Starfist

Montgomery Homestead, Haulover

Chad Montgomery stepped onto the porch of his house just as the sun rose over the eastern horizon. His face contorted and his jaw twisted side to side in a great yawn; his back arched and he flung his arms out to the sides to force more air into his lungs. The last dregs of sleep gone, breathing easily, he turned to face the red orb and watched its wavering disk, only its upper half yet visible. In moments the sun rose completely above the horizon, and the disk wavered less, became brighter, too bright to continue looking at. He rested his eyes on the green and red

fields that spread halfway to the horizon to his east and south, to where they butted up against the native trees, and smiled. The grapelopes, beetpeas, and spinmaize were native to Haulover, but their proteins and amino acids were fully digestible by the human system and provided nutrition as good as any of the vegetables imported from older worlds in Human Space; imported seeds were so expensive to grow locally that the native foodstuffs quickly became standard fare. And they were mighty good tasting. Those fields were the Montgomerys’ third crop, and Chad was certain the harvest would bring in enough to allow him to pay off the loan he’d taken out to start the farm.

He smiled again, hearing the homey sounds and tinkling

voices of his wife, Connie, and elder daughter, Margery, as they

fixed a hearty farm breakfast. A moment later the light voice of

his younger son, Mitchell, joined with the voices of the women,

and it was obvious from the “shoo”s and “careful there”s that

the youngster was trying to help but wasgetting in the way

more than helping.

Chad sucked in another deep breath then blew it out. He turned

his head at a footfall next to him and smiled at his firstborn,

Clement.

“Claire’s still abed?” Chad asked.

“Sure is,” Clement said with a shake of his head. “That girl’ll

never make a proper farmwife.”

Chad chuckled. “We’ll fix that. Your mother has another one

in the oven. We’ll give its care to Claire. Then she won’t be

able to be a slug-a-bed.”

“Gonna be a ‘C’ name?”

“Of course. Clif for a boy, Corine for a girl.”

Clement eyed his father. “You don’t know yet?”

Chad shook his head. “We decided we’d like to be surprised

this time.”

“So how long do I have to wait before I know whether my

youngest sibling is a brother or a sister? Mama’s not showing

yet.”

“Seven months.”

Clement looked out over the fields and nodded. “Smart timing,

there. The crop’ll be in, and Mama will have time to recover

before the next sowing.”

“Right. We might want to be surprised by the new one’s sex,

but that didn’t mean we wanted an accident.”

Clement nodded again. He remembered his father telling him

the deciding reason for the family’s emigrating was that their

home world had adopted strict population-control measures,

capping family sizes at three children. But Chad and Connie

wanted a large family. Connie had been pregnant with Mitchell

when they left to make a new home here. The first three had

come at three-year intervals, but Mitchell was five years behind

Claire. Thanks to the demands of settling in a new world

and starting the farm, child five, whether Clif or Corine, would

be four years behind Mitchell.

From inside, they heard Connie tell Mitchell to run upstairs

and drag his sister out of bed before she missed breakfast.

Mitchell laughed delightedly at the prospect and tromped away

to do his mother’s bidding.

“Life is good,” Chad murmured.

“It is,” Clement agreed.

“Let’s—”

Whatever Chad was going to say was cut off by Mitchell’s

scream.

Strictly speaking, Spilk Mullilee had no business being there.

The constabulary was treating it as a crime scene, and the police

believed that the planetary administrator would only get in

the way. Haulover’s attorney general was also concerned that,

if there was a political aspect to the alleged crime, the presence

of the planetary administrator might jeopardize the findings of

the crime scene investigation. And Haulover’s minister of war

chimed in with a protest that if the incidents were the work of

an unknown enemy force, the planetary administrator could be

putting himself in unnecessary danger.

Spilk Mullilee ignored them all. It was the thirteenth such

incident in less than four months and, as planetary administrator,

he believed it was his duty to see the site for himself.

He couldn’t continue to wait idly for Robier Altman, a Confederation

of Human Worlds under minister of state who also

happened to be an old friend, to reply to the message he’d

sent almost a month ago.

So even though, strictly speaking, Spilk Mullilee had no business

being there, he had to be present at the investigation. After

all, the planetary administrator was responsible to the Confederation

for everything that happened on his world.

Looking to the east and south, Mullilee saw fields of native

vegetables, stretching halfway to the horizon, rich fields that

would provide nourishment for thousands once they were harvested.

If they were harvested. Looking north and west, where

the farmhouse and outbuildings with the machinery needed to

work the farm should have been, all Mullilee saw was devastation.

He’d already looked at images of the farm when the

buildings had been there. Now the view was biblical—not one

stone left standing on another.

Literally.

Everything burnable had been turned to ash. The bricks and

stone pulverized to sand and dust. Even the plasteel and the

metals in the farm equipment had melted to slag.

Despite the concerns of the constabulary, Mullilee was

careful to keep out of the way of the technicians who sifted

through the wreckage. Mullilee flashed on a trid he’d once

seen of twenty-first-century archaeologists excavating a Neolithic

site, how they’d sifted dirt through a large sieve, winnowing

out small bits that might be something other than dirt.

Some of the techs on the site of the Montgomery homestead

looked just like what he’d seen in that trid. Others, bearing objects

that pinged or bonged or flashed colored lights, stepped

carefully about the site, keeping off ground that hadn’t yet

been sifted. Whatever they were doing was, to Mullilee, indistinguishable

from magic; he knew neither the tools they manipulated

nor what they did.

What did Mullilee expect to see here, anything that the techs

couldn’t find more easily and quickly than he could? Nothing,

which was why he kept off ground they hadn’t covered, and

otherwise stayed out of their way, carefully not doing anything

to interfere.

He hoped the techs would find something that would tell

them—and him—more than they’d gotten from the first three

homesteads, and from the more recent ones that had been destroyed

the way this one was. Something like what happened to

the people. Eight people were missing here: the Montgomerys,

their four children, and two hired hands. That brought the total

missing in the thirteen incidents to sixty-seven people, people

who seemed to have simply vanished, except for a few tiny bits

of white stuff that may or may not have been human bone.

A new world such as Haulover expected to lose people in the

beginning. But not to have them simply vanish. With their

homesteads so thoroughly destroyed.

Office of the Planetary Administrator, Haulover

We need help, I need help, Mullilee wrote in another message

to Robier Altman. The Haulover Constabulary and the Ministry

of War have concluded that the homestead destructions

and missing people are the work of enemy military operations.

But they have no idea who, or why. Do you have contacts who

can get us help, or can you direct me to the appropriate office

in the Heptagon?

I’m desperate.