuss with you concerning our plot.”

  “Tell.” Zhhl ceased writhing and morphed into a wall. The coils crawled along the surface as the jelly body adopted a thinner, longer shape.

  “I have dispatched a Savant to take the Juxj Star on Vstrunn, as you suggested.”

  Zhhl hissed. “Kith, Prophet of Meh Sat.”

  Dunaar’s pulse quickened. “True, but the one I hired is a salvager. She might evade the Kith; she survived an encounter with them near Xeh’s Crown. My plan will be reported to the Thedes by Sar Redryll. I have no doubt they will attempt to intercept my salvager as soon as she has the gem. Once revealed, I shall track and eradicate the Thede leadership.”

  Zhhl’s information about Redryll’s Thede allegiance had come a year ago. Other sources had revealed his dalliance with Kivita, making him the perfect one to inadvertently reveal the location of his allies. The fool would no doubt usher her and the datacore to his Thede mongrels.

  “Aldaakians.” Zhhl split itself into three smaller beings and walked on the ceiling.

  “They still patrol the Wraith Star system. Vim willing, they will intercept my salvager. My ship will arrive and create an incident. I already have the appropriate news briefs prepared: an attack on Inheritor shipping to neighboring Tejuit. The Aldaakians will be blamed, and the Thedes will be implicated. I will declare all human worlds under Inheritor protection. That silly peace treaty the Tannocci worlds agreed to with the Aldaakians will be retracted.”

  Dunaar knew Sarrhdtuu and Aldaakians lacked the human Savant ability, though simple devices could detect its presence. Even if Kivita or the gem entered their custody, neither alien species would know how to use them. The Vim had chosen humans, and no one else, to share in their glory.

  Morphing into one form again, Zhhl dropped down before Dunaar. It now stood over twenty feet tall. “Aldaakians must be defeated. They betrayed the Vim. Vengeance, Prophet of Meh Sat.”

  A sweat bead ran down Dunaar’s chin. “Yes, we will avenge the sainted ones. Everything has been set, as we’d originally planned. Do I still have your cooperation?”

  “Ships will be prepared after new war is declared on Aldaakians. One prize for Sarrhdtuu aid.” Zhhl raised one coil.

  “Yes?” Dunaar licked sweat from his lips, hoping Zhhl didn’t ask for more human slaves. In their last dealings, Dunaar had depopulated three Bellerion towns just to sate Zhhl’s demands.

  “Require the salvager of the Xeh’s Crown datacore. The one with tendrils of flame on her head.”

  Dunaar had to think for a moment. “You mean Kivita Vondir? She is the salvager I have sent to Vstrunn. The beacon you donated has been placed on her ship.”

  Sliding onto the boom, Zhhl morphed back into piles of coils. “Yes, Prophet of Meh Sat.” The audience was over.

  Dunaar hurried back to the airlock, trying to keep his expression neutral.

  Why would Zhhl want a Savant, when no Sarrhdtuu had ever shown interest in a datacore?

  5

  Kivita snapped awake as something wet stung her tonsils and blistered her tongue. Lips numb, she tried to cough. A spasm wrenched her throat before she realized what was going on.

  The cryopod’s tube had splashed pseudoadrine into her mouth. Before she could blink, her gums absorbed the synthetic adrenaline into her bloodstream. Kivita’s limbs jerked once; then energy blazed through her veins and ignited her muscles. Within seconds the sensations faded, leaving her cold but alert.

  Beeps emitted from the cryopod’s life-monitor readout, and a green light flashed. Great; she had woken in good health. She smoothed back her hair with trembling fingers. No matter how many times she underwent this same resurrection, Kivita always hated it.

  Grunting, she rose as the cryopod’s transparent cover opened. Terredyn Narbas hummed around her, dark and cold. Heating and life support had activated minutes before her awakening, but vacuum frost still covered the bulkheads. She shivered in her two-piece underwear.

  “Damn.” Kivita grabbed her black bodyglove and slipped from the pod. Terredyn Narbas’s running lights and gravity activated fully. The cryopod closed with a sucking noise.

  Kivita stretched, touched her toes, then did fifty jumping jacks. Burning sensations jolted her muscles again. Deep breaths cracked her chest. After a final stretch, she headed for the bridge. Blue-white lamps activated along the floor. Moments later she opened the bridge viewport.

  Vstrunn dominated the vista as the trawler entered the planet’s orbit. Wraith Star, a white dwarf sun, lit up the planet’s crystallized surface in red, purple, and white twinkles. Gray cloud banks encircled the sphere. The planet was like the corpse of someone’s dream, left to rot in the void.

  She couldn’t imagine a worse place to explore: more than twenty-thousand miles in diameter, with high-G and a seven-hour day—and nothing but hydrogen for an atmosphere.

  Viewing the computer readout, Kivita snapped on her polyboots. No Aldaakian ships appeared on the scanner. Frowning, she studied Vstrunn’s scintillating surface once more. High-G, combined with the jagged surface, would make for a dangerous landing.

  “Yeah. Let’s see what you got, you big lug of a planet.” After eating a protein slab, she donned an envirosuit, then girded on her kinetic pistol with a ten-round magazine.

  “I’m going to leave you up here, okay, girl? Be right back.” She patted the bulkhead and stepped into the landing unit’s cramped bay. She slid into a small planetary capsule and sealed the hatch behind her. Two small seats waited with frost-caked buckles and ripped cushions. A tiny console beeped to life. She buckled herself in and triggered the tandem beacon. When she needed to return, the capsule would lift off and reunite with Terredyn Narbas.

  Before pressing the release button, she thought of her mother. Rhyer had claimed Kivita looked just like her. Hazel eyes, golden red hair. She caught her reflection in the console screen and swallowed.

  “Here goes.” As soon as she tapped the red button, Kivita’s stomach churned and she gritted her teeth. One instant she gazed upon the landing unit’s bulkhead; the next, Vstrunn rose below her in monstrous vastness.

  Dark void filled reality on either side of the capsule. Terredyn Narbas grew smaller above her. The Wraith Star burned with a dying, impotent fury, casting everything in subdued tones. Vstrunn’s hydrogen bands seemed to reach up and grab the capsule.

  The computer beeped again. Two minutes until landing; each second a mini eternity of crushing acceleration and gut-wrenching free fall.

  Vstrunn’s outer atmosphere encircled the landing capsule. Yellow-gray mist obscured the viewport as turbulence shook the small craft. Kivita gripped the seat handles as vacuum frost came free and struck her suit. She squeezed her legs together, the sensation to urinate overwhelming. The protein slab she’d eaten jumped in her stomach, and Kivita bit her lip to keep from vomiting.

  Stillness fell over the capsule. Cloud c
over dissipated, revealing a landscape dotted with twisted spires, jagged plateaus, and mile-deep canyons. Kivita smiled despite her reentry travails. She’d never seen placards of Vstrunn; just heard rumors in spacer bars.

  The white dwarf sun lit everything in ghostly repose. Violet, sapphire, and ruby quartz hues gleamed in sparkling glory. Coronas flared through thin crystal formations. Geodes the size of starships glittered with a thousand illuminated facets.

  The sight took her breath. For a long moment, the capsule seemed to stop midair, as if to grant her a view from deepest fantasies dreamt worlds away.

  Kivita grunted as the capsule’s braking thrusters fired. A thick parachute deployed from the module above her. She braced herself.

  The capsule jerked. Her helmet slammed against the seat. Frost crystals slid across her faceplate, but she blinked away the pain. Kivita started to cough, then choked as the capsule slammed into the surface. Her restraints squeezed the breath from her lungs as she jostled about. Crystal shrapnel smacked the viewport. Red warning lights flashed on the console.

  “Shit,” she breathed.

  As Kivita unbuckled herself, each inhalation grew harder. Sweat crept down her brow by the time she rose and studied the console. It felt like giant hands were trying to press her down into the floor. She’d forgotten just how much high-G hampered her movements and strained her muscles.

  The console beeped new messages across its screen. One thruster had been crushed, and the port-side bulkhead was cracked, but not breached. Kivita glanced out the viewport. The parachute lay in tatters on sharp stalagmite-like terrain forty yards away.

  “Great. But we’re otherwise okay, you piece of—”

  A steam jet blew against her right arm. She jerked back. Within moments, the steam’s moisture crackled into ice. The newly formed crystals clattered onto the capsule floor. Kivita fought the rising lump in her chest and studied the readout again. As long as the structure held and the crushed thruster didn’t rupture, she could still take off.

  Her canisters held nine hours of air.

  Kivita took three deep breaths and turned on her wrist compass. The speaker inside her helmet beeped once. The tiny compass screen displayed a flashing arrow, indicating the direction of the trajectory given by Dunaar. The location of the Juxj Star.

  “C’mon, five miles?” Under high-G, the distance would be grueling. She also wasn’t sure what time of day she’d landed; she guessed four hours of light remained. After that, Vstrunn would really turn cold.

  Kivita exited the capsule and stepped onto minuscule ruby shards, scorched black from her landing. She gazed around, getting her bearings.

  Sapphire canyon walls rose at least one hundred feet above her, and a slope led into a large black crevice fifty feet on her right. Her landing had been fortunate. Hell, more than fortunate. Shivering, she tried not to guess the fissure’s depth. As she walked from the capsule, her knees wobbled and her lungs compressed. Her heart thumped as if she’d been running.

  “Six energy dumps,” she whispered, then stepped onto a mesa covered in fine purple crystals. They crunched under her boots like glassware baubles.

  Ahead, the landscape glittered and twinkled. Huge transparent crystal clusters filled the valley below the mesa. Hundreds of thin, brittle stalks rose dozens of feet into the air, and tiny flakes of frozen hydrogen dusted the landscape.

  For an instant, the visions she’d seen since Xeh’s Crown flooded her mind. Galactic arms filled with yellow, blue, and orange stars, rather than the dying red giants dominating the Cetturo Arm.

  Kivita shook her head. This high-G must be playing tricks on her.

  The compass beeped and the arrow flashed toward the crystalline grove below. Kivita took another deep breath and trudged on. She’d trained in high-G before, but as she climbed down the mesa wall, her muscles burned with exhaustion. Sweat ran in rivulets down her face. Her faceplate’s defroster worked extra just to keep it from fogging over.

  Soon she traveled through the grove she’d spotted from above. Her footsteps popped and cracked over crystals. Kivita avoided rubbing against the larger ones with her suit. One puncture, and she’d become a permanent resident. Twice she paused to catch her breath.

  Something caught the sunlight behind a ruby geode formation. Kivita paused, then stiffened.

  Two hundred feet away sat a squat Inheritor shuttle. Panels had been ripped off the outer hull, and three forms in envirosuits lay a short distance from the craft. Hydrogen frost had covered the faceplates.

  A chill entered Kivita’s chest. Her legs trembled as she staggered toward a skinny quartz formation.

  “Six . . . energy . . . dumps . . .”

  The impulse to steady herself against a crystal spire nagged her. Her lungs burned, working harder. Aeons passed as she crept through the grove, then into a massive arched tunnel, its ceiling forty feet above her. Luminescent sapphires glowed with mysterious inner fire.

  Pausing, she recalled some of her father’s tips. Don’t fight nature; work with it. Kivita stopped resisting the high-G so much and relaxed. Her breathing leveled off as she developed a walking and inhalation rhythm. There—she could do it. Dunaar hadn’t hired just any spacer; he’d hired Kivita Vondir, and she could . . .

  The compass indicated two miles to go. Damn.

  She entered a second arched tunnel. The glow of ruby and violet geodes reflected off a familiar polished surface lying at her feet: Inheritor polyarmor. A cuirass, greaves, one boot. A kinetic rifle lay snapped in two, its magazine gutted. Dark crimson stains covered the surrounding crystals, and tufts of flesh lay in scattered piles.

  Kivita’s breaths came slow and painful as she drew her pistol. The shots could pierce polyarmor, but with only ten rounds, she’d have to make them count.

  The compass beeped and the arrow stopped blinking. Kivita halted and swallowed.

  Outside the tunnel, a tall square tower of sapphire and violet gems soared three hundred feet above her. A huge quartz stone with ruby veins rested atop it, catching the faint sunlight in pink motes. Other angular formations dotted the surrounding area, but she couldn’t tell if they were built from the crystals or had been overgrown. Kivita wondered if any other buildings existed on Vstrunn, and who might have built them.

  Who could have built anything on this planet?

  The tower’s presence defied her disbelief.

  She scanned the area. Kith were hulking, seven-foot-tall creatures and rather ugly. Surely she’d spot one easily across this gorgeous landscape. Nothing disturbed Vstrunn’s stillness. Gripping the pistol, Kivita walked on.

  The tower doorway loomed before her like the mouth of some legendary monster. She entered with cautious steps. Even if she found the Juxj Star right now, it would be night once she reached the landing capsule.

  The tower’s interior gleamed with luminescent crystal blocks cut in exact fittings. Kivita switched her wrist compass to indicate the distance from her capsule; she’d flee as soon as she found the gem. Once she stepped from a foyerlike room into a grand chamber, thoughts of leaving faded.

  The crystal walls pulsed with inner light, reaching up to the ruby quartz three hundred feet above her head. Her limbs shook; her head tingled. No steps, no lifts along the sides. The walls were as slick as glass, reflecting a thousand versions of herself from angular fractures. The crystalline structures mesmerized Kivita into a state of bliss, as if she already dreamt in her cryopod.

  In the center of the floor stood a three-foot, amethystine altar. A round red gem the size of a child’s fist hung suspended over it. Nothing visible held up the gem.

  Kivita stilled. Three armored Aldaakian bodies lay around the altar. Through the narrow faceplates, the albino faces looked asleep. They might have been dead for a day or a decade. Part of her wanted to touch them, while another wanted to look away. Strange how heat created life as well as destroyed it,
while cold drained life while preserving it.

  The tingling in her brain increased. Shit, not another headache. Something tickled her throat, and Kivita’s breaths quaked in her lungs.

  Reflected in one Aldaakian faceplate at her feet was a tall, hulking form.

  She turned.

  Five Kith had entered the crystal tower. They stepped easily around the altar, their metallic gray flesh mirroring the pulsing geode lights. Triangular black eyes examined her, and serrated black claws protruded from their hands.

  “Damn it.” Her mouth went dry.

  The Kith swept toward her, claws raised. The high-G rooted her in place while not affecting them.

  Kivita’s sight flashed with images of a spiral galactic arm filled with blue stars. Hands numb, she dropped the pistol. It clattered on the crystal floor. She closed her eyes and suppressed a whimper.

  No. It would not end like this.

  Spreading her arms, Kivita waited. No way she’d die in fear. With slow breaths, she calmed her nerves. In her mind, the vision of the spiral arm solidified. The name of an unknown star came to her lips.

  Something cracked and broke at her feet. Kivita opened her eyes.

  One of the Kith had stepped on her pistol. The creature lowered its head right before her faceplate, and the tower’s glowing crystal lights danced in its black gaze. Kivita dared not look away or move. A patient intelligence waited in its eyes.

  She licked her lips and tried to whisper. “What do you want?”

  As one, all the Kith stepped back.

  Swaying, Kivita gulped for air. Her knees, exhausted from high-G exertion, slammed into the floor. Both kneecaps flared in agony. With a groan, she pulled the emergency drawstring on her waist. The envirosuit’s inner layer clamped her body in case the outer layer was torn.

  The Kith didn’t move. Her knees throbbing with fresh bruises, Kivita braced herself against the amethyst altar. Why wouldn’t the tingling in her head go away?