The Dark Between the Stars Read online

  Kuivahr meant “refuge” in the Ildiran language. The halfbreed Ildiran researcher Tamo’l managed her medical sanctuary domes not far from Del’s distillery, but the mixed-breed genetic misfits kept to themselves. They had been on Kuivahr longer. Ildirans, as a race, took comfort in bright sunlight and areas of higher population. Though humans and Ildirans lived in separate settlements on Kuivahr, they benefited from living close together and traded with each other on a regular basis.

  Below, Del heard hooting laughter out in the water and saw five Ildiran swimmer kith, the sleek otterlike breed, splashing about. They tugged polymer coracles behind them as they harvested kelpflowers. The swimmers reserved the richer, more intense plankton slime for Tamo’l and her facility, but they gave Del most of their harvest, so long as he brewed the nasty kirae they liked to drink.

  Since Ildirans didn’t understand economics or payment, it was hard to convince the swimmer kith to bring in regular deliveries of ingredients so Del could plan his distillery process lines. But they were good neighbors, he supposed. He made do.

  A grating buzzer sounded from the speakers mounted above the distillery decks. Shift change. He had been meaning to get rid of the abrasive tone: workers should be pleased when their shift ended, and that noise sounded like a punishment. He would get around to it, but these days he didn’t get too concerned about small things. He’d had enough of that during his fifteen years as Speaker.

  He entered the distillery office levels, greeted the off-shift workers going either to the recreation hall or their own quarters. Many were his distant cousins, or apprentices from other clans who had applied for jobs because they felt Del owed them favors from old political days. He wasn’t sure that working in his distillery counted as a “favor,” but it was a decent job and better than many Roamer outposts, such as the lava-harvesting operations on Sheol.

  Marius Denva, his line supervisor, met him at the rec-room hall and led him to a table, where he had set out four goblets filled with khaki-colored liquids that exhibited varying degrees of murk.

  Del placed a hand on his stomach, which had grown much rounder in recent years, though he pretended not to notice it. His beard was now almost entirely salt with very little pepper. Serving as clan Speaker was enough to ruin anyone’s health and peace of mind, and he had promised himself he would get back in shape as soon as he had time to focus on that again. Someday.

  “Del, we’ve got samples of Batch Nineteen,” Marius said. “Different filtration levels, residual yeasts, and three separate plankton varieties.”

  “How do they taste?” Del asked.

  Marius had curly, dark brown hair, heavy eyebrows, and smoky eyes that squinted when he showed off his trademark smile. “I’m not going to be the first one to taste it.”

  “Yes you are.” Del handed one of the goblets to the man.

  With a hesitant frown, Marius took a sip, taking great care to maintain a neutral expression, though the flinch at his eyes was unmistakable. “Tastes like shit—but noticeably better than Batch Eighteen.”

  “That’s a relief. The seasonal plankton blooms are so unpredictable that the taste varies widely. At least we have six batches good enough to distribute. It sells well.”

  “As a novelty, not because anybody loves it. Give people time to develop a taste, while we improve the process.”

  Moving down the line, he and Marius sipped the alternate varieties, their grimaces growing progressively worse. They were attempting to brew a unique celebratory beverage to be served after the new clan Speaker was chosen.

  “Anything’s better than that Ildiran kirae, by damn.” Del shook his head. “We’re shipping tankers of the stuff, but I still think it tastes like eyeballs boiled in urine.”

  “One of these days, Del, I’m actually going to cook eyeballs in urine, so you can do a comparison taste test.”

  Del laughed. “Don’t need to, and the Ildirans can’t seem to get enough kirae, so we’ll keep it flowing. Maintain the goodwill between races. A long time ago, we Roamers took over their skymines and supplied stardrive fuel from gas-giant planets. Supplying Ildirans with their new favorite liquor needs doesn’t sound as essential, but it’s profitable, by damn.” He set the sample aside. “Well, I suppose this batch is good enough if Iswander wins. And he’s going to win.”

  Marius maintained his smile. “I thought you weren’t interested in politics anymore.”

  “I’m not. Not in the least.”

  “Right. Don’t tell me you haven’t looked at the new Roamer Charter to see if there’s a way you could run for Speaker again.”

  Del made a rude noise. “I’d sooner fight the hydrogues again.” He even thought he meant it.

  After the end of the Elemental War when the Roamers came together again, there had been more than a year of convocations. Fed up with the ineffectiveness of squabbling clans and committee meetings, Del Kellum had put himself forward as Speaker. He was a blustering businessman who pretended to modesty, as if he could convince anyone that he wasn’t really interested in the position of leadership.

  He wanted the clans to be strong, and he wanted decisions to be made. His slogan had been “decisions not dithering,” and Del was not a man who dithered. In fact, some complained that he didn’t take enough time to contemplate his decisions. Over the course of fifteen years as Speaker, though, the shine wore off. He had more arguments than triumphs. The Roamer clans had changed. Some integrated themselves so well into the business mindset of the former Hansa that they were indistinguishable from the people they had despised in the past. Like Lee Iswander.

  Five years ago, Del retired after one particularly ridiculous feud over two clan embroidery designs that the families felt were too similar, and neither clan wanted to change theirs. Del hadn’t taken the argument seriously—until it came to blows and even bloodshed with one young man attacking and injuring the leader of the rival clan. Stupid people!

  Del tried to make it look as if his decision to retire was not made in anger, but that maddening feud was when he made up his mind that he wanted nothing more to do with the nonsense. He gave eight months’ notice and set about picking his own successor—a competent, uninteresting woman named Isha Seward, who was so bland and unprovocative that none of the clans could object to her selection.

  Del retired to a warm and sunny beach on the planet Rhejak, planning to drink ale and lead an idyllic existence among the reefs. He’d always kept aquariums of angelfish and exotic sea creatures even in the ring shipyards of Osquivel, so he expected to enjoy having Rhejak as his personal aquarium. Within a year, he was bored out of his mind.

  After months of intensive research, he established the distillery here on Kuivahr and got back to work. . . .

  He and Marius walked the process lines, smelling the tang of saltwater boiled with kelpflowers and the wickedly pungent smell of fermenting kirae. He did hope that one of his aqua vitae concoctions made from kelp and plankton extracts might become a real fountain of youth, but he was more pragmatic than that. “I’d be happy just to create something that tastes good.”

  “And is marketable,” Marius added. “I think you need to change the name from Primordial Ooze, though.”

  They were standing above the giant copper pots that gurgled as they slow-cooked kelp mash when Del received notice that the Klikiss transportal had been activated. A new arrival was not itself unusual, except that the visitor was a lone man requesting to speak to the distillery manager. His name was Tom Rom.

  “He’s probably selling something,” said Marius.

  “If he is, then you’ll deal with him, by damn.”

  “That’s why I get the big salary.”

  Tom Rom was a tall, striking man with dark skin and a lean physique. His sinewy muscles were in all the right places, wrapped like monofiber cables around his bones. He had a long face with prominent cheekbones and bright eyes. A formfitting polymer suit clung to him like a reinforced skin. “Mr. Kellum, I’ve come to investigate your distill
ations for possible medicinal uses.” His voice was rich and deep as if he had taken Shakespearean training, but this man did not look like an actor. Not at all.

  Del stroked his beard and chuckled. “Medicinal uses? I’ve heard that one before.” Of course, Tamo’l did use some of the formulations to ease the suffering of her misbreeds in the sanctuary domes, but he doubted that was what Tom Rom meant.

  The strange visitor fixed him with a gaze as intense as a high-energy spotlight. “It is precisely why I’m here.”

  Marius broke in, “We’re always happy to sell our products, Mr. Rom.”

  “Call me Tom Rom—my full name, no honorific, appropriate for all purposes. No need to shorten.”

  Del found it odd, but he had met, and done business with, plenty of odd people. “Fair enough. Do you work for a company? A research project? Anything special you’re looking for?”

  “My employer is Zoe Alakis, and she conducts privately funded medical research. We’d like samples of your raw materials for biological analysis. Some of the natural Kuivahr substances may have pharmaceutical uses.”

  “Never heard of Zoe Alakis,” Del said.

  “My employer likes to keep a low profile.”

  Del said, “We make no medical claims. Our fine distillations are meant to be imbibed and enjoyed.”

  Marius muttered under his breath, “Enjoying them might be a little much.”

  Tom Rom ignored the comment. “Cost is no object. I require an exhaustive list of your base ingredients and your distillations, as well as liberal examples of each item so we can catalog them. I understand that some kelp extracts and plankton varieties produce unusual effects in humans?”

  “And Ildirans.” Del patted his rounded stomach again. “Mr. Denva here will set you up. We’ll even throw in a batch of Ildiran kirae—it tingles when you drink it, but no human can stand more than a sip.”

  Tom Rom was utterly humorless, all business. “Thank you. My employer will add that to her studies.”

  Marius said, “We’ll calculate a fair price, but we don’t want to give away any of our trade secrets.”

  “All of my employer’s work is entirely confidential, and not for profit,” Tom Rom said.

  Del suggested, “If you’re after medical research, you might want to meet with Tamo’l in the Ildiran sanctuary domes. She has a whole colony of misfits there, the mixed-breeds that didn’t turn out well from Dobro.” He called up a chart. “The tide’s low, so you could take a skimmer over there.”

  Tom Rom turned his gaze toward Del. “My employer may wish to follow up on that at a later date.”

  “Does she focus on any special areas of research?” Marius asked.

  “Her interests are wide ranging.”

  In less than two hours they had given Tom Rom sealed packages of ingredients and of each of their distillations, including kirae, and the stranger headed back through the alien transportal. For some reason neither of them could quite explain, the man made them uncomfortable, and they were happy to send him on his way.

  Later that afternoon when a clan trader arrived with expensive medusa meat from Rhejak—which Del considered a delicacy and paid well for—the scruffy woman also delivered news packets that included recordings of recent speeches the candidates had given at Newstation: Lee Iswander and Sam Ricks making their case to be elected the next Speaker.

  For half an hour, Del refused to watch. He muttered to himself that he had no further interest in politics, that the election of the next Speaker meant nothing to him. But in the end he gave up and reviewed the presentations.

  Running the clans was out of his hands now, and he didn’t need political ulcers again, yet the candidates worried him. Iswander was a Roamer, but he reminded Del too much of the worst parts of the Big Goose. Sure, Del accepted the need for the clans to change, but he didn’t want Roamers to become what the Hansa Chairman had once represented. Ricks’s lack of preparation or enthusiasm was hardly commendable either. Del was tempted to record a message of his own. He didn’t want to endorse Sam Ricks, but he wanted to rally the clans to remember who they were.

  He stopped himself and deleted the recording. No. He would not let himself get preoccupied with the election. He was past that now. He had his own life. If anything, he should have been paying more attention to his family.

  In fact, he made up his mind to go to Newstation for the election—strictly for appearances—and then head off to the gas giant Golgen, where he would visit his daughter and his grandchildren. Zhett and her husband operated the skymine there quite capably, but they could always use his advice, and it would give him something to focus on other than politics.

  NINE

  ZHETT KELLUM

  The skymine drifted above the blue and gray clouds of Golgen, churning through rising vapors. Probe lines dangled down for kilometers, analyzing the chemical composition of the gas giant’s atmosphere. Roamer skyminers could raise or lower the industrial behemoth in order to harvest the densest hydrogen concentrations. The facility reminded Zhett Kellum of an enormous jellyfish.

  Thrumming pistons pumped hydrogen from the intake scoop through reaction chambers, and separated out the rare allotrope ekti, which fueled Ildiran stardrives. Exhaust boiled away from huge stacks, sighing back into the atmosphere and propelling the facility along its aimless route. The skymine produced ekti for the Confederation as well as the Ildiran Empire.

  Hydrogues still dwelled in the deep uncharted cloud layers below, but their diamond-hulled warglobes had not been seen for years.

  A cargo ship skimmed in across the upper clouds, approaching the skymine. Zhett knew from the schedule that this must be the Verne, part of the Kett Shipping fleet. The pilots, Xander Brindle and Terry Handon, were reliable, but more interested in traveling to different places than in establishing a boring regular route. Zhett envied them, but not too much. She and Patrick were happy here with their family.

  She touched her ear comm as she rode a lift down to the landing bay. “Fitzy, Xander and Terry are landing in ten minutes. Want to say hi?”

  Her husband responded, “I’d love to, and I’m sure Toff would too, but we’ll have to pass, since this young man seems much too distracted to finish his homework.”

  Zhett heard their thirteen-year-old son, Kristof, groan and make excuses, but she tapped the ear comm to silence it, letting Patrick deal with the whining. He was better at it, and this was his week to supervise homework while she did the administrative duties.

  The landing bay was a giant open maw in the lower half of the drifting skymine. Racks of sealed metal canisters full of concentrated stardrive fuel were ready to be loaded aboard the Verne. Breezes swirled around Zhett as she stepped into the cargo bay, whipping the long dark hair across her face. Just this morning she had found a gray strand and plucked it out, indignant. She was much, much too young to worry about going gray. (And she told herself the same thing every year.)

  The Verne came in, adjusting from side to side as the pilot used attitude jets to level it out. Though he wasn’t yet twenty years old, Xander Brindle had more experience than many professional pilots; he had been born aboard a ship and grown up at the controls.

  Xander deftly landed the ship on the alignment cross, then powered down the engines. The side hatch dropped down, and he bounded out. The son of Robb Brindle and Tasia Tamblyn had a youthful energy, light tan skin, kinky brown hair, and striking blue-green eyes. He grinned as he spotted Zhett. “We’ve got room for a full load of ekti if you quote us a good price.”

  “And we have more ekti than you could possibly carry—so long as you have items to trade.”

  His partner Terry came down the ramp from the cargo hold, accompanied by their compy OK. Terry was a studious young man with short hair, a soft smile, and a quiet demeanor. Antigrav clamps at his waist kept his motionless legs and feet just off the deck; he held on to the compy to stabilize himself. Normally in zero-G, Terry’s useless legs didn’t hinder him at all, but since the skymine main
tained gravity, he used the compy to help him around.

  Terry said, “OK has comparison prices from ten other skymines, as well as the trading hub on Ulio. We can show you the going rate.”

  Zhett shrugged. “Skymining isn’t cheap. We still have production costs.”

  “But you’re not risking death anymore for every load of ekti you distill. The hydrogues have been quiet for years.” Terry held on to a rail and released OK. The compy started moving supply crates out of the Verne’s cargo hold to make room.

  Zhett glanced toward the sea of clouds. “True. Now we only have to worry about the normal huge expenses.”

  While Terry called up inventory files on his pad, Xander helped OK haul out crates of goods they had brought from the Ulio trading hub. “We’ll find something to trade, no worries,” Xander said. “Saltpond caviar, medusa steaks, and a whole box of mushroom fillets from Dremen, cured in saltwater. They don’t taste too bad, especially if served with enough of this—New Portugal wine, last year’s black vintage.”

  Terry added, “We’ve got Theron cocoonweave fabrics. I’m sure your husband would want to give you a nice scarf or dress.”

  Zhett plucked at her work jumpsuit embroidered with clan symbols. “Do I look like the sort of person who wears dresses and scarves?”

  “Maybe your daughter then?” Xander said. “Shareen’s seventeen, right? Two years younger than me. She must like pretty—”

  Zhett’s laughter cut him off. “Then you know Shareen even less than you know me. She’s still at school on Earth anyway.”