THE PRINCESS OF CALDRIS

TALES FROM THE PANDORAN AGE:

"THE PRINCESS OF CALDRIS"

By Dante D’Anthony

Illustrated by:

Neil “Grafikeer” Thacker

Steve Allman

Gabriel “Kana Futura”Montagudo
Roy Rudder

For Joey and Jackson

Copyright 2013

Chronos Productions Motion Picture Studios

All Rights Reserved

The is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person is purely coincidental.

                                                                             Neil Thacker

     

I

Snakes in the Cradle.

My name is Winteroud Sole and I am twelve standard Caldris years old. The name “Winteroud” was my father’s idea, an homage to my mother who was not born on Caldris, but on the far away world of  Erial, which is always cold. He and my Mother met in college at the University world of Lux, where the NeoWrightians settled. I have never been to Erial, or Lux, but I have studied them both extensively on the hypercasts, and in the family computer libraries. Today the Royal Security detectives came and questioned me at length. I could feel their eagerness to know all about me, for I am an empath and that is a very special gift. Mother was furious, father somewhat proud actually, and I, well, I think Officer Hammerstein is a good egg.

I could feel Officer Hammerstein was deeply troubled over many things. A desperation has formed in his mind and he believes I may be able to help him sort out his most current sleuthing.

He is probably right, although I fear he doesn’t understand that it may kill him if we untangle this particular mystery. Him and many others.

I have always been an empath. Caldris is known for producing an abnormal number of us. Some say it is the massive amounts of heavy metals in the planet. Others say it is how the metals interact with complex fields which stream into the higher dimensions. I don’t know. I have always been this way and although my mind swarms with the impressions and feelings of others, I have not yet learned exactly what it means to be a human without empathic powers.

Teacher Fundareed at the school says, “You will learn with time how they live their lives in solitary realities. There is a sadness about them, alone in their thoughts. But not now. Not yet. Now when you feel their thoughts and emotions across a room it seems you are one with them. It is not so, Winteroud. You share their reality, and they are immune to yours.”

Officer Hammerstein is very sad. That much I could tell right away. He is a man with a mission, as they say. His mission has hit a “platinum wall, me boy, a platinum wall with heavy-duty military defense shielding wrapped around an enigma.” More accurately, I realized, the machinations of very bad and powerful men who wish to keep the Officer on one side of the truth.

I think my mother knows best, and rages against the dangers of my involvement in the Hammerstein case. Father is carried away with the pride of his son being treated by the Royal Security as someone important and worthwhile. Later, I know, he will pass through the sudden pride and begin to mull over dangers to the family and the estate. We are an old family, long in the business of mining the volcanoes. Danger and opportunity our twin fellows for generations. He will see.

Moonweek and all four moons are purple in the evening skies. The tides are frothing at the ancient steps of the estate. Each evening now I have sat on the sea steps and felt the minds of the balloon crabs eager for Silver-darters swarming in the shallows. Hunger and gluttony, simple creatures.

My android, Edward Gibbons, sits mechanical behind me, ever watchful. Father came around to fear as I knew he would and cautioned the android, “Watch for assassins,” he said simply, grim and fingering his disruptor. It is an antique, like so many things at the estate. It was old when our ancestors first plunged onto the world in a fiery ship after crossing the void.

The silver darters have no minds at all. They have the most primitive of neural nets, their existence all stimulus and response. The universe to them is not even a place. Stimulus. Response. That is all. In their swarming, however, wonderful patterns emerge that can be thought of as a hive mind. Although such is a poor analogy; when one thinks of the great and terrible hive mind of the Imperials at far away Deneb IV, with all it’s billions of humans and millions of Transhumans, I embarrass myself with the analogy.

I felt Hammerstein and his men before the bells announced the arrival of the aircars this time. They came in the morning as the moons set and the sun, blue and gleaming, lifted itself with its intense glory among the cumulonimbus clouds, like marshmallow mountains in the sky. Six Royal aircars came, like they owned the clouds, which in a sense they did.

Father stood defiant as the agents strolled coolly to the gate as the landing pads. “I’ve considered your offer for my son to work with you on the case, Officer Hammerstein. I think it’s best he not.”

I could feel Hammerstein’s regret like a…”heavy-metal core drill”…he thought, disappointed that he would have to resort to intimidation.

“Your family charter, granted by Queen Altair. How many generations now?” Hammerstein said darkly. “A shame if it were withdrawn. Of such a long and fruitful benefit to you, and to yours.”

Now father’s eyes darkened. “You resort to extortion? There are other Empaths! Why does it need to be the boy?”

“We’ve tried others. Older Empaths are too sensitive. One died, another is in intensive care. It is the boys very limitations that will make him at once useful to the case, yet not in danger of damage. Any older and he too would be of no utility. This case moves into the direct security of our entire stellar system-this world, and all the others under the dominion of the Royal family.”

I could feel father was ready to hand the charter back rather than place me at risk. I could also feel a deep sense of loyalty to the Royals. For many generations they had stood excellent in good government of the worlds under their care. “What is this case that you ask my child to involve himself with? That ruins the minds of older Empaths?”

I answered for Hammerstein, “This princess has been taken.”

All the people at the gate exuded shock. My family for the revelation, the detectives that I knew.

Vindication ran deep in Hammerstein now, “The boy is right, and now you see indeed his gift is true. I am the only one in my group that was aware of the princess’s abduction.”

He glared at me, solemn-yet sympathetic. “Say no more about it, young man, of what you sense lest we are alone.” Then, sharply, at his men: “A word from any of you and your rank is gone and you’ll find yourselves transferred to the loneliest moon in the belt.”

There came a clicking of heels. One of his younger officers, a woman of great beauty and self discipline, ached with the shock, and struggled with all her being to maintain her composure. Quite grand, such discipline and depth of feeling. I will never forget her overwhelming pain at the loss of the princess, and her stolid chin as she held back her tears, I think, long should I live.

I determined then I should find the princess, with Hammerstein, and root out the devils who did this. “Duty, father.” I stood, small but somehow towering now in the minds of the detectives, “Duty and honor. For the Royal family, for our own.”

“Duty and honor,” he whispered. “But the boy takes his personal android, and a disser.”

He tossed me his disser and I caught it easily, knowing afore he announced it, and felt the generations of my forefathers (and a particularly self possessed Grand Matron) land in my hands with it.

A half smile curled up the side of Hammerstein’s face, “But of course.”

And I gathered with the Royal Security detectives and we took to the clouds in their aircars. The last of the moons had faded and the volcano littered Tangerine Sea glimmered beneath us. Thus began my first great adventure.

I could feel mother’s fears as the estate seemed to diminish with distance like a toy. A dark winter had of her own had come now. I knew she would not feel the light and warmth of Caldris again until she held me safe again in her arms. That day would come, I pledged. This was not that day, but I am an Empath and I know: there are greater things in Cosmos and Worlds than men imagine. That day would come.

I knew the ride across the Tangerine Sea well, straight to the Capitol, Cezanne Mons. The tangerine is from the reefs, thousands upon thousands of square kilometers of them. I understood the name was from an Earth fruit. I had seen them in a garden once, at the palaces in fact, where we were headed. I had never tasted one. I had eaten oranges though, and they too are an Earth fruit, similar it is said.

Hammerstein’s angst impinged on my senses like his soapy smell. He had his aircars decked out with some serious weaponry. They were flying in military formation. I picked up bits and pieces of his memories of Navy days. Caldera Squadron, edge of the system duty. Hard duty, the ships had gone into hyper then orbited the entire system. Over, and over and over again. No communications with command. Silent. Waiting.

I sensed the man’s patience was like a continental plate. Slow, persistent, and capable of volcanism when pressed. I also sensed he cared about what happened to me. Didn’t want me harmed, was determined to watch my back even if it cost him his life. That was a good feeling, a rare one I was to learn. Few people are willing to die for their comrades. Hammerstein wouldn’t have blinked. He was ready to make the ultimate sacrifice for his duty. Any time, anywhere.

His thoughts that morning, however, were like a hover-tank in a moon battle; not about sacrificing his life for his King and Star System, but about finding the kidnappers and making them pay with theirs. It was the first time in my life I had actually sensed an anger ready to take life. It was frightening. Mother and Father’s minds had always been about the family estate. The most anger I had felt from them was when they were ready to fire an errant employee. Hammerstein wanted blood justice.

I hoped it wasn’t clouding his judgment. Even my young mind could sense an array of people he suspected, all of them powerful across worlds, all of them deadly-even for a battle hardened Navy veteran, even for a grisly old detective....

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