Eric Olafson: Space Pirate Page 15

  Women, so I found, or perhaps the ones I knew so far, had much fewer inhibitions to undress even before others. She appeared perfectly content being completely in the buff, but then she had a wonderfully shaped body. In this regard, the Saresii were as human as could be and very attractive to boot.

  She waved her hand. “You can take that Togar costume off now. We will take the rest of our journey together pretending to be Union citizens and pilgrims on the way back from a trip to the statue.”

  It took a sharp knife and some careful cutting to get the tight suit open. Bioflex was living tissue, after all, and it did not require buttons, zippers, or other closure systems, but like Intelli-Fab, the seams grew together and had to be cut open to separate again.

  A Sojonit came in gathered the items and said with a nice inviting voice, “If you’d like to tend to your hygienic needs, Sister Nightshade, there is a bath if you step through that door.”

  I was glad I could leave the room. Despite my recent experiences, I still liked to wear clothing, especially in the presence of women.

  The Sojonit opened the door for me and said, “If you’d like company or would like to be washed, let me know.”

  I blushed and thanked her for the offer but declined.

  After the bath, I was asked to use an Auto-Dresser once more, and it gave me a golden-colored flowing gown and once again female features. Mother Superior wore the same golden garment. She asked me to sit and listen to the report one of the sisters gave.

  “The Worm and the Kermac have stopped searching for the human on Sin 4; a taxi driver was found who claimed he had seen the human fall to his death and the reward retracted. Luckily, no one made the connection with the events on Alvor’s Cove. There they believe the ruckus was caused by the crew members of an enslaved mercenary leader, who managed to escape with several members of his crew, stealing the personal ship of the local lord and leaving his highness behind, tied up and on lying on the landing field for hours. The local lord is furious, but no one is looking for a Terran or Union officer.”

  Mother Superior nodded, satisfied. “It seems your friends from the slave pen made it, too, and provided us with a good cover. I was already afraid someone would associate the events on Sin 4 with the ones on Alvor’s Cove.”

  The Sojonit that briefed us glanced on her PDD and said, “I doubt the local lord will make too much fuss, as he found out it was Tirkov Steen. He would not want the Steen’s Devils to pay him a visit. Unlike the fleet, private mercenary units can go anywhere and that one is one of the famous ones.”

  I decided to read up on this mercenary business once I had a chance. Not that I had any plans to ever join such an outfit, but maybe I could send Tirkov a message one of these days and see how he faired.

  Mother Superior was pleased as well, saying, “Nothing better could have happened, given the situation. The incident is just one of many like this in Free Space and no one will talk about it tomorrow.” She gestured toward the PDD. “We have been out of the loop for a while, my Soja and I; any news from home?”

  She nodded. “GalNet One transmitted a mass execution of sixty-one individuals from a planet called Newport, all accused and found guilty of treason. The Assembly officially welcomed the Botnaars into the Union of Civilizations. Those war-loving brutes from the Spinward section used to be independent Free Spacers after they left the Galactic Council seven hundred years ago. Also, the arrival of the first 500 Narth at the PSI Corps Academy on Phantas caused big news and was hailed as a momentous historic event. The Narth Supreme addressed the Assembly for the first time just three days ago and finally, Alycia Lichfangh and Admiral Stahl announced their engagement and their intent to marry. That is still all over the talk channels.”

  Mother Superior turned to me. “Alycia Lichfangh is the Commandant of the PSI Corps. She and McElligott founded it as a special task force and research group to develop means of Psionic protection and combat Psionic crimes and espionage. Only beings with an HD-PSI index over 500 and intensive testing and training are admitted. Lichfangh has many psionic talents and no one can lie or not answer her when she is present.”

  I didn’t know much about the PSI Corps, but I had met the General in Admiral Webb’s office when I was admitted to the Academy. There was always plenty of talk and scuttlebutt about them, and everybody knew something about them. From Academy classes, I knew the PSI Corps was one of the most potent Special Forces units, primarily engaged in internal security and counter-intelligence. It was, so I had learned, mostly due to the PSI Corps that, despite all efforts of the enemy, no outside force had yet discovered the secrets to several key technologies that made the Union and Terran forces as strong as they were. Chief among those technological secrets was the translocator cannon. But the entire PSI Corps had only three or four thousand members and their resources were always stretched to the limits.

  The Sojonit with the PDD said, “All that makes the Nul and especially the Kermac very nervous. You can feel the tensions, especially here on Netlor. Five hundred Narth to become trained PSI Corps agents are bad news for anyone spying on the Union, especially, of course, the Kermac and the Worm. No one knows the true potential of the Narth, but no one doubts they are beyond anything we know so far.”

  Mother Superior again turned to look at me from the side. “As you know now, that was the reason they tried to get to you, but now your Narth is just one of many, and they won’t focus just on you anymore.”

  I leaned back and sighed. “That is indeed good news then. I’d rather be one of many and not the focus of an entire enemy civilization and a criminal organization to boot.”

  She gave me a long look and now, for the first time, perhaps because she didn’t wear her mask, I felt that same eerie feeling that made my skin crawl when an immortal looked at me. I had the same eerie feeling when McElligott and Admiral Stahl had looked at me directly. Somehow, I was also certain there was affection in her eyes and also a hint of fear or sadness.

  She said with a slight emotional vibration in her voice, “Yes, that is good news, but I fear that you, my little Soya, will never be just one of many anymore.” She patted my hand. “If you reach your life’s goal, a starship captain is never one of the crew.”

  I never really thought about it that way, yet both Admiral Stahl and Captain Harris told me the same thing, but then that was years in the future, and with all the detours life threw at me, it might even take longer. I asked her, “What is a Soya?”

  She looked surprised and then said, “I did call you that, didn’t I? Well, it’s nothing really; just an old word. I think we should go and see the statue and take a little sight-seeing tour and after a good night’s rest, we take the next transport to Checkpoint 96.”

  She got up and added, “But first, I have urgent business to attend. Something even immortals still have to do.”

  She went to the bathroom door and closed it behind her.

  The Sojonit leaned forward and whispered, “Soya is an old Saresii word can be translated as, ‘beloved student’.”

  The woman turned to look into the direction where the Mother Superior had just gone and added, “You should be very proud of that. There are only two or three individuals she has ever called Soja, as far as I know. Considering her true age, as I think she revealed to you, this makes this very special indeed. I’m am certain you are the first male ever so honored.”

  I was still thinking about that, an hour later, just why she had chosen to call me that when we left the Sojonit tent.

  The paths and lanes between the tents and makeshift buildings were filled with men, women, and members of several non-humanoid species. They all wore these golden dresses like robes, girded with a tasseled rope around the hip. On the feet, they all wore simple slippers, just like we now did. Many wore additional capes with attached hoods. Not everyone wore them up, but we did and our faces were partially hidden underneath a veil that was supposed to keep the dust and local insects away. We instantly blended in, and there was a b
usy din of voices and the pilgrims frequented the stores, shops, and souvenir stands.

  We stopped at a few and looked over the offerings. There were miniature statues in virtually any material and size. The statues all depicted a somewhat human-shaped being that stood inside a hexagonal frame with outstretched arms and legs. The figure had no feet or hands or any other details and was smooth and featureless. The head of the figure was a metal loop with five different-colored glass segments. Green, red, blue, yellow and white.

  The most popular item appeared to be jewelry. Earrings, necklaces, and armbands adorned with the same symbolic figure.

  Mother Superior, who asked me to call her Gamia now, and I had to listen for the name Renia, purchased a necklace and handed it to me. “Here, wear that; it will look nice on you and it will be a souvenir reminding you of this time.”

  I thanked her and put the thing around my neck. She bought herself a set of earrings and I took what looked like an incense burner. “What is the meaning of this figure anyway?”

  She put the earrings on and answered, “You will see the real thing in a little while. About twelve thousand years ago, after my species resumed space exploration, we found this world. At first, it was an unremarkable planet, but it had a suitable NiOx atmosphere and liquid water. A few indigenous life forms, mostly plants, and crab-like animals, were observed as well. But then they noticed that the world was in a perfectly circular orbit around a yellow star that had no flaws, no sunspots, and its spectrum showed it was much older than a yellow star should be. The system has only this one planet and the world has no axial tilt. All these are strong indications that this system was not natural but had been altered by a very advanced civilization.”

  We had left the jewelry dealer and slowly walked within the stream of others, and she continued her explanation, “The Saresii expedition discovered a five-hundred-meter-tall statue standing on a platform.” She reached for my necklace and held its pendant up. “It looks like this. The material it was made of turned out to be some Neutronium alloy and virtually indestructible.”

  The buildings became more solid now and were mostly made of local stone and appeared quite old. She changed our direction by walking toward a taxi stand, where we had to stand in line as there were not enough taxis. The line moved fairly quickly, as there were only maybe sixty or seventy individuals before us and the arriving flyers took eight to ten passengers along.

  She lowered her voice and switched to that odd language. They must have uploaded me with the linguistics while I was at the temple since I understood it just fine. “The Saresii had no interest back then in expanding again, and this world was too far away from Sares Prime anyway, so they took notice, recorded everything and more or less forgot about it. It was re-discovered after the Third Intergalactic War and by treaty included in Free Space. Archeology teams of the Big Four started digs and excavations, and it was generally accepted that the statue is of UNI origin. They have found ruins of a much younger and primitive civilization but determined that the ruins had nothing to do with the statue itself. Some of the ruins excavated you see here in the core of the Netlor settlement. These are all permanently occupied and serve the Pilgrims and tourists that come here outside the main religious events.”

  It was our turn to board the next flyer, and we shared it with eight loudly and agitated chatting golden-robed members of that church. They paid little interest in us; all eight were human and spoke Union standard. Unable to ignore most of their conversation, I learned they all came from a Union planet called Guzzler, 763 light years away and that it was not only their first pilgrimage but also their first time off-planet. One of the female pilgrims unfastened her veil and took a long sip from a water bottle, fanned her hand before her face and complained about the dust and the heat. She then went into a long discussion of how to make mud pie for the church coffee and tea gathering.

  While I was not in the least interested in just how much cocoa powder was needed to make mud pie; she obviously felt the need to include everyone in her conversation and then pointed her finger at me. “Don’t you agree, young lady?”

  I was completely caught off guard by that and simply nodded. Since it was impossible for the Mother Superior to tell me more about the place I had been thinking about finally returning. It hadn’t been all that long, but it had felt like a lifetime.

  She began to annoy me, especially since I had made a mistake agreeing with her; she included me in her conversation and asked me again, “You agree, don’t you?”

  This time, I didn’t even know what she had talked about and said, “I think you should stuff some of that mud pie in your pie hole. Maybe that will shut you up!”

  For the first time, there was silence. She acted like a fish on dry land, opening her garishly pink painted lips and gasping for air.

  I nodded. “That’s the ticket. Keep breathing for a while, and we all can enjoy some peace and quiet.”

  Now she turned colors underneath her hood and a chinless man with thin black hair, not wearing his hood up, patted her hand and hissed at me. “Galria is the soul of our church group! How dare you tell her to shut up? You are one rude and primitive person. You should be expelled from our community.”

  After all I’d gone through the past weeks, this trivial, unimportant scene somehow annoyed me. From psych class, I realized my nerves and my own balance had suffered more than I realized and I was about to stuff my fist in his face and show him just how rude and primitive I really could be when someone said, “There it is, the statue!”

  Everyone, including me, looked at the horizon. Before a rugged-looking mountain range stood a huge version of the symbolized being. It was not bad or ugly or anything, but to me, it was just some sort of huge piece of alien art. While 500 meters was quite tall, I had seen the Devastator land. I saw the Sphere of Assembly and the immense towers on Pluribus. That statue was about as unexciting to me as seeing an Ult painting. No one, not even the Ult, could tell you what the smear was supposed to represent and yet everyone went crazy when Master Nubb released another masterpiece.

  The Mother Superior pulled me back down into the seat and whispered, “Let us keep this station in our journey a simple and short one. I don’t think we need the trouble and try to hide from the local Syndicate guards because you pounded a Pilgrim group to a pulp.”

  That made me sit down and be quiet very fast. No way did I want to be in any more trouble, not so close before getting back. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She leaned close. “You do have a short temper. I think you need to work on that a little.”

  What seemed a lifetime ago, I’d accused my father of having a short temper. Reflecting on my actions since I left Nilfeheim, and not for the first time either, I realized how much trouble I could have avoided if I had kept a cooler head.

  We were dropped off at the base of the statue, and I watched thousands gather on the platform before the statue and throw off their robes, standing completely bare, mimicking the pose of the statue. I never was much of a religious person but standing there in the buff seemed particularly silly to me.

  She leaned close and said, “I assume you do not want to join them and bathe in the light, right?”

  “No, not really. I told you before, I respect your religion. I even try to respect this one. But seeing adult beings wanting to bathe in light makes it quite hard. I limit my religious activities to occasionally calling on Thor or Odin and cursing Loki.”

  Even though I could not see her face, as it was underneath the hood, I was certain she was amused, her voice certainly sounded that way. “Yes, you told me and I respect your decision on that. I too find this a little silly. I think there is a Kermac or Saresii telepath hiding somewhere, paid by the local syndicates to give some of them a religious experience to keep the mystery and thus the donations and the business alive.”

  She then said, “But I thought since we are here anyway, we might as well see it. For one thing, traveling educates as they say and it never hurts
to see something new. That is a particular problem when you get my age.”

  She took my hand and pulled me out of the way of other arriving pilgrims that immediately climbed the stairs.

  I thought about that for a moment and whispered back, “Do you really remember everything you have seen and done in all that time? Would you not simply die of boredom having seen everything in one form or another?”

  Now she really laughed. “Thankfully not. No, I don’t remember everything, but occasionally I remember things I thought I had forgotten.”

  Some sudden revelation came to my mind, and I whispered, “Can I ask you something, Mother Superior?”

  “Of course.”

  “Are you the goddess? I mean are you Sojo?”

  There was a moment of silence, and she squeezed my hand she was still holding a little tighter. “No, not exactly, but perhaps I am something in that direction. One day, when you come into your own, I will try to explain it to you, but for now, it does not matter. I am what I am, and you have a long way ahead of you. At least I hope you do and don’t stir up trouble you can’t get out of.”

  I didn’t feel like poking more, as I knew she would not answer.

  She pointed to the sun that was now disappearing behind the mountain range. “Those mountains are about eight kilometers from here, and when the sun reaches a particular spot it will line up with a hole in the tallest mountain and send a beam of light right at the head of that statue and it, in turn, will bathe the platform with colored light. It will last only for a few moments, but that’s what they are waiting for.”

  As the first rays of light made the hole in the mountain visible, a collective sigh was going through the crowd. Slowly, the bright sun was filling it out, and it was quite impressive to see the light hit the colored glass-like material. The pilgrims started singing and waving, and it all was not my cup of tea. However, as the sun filled the hole completely, I suddenly remembered my ring.