Inherit the Stars

AN INSIDE JOB

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 led up, 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.

Yeah. Now she sounded like a Sage.

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

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

She slowly 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.

ROC

Published by New American Library,

an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

This book is an original publication of New American Library.

First Printing, November 2015

Copyright © Tony Peak, 2015

Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

Roc and the Roc colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

For more information about Penguin Random House, visit
penguin.com
.

ISBN 978-0-698-40545-5

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

To my son, Zander, may you always find light in the darkness

ACKN
OWLEDGMENTS

First I want to thank Diana Gill for helping an unknown author like me turn this into a real novel. Her professional guidance finally showed me how to “kill those darlings,” and her enthusiasm for the project was second only to my own. Rebecca Brewer and Robin Catalano have my gratitude for their final edits, which added polish and clarity. The cover artist, Torstein Nordstrand, perfectly captured my characters and for that I am amazed and thankful. My key beta-readers deserve special mention for their patience and advice: Meredith Lopez, Ian Welke, and Gregory Clifford—they read multiple drafts, replied to my incessant e-mails, and tolerated my writing indulgences. I'd also like to credit all of the members from the Online Writing Workshop who reviewed my fledgling chapters, particularly Jon Paradise, whose critique proved insightful.

Finally, I'd like to thank my family, who forged me into the person who imagined this story (I've made it, Mom & Dad!), but especially my wife, Melody, who was brave enough to marry a writer who had little else but a hope and a
dream.

Her oxygen canister was near empty. Numbness spread down her legs. Her footsteps slowed. Ancient vacuum frost floated in the zero-G, disturbed by her passage. Outside the viewport, three red supergiants throbbed with power. A frigid pulse stabbed her mind again and again. . . .

Kivita Vondir rubbed her forehead. Not even off the ship yet and those stupid dreams were still bothering her. Ever since salvaging near Xeh's Crown, the dreams had plagued her. With a hand poised over the airlock button, she forced herself not to wobble. She'd just woken up—that's all.

Every time she left cryostasis, though, the headaches worsened. The visions became more invasive: tall white exoskeletons. Unfamiliar star patterns. Horrified people trapped in green, gelatinous vats. Suffocating in that old Vim derelict. And that crazy, cold hammering in her skull.

She blinked away the visions and stumbled through
Terredyn Narbas
's airlock. “Damned if I don't need a better line of work.”

After a year in cryostasis, Haldon Prime's yellow sun strained her eyes. Every nerve itched; every bodily
movement was stiff and dull. Recalling the dreams made her head throb further. Maybe she should stay aboard. Rest awhile.

Biting her lip, she glanced back into
Terredyn Narbas
's interior. Her quarters were lit in a cool gray sheen. Ascali claw graffiti, placards of beefy males and busty women, and glue pen chits covered the bulkheads. She'd clean it up one of these days.

Rhyer, her father, had fixed up the old trawler and named it after some ancient queen. She'd bent Inheritor laws in keeping it, since no one could inherit technology from a deceased relative. Usually it all went to the prophets, to aid their ultimate goal of escaping the Cetturo Arm. Whatever.

Her favorite placard hung beside the hammock. It showed Kivita, eight years old, with Rhyer. The blue, green, and pink gas giant of Tejuit Seven loomed behind them through a viewport. That trip was the fondest memory of her father.

At seventeen she'd buried him here on Haldon Prime. Mention of radiation leaks still churned her stomach.

Lips tight, she cinched lead-lined, radiation-resistant leather chaps around her thighs, then adjusted her leather vest and black bodyglove. Aldaakian polyboots protected her feet. A shortsword dangled from her belt, since firearms were prohibited in Inheritor spaceports.

“Be right back, girl.” Kivita patted
Terredyn Narbas
's hull and stepped outside. A warm breeze stirred her jaw-length, red-blond hair. White clouds stretched over a shadow-blue sky. Sure, it was nice, but she wasn't a tourist. After salvaging from a debris field in a neighboring system, all she wanted was hot food, jiir juice . . . and maybe sex.

Kivita scanned over
Terredyn Narbas
, ensuring that no panels had loosened during reentry. The two-hundred-foot-long trawler resembled a Susuron hammerhead fish, with a gray-red, atmosphere-rusted hull. Her father's insignia, a sword with a flaring star, remained visible above the airlock.

The spaceport outside rumbled with activity. Some claimed it was the largest in the Cetturo Arm. Though Haldon Prime was her home world, Kivita seldom visited, except to trade salvage for much-needed supplies.

Terredyn Narbas
was her true home. A womb she could sleep in, live in. Even hide in, when the universe threatened to freeze her heart.

She swallowed and forced down the flutters in her chest. No way would he be here.

“Remember—there's jiir juice and sex out there.” Kivita inserted a data chit into the soot-caked terminal at the pad's edge. The display showed the current date: Charter Year 11,409. A beep indicated her recovery memo had been accepted. Rolling her eyes, Kivita willed the metal door to slide open faster.

Outside, clay and stone walls separated each pad. Other oblong vessels dotted the spaceport. Salvagers from across Inheritor Space haggled with merchants, traded stories, or headed for brothels. A medical tent sold treatments for cryomaladies like stunted hair growth, perpetually chilled skin, loss of smell, or short-term memory loss. A dressed-stone bulwark segregated the spaceport from the local population. Kivita wished they'd just tear it down, but Inheritor prophets forbade commoners from socializing with outsiders.

Kivita remembered being a teenage farmhand before becoming a salvager, weeding crop rows, planting red-
grain seeds until her father returned from a salvaging run. How long had it been since she'd smelled dirt on her hands instead of hydraulic oil? Sometimes she missed it.

Most of the time she missed Sar Redryll.

She'd been dreaming of him again, too. Black curly hair, green-speckled eyes. Had it really been two years? Six would have passed for him if he'd stayed on Gontalo. Whenever she dreamt of Sar, those unfamiliar stars also came to mind. Her head tingled, and she rubbed her temples. Damn headache.

Maybe she'd been in space too long. Alone and cold.

Scowling, Kivita left the pad. Spacers in worn fatigues sloshed through muddy thoroughfares hemmed in by metal-framed stalls. Bars and brothels dotted the area. A bald prophet in yellow robes handed out religious chits with a patronizing smile. Inheritor soldiers in red jumpsuits haunted every corner. A few looked at her, then whispered into their helmet mics.

She didn't remember this many soldiers here the last time. Odd.

One merchant sold Ascali prostitutes for twenty pounds of Freen iron ore. Short brown fur covered their athletic bodies; a long, straight mane of hair spilled from their heads. They originated from Sygma, an arboreal world where the blue-leaved jiir trees grew.

The prickling in her cranium returned. Kivita sighed and walked away. This tingling better not dampen her day. There was little else to look forward to during these visits. No family, and most childhood acquaintances were dead or worked the fields. If they were lucky.

“Vondir? Now, what have you brought back this time?” a merchant asked from a nearby stall. He scratched his gray beard and smiled.

Kivita grinned. “Not enough to retire yet, Marsque. You're looking well.” Actually, he'd aged a few more years since the last time she'd seen him. She almost hadn't recognized him.

“Not near as well as you. You just dock, or have you been giving your business to some fancy Naxan vendor?” A hint of farmer drawl colored Marsque's Meh Sattan, the common tongue of the Arm.

“Just docked, smoothie. How've you been? Anything big happen while I was gone?”

“Nothing but a few more restrictions on goods from Tannocci Space. More trouble from the Thedes, and . . .” A shadow crossed Marsque's gaze; then he smiled again. “Ah, you know how it is here. More sermons, more rules. Got your data chit ready?”

She dug the chit from her vest pocket and handed it over. “That's sixteen tons of scrap from Q'Daor. Should contain some lead-lined bulkheads, like those in the old feudal ships.”

“You hauled all that by yourself?” Marsque frowned. “You ever think about getting a partner to help out? Few salvagers go it alone anymore.”

“No, thanks. How much, then?” Heat rose in Kivita's cheeks. He made it sound as if she liked being alone out there.

Marsque tapped his glue pen on the counter. “Lead-lined bulkheads, huh? I'll take your word for it. I've got Bellerion protein slabs, fresh Susuron water, and even some jiir liquor from Sygma.”

Merchants on Inheritor worlds traded in necessities or luxuries, never advanced tech. Only salvagers could barter for cryotech and energy dumps, because of their special status. An engine overhaul and a hull reseal
would be nice, but she'd need at least a hundred tons of salvage to cover it.

“I've also got plush furniture from Haldon Six and handmade thermal blankets. New cosmetics, like the dark stuff they wear around their eyes on Soleno Four. Course, you're still too pretty to be wearing that.” Marsque winked at her.

“Slow down, smoothie. What I need is some pseudoadrine, oxygen canisters, and new scrubbers for my air intakes on
Terredyn Narbas
. Oh, and a new mist ionizer.”

“I'll even throw in a skinsuit from Susuron. I know you always liked that world, even when you were a wee thing.” Marsque jotted down the items in glue pen on Kivita's computer chit. With the chit's data linked to the spaceport's computers, she wouldn't be cleared to leave the spaceport until she paid for the transaction.

Kivita recalled walking these same merchant stalls with her father, staring agog at rare items from other worlds or listening to salvager tales of prehuman derelicts. The prophets considered such tales heretical.

“Don't pay heed to those Inheritor prophets, Kiv,”
her father had once said.
“You'll find something special out there someday. Just gotta keep looking for it.”

Back then, Marsque had been near her physical age now, twenty-one. Kivita had spent an additional twenty-three years altogether in cryosleep, traveling throughout the Cetturo Arm. She swallowed with a dry throat.

“Here you go.” Marsque handed her the chit.

Kivita grinned. “And here you go, smoothie.” She kissed his cheek.

Marsque blushed. “Go on—get out of here. I'll have that order sent to your ship.”

“See you later.” Kivita didn't tell her old friend how long she'd be gone. Years might pass, depending on the distance to her next contract. Marsque might be retired or even dead when she returned. Maybe she should've asked about his family or bought him a drink. More and more, her only social links were business transactions between light jumps.

Sar had warned her that the salvager's life went nowhere. What did he know? Ever since childhood Kivita had yearned to see the stars, other worlds. Maybe even discover an antique feudal colony ship or an intact Vim starship.

She shoved the chit back into her vest pocket and stomped along the dingy aisles. Sar was wrong. The things and places she'd seen out there were worth the sacrifice. They had to be.

The next stall contained Inheritor paraphernalia: icons of yellow suns, dogma pamphlets, sandstone pendants, or red tunics with a small yellow star sewn on the shoulder. Only the prophets themselves could wear solid yellow, representing the Vim's beneficial stars.

“Have you opened your eyes to the light of the Vim?” a young prophet asked. “Remember that your sins must be forgiven before you can join the Vim in the galactic Core. Remember that only the righteous may inherit their knowledge!”

Kivita hurried toward the nearest spacer bar. Religion was boring, the Vim were extinct, and she didn't care about sins or the hereafter. Each cryosleep was already an afterlife between the stars. Freezing herself just to see what lay out there in the void.

Something would turn up, though, once she got a drink and got laid. Kivita had survived everything this
universe had thrown at her. Strutting along, she smiled at a few handsome spacers passing by.

Two Inheritor soldiers stood guard outside the bar entrance. One examined her credentials chit and motioned her inside. Aromas of jiir alcohol, slosh wine, and cerulean-mollusk vapors filled her nose. Various pilots, salvagers, and mercenaries mingled around three wooden counters. Many drank alcohol from ceramic cups, while others sniffed mollusk vapors through breath masks. All were human, with no Ascali or renegade Aldaakians present.

Cracked tiles clinked under Kivita's boots. Elbows, rumps, and all-too-eager hands brushed her while she navigated the crowd. A bubble troubadour performed in a dark corner in deep, warbling tones. The bubbles from his instrument floated through the air, reflecting the patrons back at her. Dim orange lamps lit everything in a nauseous glow.

She grinned. This was more like it.

“Wanna come to my ship?” a woman in a red skinsuit asked. A few scars and tattoos lined her curvy form.

Smirking, Kivita caressed the woman's blond braid. “Maybe. I think . . .”

The pain in her temples returned. Head swimming, Kivita glimpsed three soldiers watching her from across the bar. One whispered into his helmet mic.

“What are you thinking—hmm?” The woman brushed her thigh against Kivita's.

“I'm . . .” A shudder traveled up Kivita's back; then she cleared her throat. “I'm just looking for a drink.”

The woman fingered Kivita's tresses. “Has it been long?”

“No, I . . .” Kivita ran her hand down the woman's
neck, then drew back as the soldiers came closer. Her entire skull ached. “Um, maybe later.”

The woman gazed with disappointment; then she patted Kivita's bottom. “Come find me, you change your mind.”

Other patrons stared at Kivita in lust, contempt, or jealousy. Two Sutaran bouncers, brawnier due to their high-G homeworld, watched her carefully. A salvager in a lubricant-stained jumpsuit tapped the seat beside him and licked his lips. Two women beckoned and offered her a filled glass, but Kivita nudged her way to the bar. Being one of the few salvagers to return from Xeh's Crown must have gilded her reputation. Great.

On her right, a young spacer gasped vapors from an air mask. A bearded man with two braided Dirr women gazed at her on the left. The soldiers milled around right behind her. Kivita pretended to adjust her vest, then bought a glass of jiir juice from the bar.

Video screens along the back wall showed Inheritor-state-owned news briefs, current barter standards on Haldon Prime, and a prophet giving a sermon. None paid the screens much attention. Kivita avoided looking at the salvager's dock roster. It didn't matter if he were in the Haldon system.

The bartender finally brought her juice. As she sipped the sweet blue liquid, Kivita studied the other patrons. Salvagers like her, seeking physical release, emotional contact—meaningless relationships with all the warmth of a cold hull. And three Inheritor jerks who stared at her too much.

Her temples flared again. Damn it, this weird headache was pissing her off. Kivita gulped the juice and headed for the door.