Old Complications Read online

Old Complications

  Copyright 2011 Vincent L. Cleaver

  Of the elder races, powers, or Gods, little is certain. Every conspiracy theorist thinks that they are alive and well and at work in the wider Galaxy. They have been accused of everything from starting the Atavistic Movement that created the current mess in the galaxy, to the Genocide of the Hunters and even the foundation, more than three thousand years ago, of the Galactic Conservancy.

  Within the Conservancy, the Rangers have had their fair share of conspiracy-mongering. Old Complications was merely the last of a great many influential Hunters, including several commandants and what some call the very first Ranger, Ash, who was on the original survey team of Ilshan, and later helped promote the idea that eventually became the Conservancy.

  How Ash persevered until the Vault of Ages was found, on what would have been the last day of the Survey, makes for a good story and is possibly even true. Likewise, the silent tears he is said to have shed when the recording of the Mother's Tale was played. But every variation somehow linking Ash personally to the Mother, merely served to sell the idea of the Conservancy. She and her children had been dead for the better part of 30,000 years, after all.

  -Galactic Myths Debunked!, Gedris Twetla, Triple Star Media, Sunrise City, OjGara, League of Free Stars

  ***

  Day Zero, Year Zero, Five Suns Xenoarchealogical Consortium Expedition to W-1232-F, Site 829, South Continent, 3046 years ago-

  When the diggers breached the last barrier, they found something scratched into a sandstone wall. It faced the inner door of the blast shelter they'd found so far underground. The team took views of it and went on about their survey, but Ash, the 'Hunter' explorer, remained there, reverently tracing the little scratches. Sothep, the Ijbarree linguist and information systems tech, imagined Hunter claw-tip touching Ilshani claw-tip, across thirty thousand years. He shivered.

  "Sha oossa na anoosk, Zah, anoosk eneb," Ash whispered.

  "You're getting very good at reading Ilshani script, Ash. I didn't think anybody was following my work on the syllabary." Ash didn't respond, and Sothep muttered, "Brilliant work, if I do say so, myself..."

  He adjusted his optics, pulling up the recording he'd just taken. "Let's see... 'Wellness/Good Things? To become, becoming, plus, no that would be 'and', yes! Hey Ash, did you know, Ilshan literally means 'The Good Place', or 'The Place of the Good Folk?' I suppose another translation might be 'Heaven.' This next is 'becoming youth, youthening?' Zah is love..." He fussed happily with his files, in his own little world.

  Quietly, just to himself and all his ghosts, Ash said, "Be well and grow young, Love, grow ever young." He leaned against the stone walls. The sheltering stone. The abiding stone.

  "Goodbye for now, my love. I've much work to do, before can I join you."

  ***

  January, 1984, Cycle 91,863, Conservancy Reckoning, ’Blue Book’ Offices, Chicago, Earth

  The thick black smoke obscured the hallway and choked 'Henry Smith' through the wet shirt he had tied over his mouth. Jackies’ little boy was having a very rough time of it tonight, he thought, and laughed and coughed until something big up ahead crashed to the floor, blocking his escape route.

  "Damn."

  Henry turned around and crawled back over the bodies of the Blue Book agents that he'd found minutes before. He'd always had a very low opinion of your average KGB agent, but whoever was responsible for this mess didn't fool around when they tried their hand at arson. It was not looking good for the Company Man...

  A shape loomed in the darkness, and a massive hand, with too many fingers, reached out to him. "Come with me, and live, or stay, and die. Burning to death hurts. A lot."

  The words were English, but with a strangeness, like the mouth was full of marbles, or something. Henry reached up and grabbed the hand before he blacked out.

  ***

  Not marbles, Henry thought. Fangs. He was pretending to still be asleep, and watching the monster move around the room through lidded eyes. It looked like a tiger that had been stretched out and now walked on too many limbs. A six-legged tiger centaur, maybe, but one time it was down on all eight, peering into some sort of access or storage bin in the floor, and, another time, the second left paw picked up his shoe and put it away in a drawer. Maybe it looked more like one of those Chinese New Years dragons from street theater... It was orange and black striped, but with large white patches. Henry wondered about those. It had said that burning to death hurt. A lot.

  "I know you're awake, human. My 'Little Hunter' could play dead much better..."

  "Alright, so I am." Henry sat up, in a bed, with sheets. The rest of the room was strange, needless to say, alien. He started as an ocean blue rectangle with green alien characters appeared in front of him, which flickered to English (black letters that looked handwritten, he noted, on a white background) after the monster barked an order in a whispery, sibilant speech that was somehow pleasant to hear.

  "These are your life-readings, heart, nervous system, and the like. As you might be able to tell, your heart rate is elevated, and I detect a fight or flight response, but otherwise, you are in good health."

  "Not even singed," Henry said, sarcastically.

  "No. Now, you have a decision to make. Do you go home, or would you like to see something of the Galaxy?"

  ***

  The tigerish alien fed him stew, while he explained himself. “You can call me Old Complications. It's been a long time since any other name suited me, and everybody will know who you mean."

  Good, Henry thought to himself, I've been abducted by an eccentric celebrity. Cue Sinatra and 'Fly Me to the Moon.' The mystery meat in the stew turned out to be something called 'grel,' a by-product of the starships' life support system. He decided not to think too much about that.

  The wider Galaxy, and that phrase threw him off until he learned that that was just the way the Galactics referred to the known galaxy, was at war. Just great. Out of the Cold War, into a hot one. Star Wars, indeed!

  "I am a Ranger. We are part of an organization called the Galactic Conservancy. We create and conserve life, and the potential for sapience, in the Galaxy."

  "The wider Galaxy, the Milky Way?"

  "Yes."

  "That’s billions and billions of stars, to misquote Sagan."

  The monster nodded, and said something in that strange, sibilant speech. "In the English-"

  The Circle is made Whole! That which was broken, is Reformed! That which was barren and dead, is Reborn!

  The Work gives us meaning. The Work gives us hope. The Work goes ever on.

  "The wider Galaxy, as we know it, is the mapped wormhole network connecting almost three hundred thousand star systems. Until recently, the Conservancy was viva-forming a gross of worlds, now, a mere two dozen, to add to several thousand living worlds. As always, the work goes ever on."

  ***

  “Who is your ‘Little Hunter’? Your son?” Henry asked, after dinner was over.

  The alien was carrying the dishes away, and one of them tipped off of the stack and clattered on the floor. He stood still for a few seconds, as a dozen little feathery robots converged on the errant dish and the spilled stew. The sight distracted Henry, but, after the clean-up was complete, he saw that Old Complications was still standing there.

  "You okay?"

  "Yes. I was just remembering. 'Little Hunter' is a human girl, Marianne Boyle. She is probably the closest thing I have to a granddaughter, now. Or niece, if you prefer. I am an old family friend."

  "Really? There are humans in the Conservancy?"

  Old Complications put the dishes away in a cupboard, where they would be cleaned, Henry, figured, until it occurred to him th
at the fallen dish had disappeared. The feathery robots looked fatter, as they buzzed away, gliding over the floor and up the wall, dispersing. Alright, he thought, that was creepy.

  "I have had frequent business on Earth, these last few centuries. It happens that I have brought a few strays home."

  "Hey, I'm not your stray dog!" The anger spiked, and Henry wondered at it. In dangerous situations he normally kept his cool better. The 'friendly' alien bit had put him off his guard.

  "I know that," the Ranger said mildly. "I am sorry that I have offended you." He ran a clawed hand through some white fur on his chest.

  "It is a thing I do, and part of the reason for my nickname. I almost died in a fire, a long time ago, and I find it impossible to simply stand by. A few people, not all of them humans, I have made this same offer to. No one is ever forced, carried off to be a pet or a lab animal." The tigerish alien almost growled this last part.

  "Are you still sure you want to go with me? The Galaxy is at war. Ordinarily, I would be able to assure your safety on the way to Ilshan, but... I have personal business to attend to. You understand."

  Henry shook his head. "No, I don't, but if that's all I get to know, it will have to do, for now. An opportunity like this, well I guess it happens more often than I'd have thought."

  "No, you would be right. Not more than once or twice a generation. Also, do not imagine that you will ever get to go home again. This is a one-way ticket," the alien grinned, showing an impressive set of fangs, "to adventure!"

  Henry had heard about that one, often enough. Adventure was somebody else, far away, in deep kimshee.

  ***

  December, 1983, Cycle 91,860, Conservancy Reckoning, Boyle household, Deeluhwah vivaforming project

  Old Complications was talking to his visitor when a little whirlwind of energy ran into the room and up his lower back to crouch in her customary place on his middle back, leaning against his upper torso. She hugged him and waved a scrap of flimsy around. He transferred his drink carefully to his cruder lower right hand, and patted her on the head, over his shoulder, as he reached around to take the offered missive with his upper left hand.

  "Ol'Cee, Ol'Cee! I drawed you a pichur!"

  Ranger Commandant Dorza understood the English words, and by unspoken agreement, the Rangers left off their reminisces in Ilshani.

  "I see that, Little Hunter," said the old Hunter, and winked at her horrified mother, who had come in right behind the chaos. "It's alright, Karen. I'm sure the Commandant doesn't mind." She withdrew, the look of mock horror fading into one pride and love.

  "I'm not here as the Commandant," Dorza protested. He'd noted how the old Ranger had relaxed with the arrival of the little human child. It hurt that Old Complications had assumed that he was here with a mission, and not just to visit his old teacher, who was healing. The living legend, the last surviving Hunter in the Galaxy, had come home injured, yet again, after his latest mission. Gods and Ancestors, how often he did! But he always came home, and he rarely failed.

  The drawing was technically crude, but the composition was very interesting. 'Little Hunter' gave commentary. "This one, on the mountain," it was a triangle in the top left corner, with a very small stick figure,"is Grandpop, who's sad because he can't come home from Ooli-drif' an' meet me, coz the dumb ol' wormhole don' wanna work. Bad wormhole!"

  A few kilograms of antimatter could ruin your whole day, Commandant Dorza thought. The little human girl was too young to understand just what a tragedy it was, the dark wormhole to Oolithi Drift. The Conservancy had yet to duplicate more than one of the Builders' wormholes. But we will, he thought with fierce pride. We will!

  In the foreground was a human couple on the right. The man, a Scout from his eclectically mission-patched grays (his 'clown suit'), was crouched down and reading some tracks, with one hand up on top of the woman’s hand, which rested on his shoulder. She was a Ranger, Dorza could tell from her black and yellow duty uniform ("Black for space between the stars and worlds, yellow for the promise of sunlight in the Valley of the Vault of Ages! Wear it with pride, recruit, and earn a place in The Valley…"So many had. Now there were fewer and fewer wearing that uniform, every year). She was glancing down, smiling, but her body was turned to the right.

  The Hunter, in the background, was familiar. His characteristic black and orange markings and four pairs of limbs were marred by white patches. He was also oriented to the right, but was looking back over his shoulder at the little girl perched on his backs. "This is you an' me, and this is Great Mom-mom and Pop-pop Boyle. This is my brother and his," her voice dripped childish scorn, "'Grrrl-friend!' See? I drewed them holding hands!"

  "Mommy and Daddy are here, and Daddies' trackin' a Mocker that hurt Lucy." She pouted. "It's only a pichur, though, coz they wouldn' let me go along. They catched it an 'leased it over on the Big Island, near the bye-oh-re-ac-tor," she was clearly proud of the big word, "that Pop-pop and Mom-mom builded."

  The three rangers defined the corners of a triangle, or points on a circle surrounding the group. Clan Boyle, as it were, Dorza thought, including an absent member and an alien. The Hunter and the human woman were touching loved ones, but ready. Ready to act and be deadly.

  "I've often wished for such detailed reports from all of my Rangers," Dorza said mildly. Old Complications flicked his ears and he nodded, acknowledging the dig. Then he hrummed with pleasure as the child reached up and scratched behind his ears.

  "Bed-time, Marianne! Time to stop bothering the nice Rangers, honey. I'm sure they've got important hush-hush business to discuss, don'cha?" The girls' father marched in and plucked her off of Old Complications. "Got to clean you up, I bet there's enough dirt behind these ears to grow corn!" He turned her over, upside down, as he checked and she giggled, then he tucked her under his arm and sketched a salute.

  Marianne wriggled out of his grasp and landed gracefully on her feet. She drew herself up and thumped her chest, clenched right hand to her heart and then held out, arm bent at the elbow in a Roman salute, which the Human Rangers had adopted. Then she smiled and raced out the door, around her dad, who looked thoughtful.

  If he was thoughtful, the Rangers were chilled to their bones. After her father followed her, Dorza spoke soberly, in Ilshani.

  "We take them young, but not that young. And we heal the half-dead ones back up and I send them out again to-"

  When the Commandant could speak again, he said, "Why don't you ta ke another dozen recruits for me, and stay home for a while? Or take that offer from the Engineers and head up that project they're putting together? It must be… lonely, being the only one left."

  The Last Hunter, Commandant Dorza thought. Almost two dozen empty worlds. The homeworld and her daughter worlds were cemeteries occupied by the Markov Imperium. My species did this, out of spite and fear! It hurt like hell, and the only thing that made it bearable was the thought, 'my species, not my people.'

  "You know that the Autocrat's Immortals will keep coming until the job is done. They are relentless. And to think, there's a Markov proverb, 'Do not stand between a Ranger and his mission.'" When Old Complications still said nothing, just stared into the crackling fire, Dorza added, "You'd get to stay around and watch her grow up."

  "You fight dirty."

  "I learned from the sneakiest son of a bitch in the Galaxy, Teacher."

  Old Complications reached out to take the flimsy with Marianne's drawing. He tapped it meaningfully, then rolled it up and put it into a pouch in his black and yellow tool harness. "You know that I won't do that, and you know why. I can't hide from them among my human family. Now, tell me about the mission!" He leaned forward, eager.

  "Yeah, well, about that… A Scout researcher has gone missing, on Earth. His base of operations is under a lake called Michigan, near the city of Chicago." Dorza had brought along the spicy Markov beer that they both liked, and they drank it up, toasting absent friends, dearest enemies, and (The Work).
r />   ***

  At first, Henry thought they were alone on the ship, but he dozed off after the meal, and woke with the distinct impression that he was being watched. He was laying on his side, and casually turned over. There was an eyeball about the size of a golf ball on a stalk, poking into the room through a round door. There was a shrill little sound, a squeak, maybe. The eyeball disappeared and the door irised closed. Harry sat up and scratched his head, then got up and tried to figure out his environment.

  He had sorted out the toilet, and the sink, and was rubbing his teeth with a finger for a tooth-brush, when something buzzed. He rinsed and spit, then shouted, "What?" The door irised partway open, and he heard Old Complications say, "May I come in?"

  Henry snorted. "Hey, it's your ship, I'm just luggage."

  When the tigerish alien came in, Henry gave him another hard look. Ten or twelve feet from nose to tail, the ears were more like a foxes' and had long tufts of fur at the tips. The white patches covered more than a third of- Henry double-checked, and then felt just a little inadequate- his body. He wore no clothes, per se, but a black and yellow harness held bulging pouches and gadgets clipped on. The upper pair of paws were the most hand-like, and it looked a little bit like O.C. had three thumbs. The brown eyes were his most human features, not slit like cats eyes.

  "I hope Ked did not disturb you. He is the captain, so, technically, it is his, or rather her, ship. English does not have a polite pronoun for 'it.'"

  "Well, it could be a he, if he wanted. Or a she. I don't really care. What is she?"

  "An Oddity. Here, I might as well show you how the comm system works, and log you as a passenger with general access."

  By way of example, Old Complications pulled up one of those 'pictures in the air' of an Oddity, and explained that a phased array in the wall and ceiling was projecting the image for his pair of eyes, so that it was called 'eye-balls-only.' "It is useful for privacy, and for not disturbing fellow passengers on a short runabout flight. Err, a runabout would be a short-distance craft. Now, this is an Oddity..."

  Three eyestalks, above a skinny body with a vertical slit for a mouth, three tentacles for legs, and two more for arms. It was short, less than five feet tall. Henry decided that it was the most ridiculous critter that he'd ever seen, and that it left the platypus a distant second place.