Stars of Charon (Legacy of the Thar'esh Book 1) (4 page)

The newcomer, a
merchant cruiser from the Domari Collective, was nearly triple the size of the
technologically inferior Earthborn mining vessel. Assuming that the miners were
a competitor moving in on his established territory, the Domari nearly fired
upon the Earthborn ship. Luckily, the Domari conducted a thorough scan before
firing (to ensure that there were no valuable goods on board), and held their
fire long enough for the Earthborn pilot to make first contact. In the weeks
and months that followed, the people of Earth learned the truth: not only were
we not alone in the universe, we were not the only humans.

I tried
to wrap my head around it all. Flux points. Gravitational drives. Panspermia.
The universe was so much larger than the muddy field and stale bunkhouse. There
were ships slipping silently in the blackness from star to star on dozens if
not hundreds of worlds. There were humans, people like me, living their lives
scattered across the darkness. I once again recalled sitting with my teacher
staring out at the faint twinkling stars in the night.

“Elicio?”
The sound of Jager saying my name pulled me from my thoughts. “The weird kid
from nowhere? Yeah, he’s over there in the corner, probably asleep by now, he
never says much. What did he do, Marshal? Steal something?”

There was
no answer.

I turned
my head to see a shadow of a man walking between the bunks over to me. Even in
the dimly lit room it was easy to tell who it was. His slender frame and the
stiff cadence of his steps were unmistakable. Marin McCullough.

“Elicio,”
he gave a slight nod as he saw me watching him approach. “Put on some clothes
and meet me outside. We need to talk.”

I heard a
few whispered comments throughout the barracks.

“Um,
sure,” I stammered.

“I’ll be
waiting,” he said as he turned back toward the door. “Be quick.”

Chapter
7.

“Our most ancient Charon tells a story about how, long ago,
our people could move through the nothingness between the stars. The memories
are our most ancient. We know that we were powerful. But there was tragedy,
sadness, and death. We also know that, in
the end, there was guilt. Guilt that was far greater than
the good that could be achieved. So we retreated from the skies and made a
quiet home here on this ground.”

“Do
you have those Charons? The memories of when our people flew? Do you hold it in
your mind?” I asked, anxious to know more.

“No,
no,” my teacher responded. “Those memories are kept by other teachers, silent
and safe, and not often visited. They say they are stories of stars, and suns,
and worlds. Of fire and power and the endlessness of the void.  We traveled a
long way to find this world. It’s those memories that I am charged to keep.
Memories of our first days on this new world.”

“But
we came from some other world?”

“Yes,
though somewhere distant. So far away that you cannot even see it’s a speck in
the night sky. As each generation rises and falls, the Charons fade. Our oldest
memories are held by a few teachers. It’s like an old song where the notes
change with the voices of the singer. We do know that we gave up the old life
to live here, quietly, and simply.”

Marin was
outside standing by the door and looking out at the stars when I quietly shut
the barracks door behind me. It was about ten at night and the sky was speckled
with stars. The colony was setting in, quiet and still.

“Elicio.
Elicio.” He said without turning. “Elicio what? Do you have a surname?”

“Not that
I can recall.”

“Hm, it’s
not proper,” he made a note in his Slate. “We have two Elliots and an Egbert,
but nobody else on this world answers to Elicio. So I suppose it will do for
now. If you ever venture to make it off-planet, you will have to come up with
something.” His tone was crisp and businesslike.

“Off-planet?”
I asked dumbly. “Where would I go?”

“Yes,
well, right now we are on the edge of civilized space, but space is always
moving. The Earthborn Protectorate is spreading out and discovering new flux
points every day, finding new connections between worlds. Back at the
university I attended a lecture by Stratus-nominated astrophysicist who
calculated each star system may have up to a dozen anomalies floating around
waiting to be discovered. Everyday babies are being born, resources depleted.
It is not a matter of us going back into the heart of the Protectorate. The
light of civilization is always expanding. It is a matter of the Protectorate
coming to us.”

There was
a slight curl of a smile on the edge of his lips, and a sound of anticipation
in his voice. It was the first time I had heard anyone speak of the expansion
of the Protectorate without distrust or outright hatred.

“Soon,”
he continued, “sooner than most think, the Protectorate will spread out into
this region. And here we are. The first on a new planet. 7,934 people spread
over four small, colony towns on a brand new world. We are here to carry the
torch.”

“For
Earth?”

“For
Civilization,” he finally turned to look at me. He was tall like his father,
with rough, angular features and friendly brown eyes. “The path to power in the
Protectorate is paved by those who strive to bring order and peace to the
wildness of the universe. That’s why I’m here. To do something meaningful. To
matter.” Marin paused to scratch his cleanly shaven chin, before continuing
with a slight trace of bitterness in his voice. “My father came to this rock to
run away from the Protectorate, and dragged my poor sister with him. I came
because I wanted to: I will build this world into what it could, and should
be.”

“Th-that
sounds noble,” I responded clumsily. This was the longest conversation I’d had
in the last several weeks that wasn’t about turnips.

“You
don’t say much,” it was a statement, not a question. Marin surveyed me, his
dark brown eyes were calculating. “I suppose that is for the best when you are
living with that lot. I’m already saying more than I should. Talk of the
Protectorate makes these simple types nervous. They don’t yet understand how
the Protectorate will improve their world and their lives. They will someday.
For now, we need to move. My father sent for you.”

He
abruptly turned and walked away.

As I
hurried to catch up with him and matched his pace I could see why the colonists
looked at Marin with distrust. Nearly every night in the barracks I listened to
the men complaining about the Protectorate and the power of the central
government, distrust for the corporations, and about how they would never allow
their children to be educated at one of the Protectorate’s central
institutions. The colonists felt that the Government had looked the other way
as the air and water on Lagrange had been polluted and turned toxic by the
“progress” of unchecked industry. Where Marin saw grandeur and progress, the
colonists saw decadence and corruption.

Marin and
I walked the streets of the Downs in silence. The town was laid out neatly in a
grid, with the river along the north edge of town. Unsure of myself, I had not
ventured further than the field, barracks, hospital and cafeteria. So I wasn’t
sure where we were going until we made an abrupt left turn after a machining
shop toward a freshly built log house that was nestled on the edge of the
river.

Marin
knocked loudly on the door.

“I
n!” Lee barked from the other side of the door. “Shut
it behind you.”

I had expected the interior of the house to match the rustic
exterior, but was surprised to see that the walls had been insulated with the
same thin ceramic plating that served as the interior walls of the barracks
and, I would later discover, the interior of most starships. The main room was
large, well lit, and clean. There were windows on the wall looking out over the
river. The furniture was simple and utilitarian, like we had everywhere else on
the compound. In the corner was a small kitchen with a stove and cold-cabinet.
There were three doors to other interior rooms, all of them were closed.

Lee and J
u-lin
were sitting a table viewing a holographic relief of a map on the electronic
tabletop. I’d seen similar technologies in the hospital, but was fascinated by
its use as a map. I immediately recognized the nine peaks. I followed the thin
blue trail of the river down the valley and into the delta. The Downs was
marked on the map by a series of lines and roads, some of the roads I knew,
there were others that were yet unbuilt. It was Lee’s plans for the city.

“Come,
sit.” Lee said without looking up. “Both of you.”

I
followed Marin and took the last available seat between Ju-lin and Marin,
opposite Lee. Ju-lin glanced at me briefly. Her long hair and gold-flecked eyes
had found their way into my dreams once or twice. I was glad to see her.

“Here,”
Lee traced the edge of a mountain with his finger, leaving a bright blue trail
on the holographic image. “If you cross the ridge it should be a straight and
easy shot to the site without coming too close to New Haven.”

“That’s
nice, though I still need to know what I’m doing.” It seemed Ju-lin’s
irreverence was universal.

“Patience,
Lin,” Lee answered. “Save the scan.”

She
sighed as she pulled a small disc from her pocket and pressed it against the
edge of the table. As she did so, the map dissipated, leaving a glossy black
tabletop.

“Elicio,”
Lee looked up at me. “You’ve recovered well, you look strong. Glad to see it.”

“Thank
you sir,” I replied.

“No
sir
.
Just Lee.”

I nodded,
unsure what to say. After weeks listening to the colonists, I had begun to be
comfortable with the cadence and tone of their speech, but the McCullough's
accent and speech patterns were different. They elongated their vowels
slightly, putting emphasis on the long ‘a’ sounds and spoke more quickly than
the colonists. I wasn’t sure if it was because they were from another world
than the colonists, or if it was just part of being a McCullough.

“Relax
boy,” the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth turned into a bit of a smile.
“You’re not in trouble.”

“Unless
you’ve done something wrong?” Marin’s eyebrow was raised. I realized that Jager
was right about Marin fancying himself as the marshal.

“Oh give
it a rest Mar,” Ju-lin rolled her eyes. “You’d think that we were running a
prison colony, or a Third Division interrogation camp. The kid’s already about
to piss himself.”

“I can’t
say I blame him,” Lee broke with a chuckle. “Half of these poor devils probably
have nightmares about being dragged out of bed by ‘Marshal Marin’.”

Marin
sneered and Ju-lin laughed at Lee’s use of the nickname.

“But
then, we have an odd situation and I don’t want to spook the colonists,” Lee
continued. ”So first and foremost, everything said stays in this room.
Understood?”

All three
of us nodded.

Though
the room was cool, I found myself wiping a bead of nervous sweat from my brow.

“As you
are aware, MineWorks deployed four colony sites on the surface. The closest is
Ridgecrest, about forty kilometers to the northeast. We are working with them
to build the dam. Progress is going well, and our relationship with Governor
Bodford is good. We should be done on time. The other two are Riverfront, which
is about 220 kilometers up the river, and then to the north-east further up in
the mountains is place they are calling New Haven, about 640 klicks away as the
ship flies.

“Each of
the four colonies are strategically placed to maximize the local resources and
help us develop a basic trading economy between us. We are the breadbasket. The
reason we’ve been working so hard to plow and plant fields is to maximize our
food production. As soon as we are done building up the town, our teams will
get to work on constructing some seaworthy ships so that we can start fishing
the bay when spring hits.

“Ridgecrest
is in the foothills, good land for grazing and livestock. They also have access
to several groves of hardwoods. Our little delta-forest will soon be gone, and
we’ll begin trading with them, food for lumber, so we can start building the
fishing boats.

“Riverfront
is near several large stone and mineral deposits, by next spring they will have
a quarry and stone mill fully operable. Their Governor, a woman named Katia, is
intent on first developing a high-end ceramics facility and then moving on to
steel and more advanced alloys in the next few years. They are the industrial
park to our garden.

“Lastly,
there is New Haven,” he paused. “New Haven is led by one of MineWork’s own, a
fellow named Hollace Growd.”

“Growd,
I’ve seen that name somewhere,” I spoke without thinking.

“Yes you
have,” Lee nodded. “His father is a man named Hoonan Growd, one of MineWork’s
Senior Vice Presidents. He is the one who authorized the colony.”

“Interesting,”
Ju-lin broke in. “It’s the first I’ve heard of that.”

“The
colonial charter notes that this world is independent and not part of
MineWork’s holdings,” Marin broke in. “Installing one of their middle managers
as a Governor is in clear violation of the chart—”

“—Marin,”
Lee interrupted. “We are a few systems beyond the Protectorate’s umbrella. The
planetary charter may as well be written in the air. As far as I’m aware,
nobody outside of this room knows that he has ties to MineWorks. The colonists
believe that he’s a graduate in civil development from Centauri. Which is true enough.”

“How do
you know about Growd?” I asked.

“I never
make a move without knowing all the angles,” Lee smiled. “He’s a crafty one,
and no doubt looking to follow in his father’s footsteps in the corporation.
From what I understand it was his idea to name their site New Haven, after the
city they lived in back on Lagrange, in a thin attempt to rally the colonists
behind him.”

“So
what’s his game?” Ju-lin asked, the conversation was going too slow for her
taste.

“New
Haven is up in the mountains,” Lee continued. “I’m going to guess that
MineWorks located some high-value minerals in the mountains, and Hollace has a
mind to set-up a mining operation to stockpile and export whatever bits of
shiny they can find off-world for a profit.”

“They
move the colonists off of Lagrange and ship them out here to be free labor for
a new mining operation, nice scam.” Ju-lin said, glancing over at me. “Though I
don’t see why we’re having a secret meeting in the middle of the night, or why
he
is here.”

“MineWork’s
mineral development plans are not our concern,” Lee shrugged. “Corporations do
what corporations do, and everyone who lives and dies in the shadow of the
Protectorate’s Dreadnaughts is out to flip a few credits and fatten their
wallet.  If any of the colonists believed that there wouldn’t be any strings
attached when they boarded up those colony ships for a brand new world then
they need to get their heads out of their asses. MineWork’s motivations are not
our worry. What concerns me is that it looks like Hollace has already began
prospecting and found something that seems… let’s say unusual.”