Participant Species: Asher in Ordered Space Volume I

  Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Back Matter

  Participant Species

  Asher in Ordered Space Volume I

  John M. D. Hooper

  Amazon Kindle Edition

  © 2014 John M. D. Hooper

  All Rights Reserved

  Chapter One

  A voice rang out in the small chamber. “State your position, affiliation, and full name of record.”

  Asher judged that it was a DevCo-made interactive sensor. The tinny rattle of the speaker gave it away. DevCo devices were obsolete and had notoriously stupid AI. “Two-Bar in Security Operations, Hokozana Corporation, Donald Quentil Asher,” he said.

  “What is the purpose of your visit to Zvezda One?” asked the computer.

  “Business,” said Asher.

  “Please be more specific,” said the voice.

  Asher sighed. “I have a meeting with Drienner Marcolis, Star-Cluster in Security Operations, Hokozana Corporation.”

  “Confirmed,” said the voice. “Drienner Marcolis arrived one hour ago via Hokozana Corporation shuttle Slider. It left instructions for you to meet it at the merchant known as Cashion Bar.”

  Asher was momentarily dumbfounded, thinking he had just been told to meet a shuttle in a bar. Then he realized that the ancient computer was unable to estimate a gender to go with the name Drienner Marcolis. He thought about explaining, but it seemed funnier to let the Zvezda One systems continue referring to the old man as “it.”

  “Three weapons must be checked in,” the machine went on. “List: one EOS Talon 3 Semi-Automatic Pistol, one DevCo Manic X7 Pulse Gun, one non-branded edged weapon, of a folding knife type. Place the weapons in the receiving bin. A receipt will be placed on your Zvezda ID chip. You may redeem checked items upon departure. Any items not redeemed after thirty standard days become the property of the Zvezda Company.”

  Asher was ready for this. All three weapons were already in his hands. He slid them into the open maw of the receiving bin, which retracted into the wall. “Anything else?” he asked.

  “Prepare for implantation of the Zvezda ID chip. Please place your hand in the open slot.”

  A slot had indeed opened in the wall facing Asher. “It would be the damned hand,” he muttered as he slid his left hand into the gap. Something pinched the flesh on the between the third and fourth metacarpals. A needle stuck the pinched-up flesh and quickly retreated. Asher winced. He much preferred the more standard back implantations.

  “ID chip installed. Welcome to Zvezda One. Enjoy your visit.”

  “Thanks,” said Asher.

  The wall to his right retracted into the roof. He stepped through into a wide hallway. The wall to his left and right was lined with shuttered alcoves. Presumably these were other customs booths for dealing with arriving travelers. He faced a wall lined with large plexiglass windows. These looked down on the gray-green planet below.

  Asher took a moment to study the world. It was a rocky planet, and seemed to be mainly landmass, with only two small oceans—almost just huge lakes—visible in the whole quarter of the planet that could be seen through the windows. The hemisphere he was looking at graded from a sort of plain gray at the poles to almost pure green at the equator. He assumed he was looking at bands of different vegetation, possibly a forest area in the tropics grading to barren tundra nearer the poles. If so, he knew the planet would be cold, because the forested band was narrow and the gray tundra was wide and well-established.

  It was clearly an unsettled or lightly-settled world. Asher wasn’t sure what corp held the place, but they hadn’t yet established much of a planetside presence. He couldn’t make out any of the immense starfish-shapes he associated with the expansion of standard modular habitats. All in all, he thought, it seemed improbable place for an orbital, even for a two-bit independent operation like Zvezda One seemed to be. He wondered why it had been worth anyone’s time to build this floating garbage can here.

  The hall was nearly empty. He saw a group of four people walking together down near the end of the passage to his left. They were wearing green-and-gold uniforms. They looked a lot like DiJeRiCo to him, which meant he was not in Hokozana-friendly territory. Nearer at hand, off to his right, a tall Ferether was staring out of a window, all of its arms folded neatly into its back. Asher turned on the translator on his collar and walked toward the alien. “How do you do?” he asked.

  The gangly creature turned and looked down at him. At least, if it had been human it would have been looking at him, but Asher wasn’t at all sure that Ferethers had eyes. Asher had run into a few of the aliens. Once, he had been peripherally involved in a disastrous rescue op on a damaged Ferether ship. Even so, he had had little direct, one-on-one contact with them. The species came from beyond Ordered Space, and was thus fairly uncommon even in frontier systems.

  “Can I help you?” said the Ferether. Or rather, that was what Asher’s neural net interpreted. The Ferether had simply rustled three of its mouthparts against one another. Asher’s neural net conveyed a sense of caution along with the translation, just a hint that the alien was not altogether receptive to conversations with strangers.

  “Pardon. I’m new here. Just looking for the way to Cashion Bar.” Asher smiled, hoping the Ferether’s own interpretation software would convey that he did not mean any harm or offense with the questioning.

  The Ferether gestured vaguely to the right—hubward in terms of station geography, then abruptly turned back to the window. “Friendly,” muttered Asher as he walked away. Fortunately, he had remembered to key his translator off. The big alien paid him no heed. It seemed to be absorbed in a detailed examination of the planet below.

  The hall opened onto a wide concourse that arced away to Asher’s left and right. He had come to the inner wheel of the station. The brief glance he’d had at a schematic of Zvezda One showed two concentric wheels circling the spherical hub. As was to be expected in such a small station, the inner wheel was the main habitation and commercial area. The hall he had just come from, with its docking gates and customs booths, ran the length of one of the spars that connected the two wheels. The outer wheel would probably contain warehousing and lab space, assuming the layout of the station was fairly typical.

  There were quite a few people wandering around in the concourse, but not as many as Asher would have seen on a typical Hokozana orbital. He noticed that a large proportion of the crowd were wearing DiJeRiCo green and gold. The second-largest complement were dressed in semi-standardized maroon-and-gray patterns. These were likely to be the operatives of Zvezda One’s own parent corporation. Quite a few scruffy-looking individuals weren’t wearing any distinguishable uniform. These could be anything from operatives of small family corporations to outright non-corp pirates. He seemed to be the only person in Hokozana’s blue and gray. As a representative of a well-known Class I megacorp, he drew quite a few looks. Some—especially from DiJeRiCo operatives—were less than friendly.

  The Cashion Bar, when he found it, was about what he expected. A hole in the wall of the concourse held a high bar with a few stools pulled up
to it. Tables with grease-stained red-and-gray tablecloths were scattered out into the concourse proper. Drienner Marcolis was sitting at one of the tables, looking serene as ever. He smiled as Asher approached. “Ah, Donnie.” Marcolis was the only person who ever called Asher that.

  “Hello, Sir,” said Asher. Marcolis’ hair was unkempt and he hadn’t shaved in days. If not for the cluster of five stars on his collar of his threadbare Hokozana uniform, he might easily have been taken for a vagabond prospector or deep scout.

  “Have a seat, won’t you Donnie?” With a surprisingly elegant gesture, Marcolis indicated the chair across the table.

  Asher sat down with a small sigh. A surly maroon-and-gray-clad waitress took his order for a beer. When she asked what kind, he just said, “Whatever you got.” She grunted and walked over to lean on the bar while the bartender, who looked equally surly, poured Asher his drink.

  Asher’s beer arrived in short order. Marcolis raised his own glass in salute and took a sip of what Asher figured was vodka. “Do you know why I asked for you, Donnie?” asked the older man.

  “Not really, Sir. They didn’t tell me much. I got plucked off a shuttle as soon as she docked at Hesperia Central and they put me on a destroyer heading out this way. Now its four jumpgates and three ships later, and I’m finally in a place I probably never wanted to be. I was told you’d handle the briefing personally.”

  “Sorry, Donnie. I know it’s all been a bit melodramatic. Let me start by welcoming you to Bright-Dim, the newest system to be brought into Ordered Space.” Marcolis sat back and sipped his vodka with a wry smile.

  Asher whistled. The addition of any new planetary systems to Ordered Space was a major event. In the eleven years he had been on the job, it had only happened once before. “So that explains why this place is such a two-bit operation. Some little scout and prospecting company, I’m guessing, and now they’re trying to sell the system.”

  Marcolis nodded. “That’s pretty much it. Scouts from the Zvezda Company reached the system about two decades ago. It took them years to get the jumpgate working. They’ve been scraping together the money to build this place ever since. They did a great job, really. We never knew they were here until after they’d filed all their claims, nice and proper.” He smiled again, with a slight shake of his head. Asher figured that the higher-ups at Hokozana must be baying for blood when they learned that a new system had slipped by them like this. Some folks in Intel were probably having a very bad time of it just now.

  Once they had built the orbital station as a proof of investment and filed the proper claims in the Intercorp Courts, Zvezda would be de jure owner of the new system. Everyone knew, though, that only a megacorp really had the resources to develop such an enormous claim. Certainly, a Class I like Hokozana or a Class II like DiJeRiCo could do the job. Possibly a Class III could manage as well. The Zvezda Corporation—a Class VII or VIII at best, judging by their outdated station—must be putting on a show for investors. “I take it DiJeRiCo got the first invite to this little party,” Asher said.

  Marcolis smile vanished, to be replaced with a sour grimace. “They really just got lucky. When the first Zvezda ads went out over the subnet, DiJeRiCo just happened to have an exploration fleet parked in a system two jumps away. They were here within a day. It’s taken us several. I can tell you, the bigwigs are not happy.”

  “So why are we here? Shouldn’t they have sent operatives from Marketing and Acquisitions, and Legal, and whatever? What’s it got to do with Security?”

  “Well, there’s a nuance here that we feel we have to explore. I wanted you on it because you’re one of the more independent-thinking operatives I’ve got. I’m not going to discuss the matter here in the concourse, though. Here’s a direct download.” Marcolis handed Asher a small pin drive. “You’re booked into the imaginatively named Zvezda One Hotel. Why don’t you treat that as bedtime reading for tonight? In the meantime, just wander around the station and take the place in.” Marcolis stood to leave.

  “That’s it?” asked Asher.

  “That’s it. For now, anyway. My shuttle is heading out in about ten minutes. I’m based on the only ship we’ve currently got in-system; a research vessel named Cormorant. Once I’m back aboard, we can stay in touch via your subnet implant. Everything about this from now is to be encrypted. Look me up tomorrow morning when you’re ready to get started.”

  Get started with what? Asher wanted to ask, but he knew it would be no use. He just said, “Yes, Sir,” like a good little operative.

  “Oh, and Donnie,” Marcolis turned back just as he was leaving, “you might want to see what you can learn about that planet.”

  Asher spent the remaining couple of hours of the standard evening wandering around Zvezda One. There wasn’t much to see. The open concourse stretched about three-quarters of the way around the inner wheel. In the final quarter, the passage narrowed to a hallway lined by sliding doors, presumably the crew quarters.

  There were DiJeRiCo operatives everywhere. Many of them spared an arrogant or angry glance for Asher in his Hokozana uniform. Judging by their uniform insignia, the majority seemed to be scientists and administrative types, which was appropriate for the crew of a research fleet. The few security operatives Asher saw were among the more openly hostile towards him. He wasn’t worried. No junior operative was going to start a fight in the territory of another corporation who everyone needed to play nice with. As long as the stakes were high and the ownership of Bright-Dim was unsettled, Zvezda One would be safely neutral.

  In a rather sparsely-furnished administrative complex, Asher found a marketing operative from the Zvezda Corporation who was only too happy to give a Hokozana man whatever information he needed about the system. The man launched into a long spiel about the various virtues of the system and the great potential for raw materials in several asteroid belts.

  Asher held up a hand to stop the recital. “Actually, I’m looking for information on the planet.”

  The marketing operative smoothly transitioned out of his prepared speech. “Which one? There are five bodies of orbit-clearing mass and a further seventy-five planetoids, thirty-two moons, and at least several million planetesimals, asteroids, and other bodies. Data on the smaller and more distant bodies is currently incomplete. I can offer you a system-model download, if you like.”

  “That would be helpful,” said Asher, “but I’m really interested in the planet down there.” He gestured toward the floor of the station. “You know? The one we’re orbiting?”

  “Cierren Cythra?” asked the man. “Why didn’t you say so?”

  “I didn’t know that was its name.”

  “That’s what we call it anyway. It’s our best rendition of the indigenous name.”

  “Indigenous?” asked Asher. That meant there was a native sentient.It was rare for a corp to make first contact with a new sentient species. It had to be almost twenty years since Hokozana’s scientists found the Lillican Rocks, the most recent such event Asher could remember. He couldn’t have been more than ten at the time. If there was a new sentient here, the potential value of Bright-Dim was going to go through the roof.

  Asher left the Zvezda One offices with three pin drives containing a system model, a model and description of Cierren Cythra, and some basic exobio and exoanthro data on the native Cythrans themselves.

  Asher found the Zvezda One Hotel off the main concourse, in one of the spars that connected the hub of the station to the wheels. The hotel was a modified storage module clamped to the spar. It was divided into ten small rooms—cells really. It seemed small, given the number of visitors to the station. Most of the operatives he had seen must be staying on their own ships and arriving at Zvezda One by shuttle, as Marcolis was.

  Once Asher was checked into his hotel room, he lined up the four pin drives on the small bedside table. The three he had got from the Zvezda receptionist glowed light red, their best approximation of maroon and gray. The one that Marcolis had given him wa
s the standard dull Hokozana blue. He set that one aside and slid one of the Zvezda brochures into the jack behind his right ear. He lay back on the bed and waited for the download to begin.

  The brochures were pretty amateurish. The data downloads went on in the background while a woman’s voice calmly recited facts about the topic—the Bright-Dim system, Cierren Cythra, or the Cythrans themselves—as if she was reading from an encyclopedia. She told him about the Cythrans, who were spread throughout the tropical and narrow subtropical bands of the planet. “The first new sentient species to enter Ordered Space in the past thirty years,” said the woman, “the Cythrans have a deep and sometimes child-like love of new things. When Zvezda Company scouts first contacted them, the most advanced Cythrans were living in mud-walled cities similar to those of the Sumerians or Egyptians of humanity’s ancient past, but with less complex socio-political structures. Most of the race lived in small villages in the tropical forest area or hunted the taiga and tundra in small bands.”

  Following the download on the Cythrans, Asher was able to access a set of still images of short, yellow-green creatures with fat hind legs, barrel-like bodies, and a head that sprouted what looked like six prehensile appendages, which were apparently visual and auditory sensors, and also the primary tactile and grasping appendages. Cythrans were a sexual species. The larger ones were roughly analogous to human females, while smaller examples with larger feet were classed as males. All very interesting, but he would have thought the download would have offered a deeper understanding of their culture and habits. Maybe the Zvezda marketing people were trying to hold information back to use as negotiations progressed. They hadn’t even added any video.

  The other pin drives from Zvezda, the model of the Bright-Dim system and a dry, planetary-science-oriented databank on Cierren Cythra itself, were equally boring to download. At least he knew the information was now stored in his neural network and could be accessed at any time. He turned to the final pin drive, the one given to him by Marcolis. He slid it into the jack and lay back on the bed.