The Soul Monger

by Matilda Scotney

  “You were brawling?” Laurel couldn’t imagine it.

  He grinned. “Yes, I was. But I got punched in the head and went down like a stone. And I didn’t get up. Someone brought a MedAid, but I was right out. They removed me back to Mentelci and I stayed in a coma long enough for them to bring my father from his isolation.”

  “But surely your doctors can fix anything?”

  “Not stupidity, Laurel. Even the most basic of cadets know certain blows and force can damage, and with whom they should pick a fight. I didn’t think, and the officer who hit me didn’t care.”

  “Did you suffer any permanent issues?”

  “None physical, I had to put up with my dad complaining about being dragged back to Mentelci. I got forgiven though because he met Pelle. But during my recovery, I became intrigued by the skill of the doctors, the MedAids, medical interfaces, all of it. I wanted to be part of that world, direct that equipment. I applied and was accepted.”

  “So, you are a physician and a soldier?”

  He gave a modest shrug. “I was working as a circuit medic with the Constabulary; that means I treat civilians as well as police officers and I was working between systems when the war started. Within months I found myself on the strategic council; the council that elected to bring whole souls into the war. The fact that I can speak English was a bonus to the League. They knew historically that your languages are largely lost.”

  “Darlen speaks almost all Earth languages.”

  “All?”

  “Well, he speaks English, German and Italian and claims to speak most of the others.”

  “He self-promotes,” Harry dismissed Darlen’s claim with a wave of his hand. “He knows there’s no way you can check anything he says.” He turned to her with a smile. “We have a few cultural things left over from our contact with Earth whole souls in the past.”

  “You do? Like what?”

  “Forms of music and dance.”

  “Helen would love that. She loves dancing.”

  “Well, when the war is over, and we’re back on Mentelci; I’ll take you dancing. No doubt it has evolved over the ages.”

  “Or devolved,” Laurel grinned. “I can’t dance, anyway. Has contact with whole souls affected other systems?”

  “Yes,” Harry said, then gave her question further consideration before continuing, “Bear in mind, Earth whole souls have always been rare. Most slaves were half-souls or quarter-souls from other systems within this galaxy, but they have still shaped and influenced us in many ways. Part of our heritage we honour.”

  “What happened to you when you and your father escaped into the League?”

  “We were taken to Mentelci,” Harry stretched out his legs and rolled onto his side to face her. “There hadn’t been a refugee in so long; I’m not sure the government knew what to do with him. I was a newborn, so I don’t remember, only what my father told me, and that was that he had to undergo accelerated learning and eventually, I had to go to school. The government asked him how he wished his life to proceed; he said it was to return to his former life. Obviously, that couldn’t happen. He told them how he lived on Earth, and they came up with a compromise. They once had a policy of recompense for escaped slaves—refugees. Look…”

  He activated his d-com, and an image of a cosy-looking log cabin on the shores of a lake formed before them; forests and mountains completed a scenic backdrop. It looked like a picture from a travel brochure.

  “That’s beautiful,” Laurel said,

  “It’s my father’s house,” Harry grinned, “on a moon orbiting Clamon, a treaty planet. Hardly anybody else lives there. Pelle chose to adopt the lifestyle, and she lives with him. Despite his age, he fishes and hunts and grows produce. It’s a marvellous place.”

  “It does look like Canada,” Laurel said. “I recall you saying that’s where he went to avoid the war.”

  “You’ve been there?”

  “More than once.”

  “It would be nice for my father to meet someone who knew his home. He misses it.” Harry suddenly became wistful. “I would worry, but he has Pelle; she makes him laugh, and she cares for him.”

  “How did you manage to seal the Transcender?”

  “It’s mined and guarded. There’s no way to access it from any system. The League constabulary detected an illegal signature once, years after it was sealed—Darlen’s— but whoever he brought back either didn’t survive or died shortly after.”

  “Are you sure there are no other whole souls?”

  “The lack of any reports of whole souls in any system says so. My father is the last.”

  “What if the one Darlen brought through did survive?”

  “It’s not likely, Darlen’s from Caltobar. His world has a vice culture based around the use of slavery and a whole soul would generate a lot of interest, we would have known, but even at the height of the Soul Monger’s activity, whole souls were rare commodities. There are slavers, different to Soul Mongers, who collect unfortunates from the remote and more primitive worlds.”

  “But you allowed Darlen to access the Transcender to bring us through?”

  “Yes, we did,” Harry admitted with a wry smile. “He’s the last of his kind, and we had no alternative. We don’t know how the Soul Mongers open the Transcender. It appears to be a skill passed from father to son.”

  “I’m glad it’s closed, Harry,” Laurel smiled at him. “And I’m glad we didn’t talk about the war.”

  Harry hesitated for a moment, then sat up and draped his arm around her shoulder. Together, not moving, they gazed towards the heavens in companionable silence.

  Chapter 24

  Two days later, Helen, discharged from the infirmary but still recovering, was sought out by a group of engineers who’d arrived from Mentelci. Hoping to discuss and expand upon her concept of using an identifying agent in combat conditions, they’d brought a prototype, constructed for her approval and input.

  Unfortunately, none of them realised her encounter with the wik was as far as she’d explored her idea and were each disconcerted to find they were not dealing with an expert, but someone with absolutely no scientific background beyond a rudimentary knowledge of the ingredients of face cream. Their keenness to obtain Helen’s endorsement and possibly conduct the test was greeted with a vacuous stare; her interest in the project only stimulated by her attraction to the chief engineer, a seven-foot-tall, massively built man from the same world as the ebony-skinned Congressman Ips, a world where Eli would be considered a child. Fortunately, Harry was on hand to explain that Helen’s contribution came only in the form of a casual remark. He further explained the honour of perfecting her idea belonged to them alone. Even so, they wished to demonstrate the gas’s potential to the gathering.

  “As you know,” Hamer, the tall engineer explained, “stealth technology shields only within its field, so if something lands on the surface, the exterior of the field is exposed.” Hamer opened an infochart, demonstrating the composition of their invention. “To that end, we came up with a basic ammonia-based gas. There is no odour, and we’ve added coltrium pigments and abisterate compounds to counterbalance its toxicity. This is what we propose. The enemy can’t track our axispods in the tropopause, but we can get a good lock on their position, provided they are in the open, so we’ve set up a diffuser, hooked up to the underside, here,” he pulled a schematic of the axispod out of the infochart. The schematic turned slowly in the air between them as he marked out the placement and release ports of the vapour. “As you can see, they’re comparable to ones employed in sectors of dense agriculture. The mixture disperses as a clear gas initially; we added reaction inhibitors to the pigment, so when the molecules reattract, and become heavy and sink, the gas forms a thin coating wherever it settles. Of course, it will highlight the Semevalians, but will also expose an enemy in stealth.”

  Chloe raised her hand. “I’m sorry, but we have to rely on translation here because some chemicals you mentioned are no
t used on Earth. If ammonia has the same properties as where we come from, it’s extremely light. It’ll simply blow away.”

  “You are correct,” Hamer said. “On its own, it will dissipate quickly but it is the best carrier for the pigment, and we had to consider atmospheric conditions on Semevale. Our initial experiments failed until we hit on using the ammonia, but then, of course, we had to find a way to weight the gas. We can’t directly combine abisterate and coltrium with ammonia, it turns to liquid, so we coated the abisterate molecules with the pigment and discharged each compound; ammonia, coltrium, abisterate separately into the lower atmosphere. The coltrium attracted and bound the components together as they sank, the blue colour intensifying as the gas neared the ground. The process was very rapid.”

  “Have you factored in weather systems?” Laurel asked. “Surely from that high up; it’s still going to scatter?”

  “Yes, we have,” Hamer started a simulation on the axispod schematic. Laurel saw that weather appeared to have limited effect on the gas. “A cyclone might cause it to drift,” Hamer said, “but they’re rare on Semevale 8. We can slip out of the tropopause, spread the gas and be on our way before the enemy tracks us.”

  Helen and Laurel stood together as they watched the experiment being set up.

  “Hair dye,” Helen murmured to Laurel.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know what the other chemicals were, but hair dye’s got ammonia and pigments. Hair dye as a weapon, who would’ve thought it,” Helen grinned.

  “I think it will make a difference, Helen, they won’t have to rely on us wholly to pinpoint the enemy.”

  A dozen soldiers activated stealth and a dozen others, in regular uniform stood with them. The axispod skimmed above their heads. At first, they saw nothing, then a blue vapour settled on the soldiers. It was subtle, but those in stealth were indeed highlighted. Several onlookers cheered, and Harry looked over and raised his eyebrows in appreciation at Helen, who shrugged, not seeing what the excitement was about.

  “It’s a simple idea. I don’t know why they didn’t think of it themselves.”

  Harry excused himself from the engineers and came over. “Well, Helen, it looks like your gas is going to revolutionise this war.”

  Laurel tried not to laugh. Helen would not be overjoyed with that endorsement.

  “I hope you have a scientific name for it, Harry,” she said before Helen had a chance to retort, “or were you planning on calling it, ‘Helen’s gas’?”

  “He’d better bloody well not!”

  “It’s a perfect name for it, Helen,” Harry responded, not making the connection to bodily functions. “It was your idea after all.”

  Laurel did giggle then, but Helen shot her a look. “It sounds like you christened a fart,” she grumbled.

  “A fart?” the comment baffled Harry. “Oh, yes, of course, my father uses this term. Helen, I apologise, we will not refer to it as your gas again.”

  Semevale 8 had been eerily quiet since the battle, with only an unsubstantiated report of a First Column infiltration in a prefecture in the north.

  “There are still 580 major cities not yet invaded,” Harry was using the downtime to educate the whole souls on Semevale 8 geography, “and around 7450 regional centres and prefectures. We’ll fit the gas to the axispods when we patrol a few of the far northern areas, just in case, but the longer we can utilise the gas without knowledge of its use reaching enemy command, the better.”

  Laurel and Harry patrolled the northern prefectures in a stealthed scout with Eli. All seemed quiet and peaceful, and Laurel didn’t detect any enemy half or quarter-souls within the boundaries of any prefecture they visited. Harry had arranged to meet with a Prefect to discuss defence and communication, and even though they had reported no signs of enemy activity, Harry and Laurel took the precaution of dressing in Semevalian clothing, though they both wore uniforms underneath. They strolled through the ancient, walled town with its beautiful square dwellings. Archways folded elegantly across the alleyways, shrouded in an assortment of ivy and climbing flowers. The rooftop terraces were all lovingly tended.

  “This place is spectacular, Harry,” Laurel had never seen anywhere so truly picturesque; it reminded her of old Florentine paintings or ancient tapestry; it would be a tragedy for the people to lose it to the enemy.

  “Many of the far northern towns have architecture of this type,” Harry looked around, understanding her appreciation. He also loved things of beauty. “It is charming, and many of the original buildings have stood for centuries.”

  “Why doesn’t the League install a garrison in towns under threat?” Laurel gestured around, “Here, for instance?”

  “As I’ve said before, there aren’t enough of us to go around. We have no firm intelligence this town is under threat; if we did, then we’d place soldiers here.”

  “And that depletes our fighting force?” Laurel knew how this conversation would go and what Harry’s answers would be, but Harry wasn’t going to get into this with her; she already knew the League’s position on recruiting more soldiers. If she wished, she could read his mind on the matter; she’d get the same answers. But she didn’t, she just held his gaze for a second, then commented that the streets seemed eerily quiet.

  “Many Semevalian prefectures feel vulnerable, so the inhabitants take to the mountains. It’s the first place the enemy look for them after they secure the town, but still they go there.”

  “Why doesn’t the League evacuate them?”

  “They evacuated a large number, but this is their ancestral home, if they’re going to die, they’re going to die here, peacefully if possible, protecting it if need be.”

  Laurel once again sensed a smattering of half-soul Semevalian’s among the quarter-souls left behind in the town. Layered over her sense of fear from the townsfolk, Laurel heard the lazy hum of insects, unperturbed by what may or may not come. A few wiks dusted pollen onto trees on the main street, and the air was sweet with floral scents and the spicy undertones of the hedgerows. In other circumstances, Laurel would consider this place heavenly.

  Their journey took them through a courtyard at the end of one of the myriad alleyways, where Laurel felt a sudden, destabilising pressure against her midsection, as if she had stepped through an unseen barrier. She halted, and pitching forward, reached out to the wall to steady herself.

  “What is it? What happened?” Alarmed, Harry reached out to support her.

  Laurel shook her head; her mind was silent, she didn’t even get a sense of Harry. Despite her wonderment at her new skills, over the months, she’d become accustomed to sensing other people. She didn’t even see it as an intrusion anymore; they were just “there” in the background. But now, in the absence of even the essence of others, she felt her mind open wide, seeking clarity, but it saw only what she felt. Nothing. Even the sound of the insects faded, and Laurel’s awareness drew in around her until the only sound she could hear was the beating of her heart.

  Chapter 25

  “I can’t sense anyone, Harry,” Laurel gasped. “Not you, not the Semevalians,” but before he had a chance to reply, she grabbed him and dragged him into a crouching position beside her behind the wall.

  “Nothing at all?” Harry whispered, looking around the courtyard; it seemed peaceful enough, but then, he didn’t have her enhanced senses or that extra eye or whatever it was she had in her brain.

  Laurel flicked a glance at him without answering. Gradually her heartbeat and breathing returned to normal, but she still had the sense of panic. The sounds of the streets returned, layering one upon the other; at first, it was just people walking close by, then the hum of insects, then the sounds of everyday activities, but still something was wrong, a threat to the peace.

  “It’s like someone threw a blanket over everything,” Laurel said, rising from her crouching position. “Not over me; but over you,” she gestured around her, “over everything. I’ve never felt it before; it was new…
” Laurel looked up at the sky. It was blue, a few clouds. What was she feeling?

  Then it came, a weight, an emphasis. Her eyes widened as her senses filtered back into place. “Harry, they’re here!”

  Harry scanned the alleyway, “Close?”

  Laurel hesitated, trying to gauge the enemy’s distance from the town. “I’m not sure; they haven’t reached the boundary. I thought…” this was confusing. “I felt them closer, but no, not here yet, but not far.”

  “Then we’ve got a few minutes,” Harry said. “We need to get out of here.”

  Chloe checked in to inform them of the enemy position, and that she would pick them up directly, just as the Semevalian Prefect and her councillors arrived to find out what was taking them so long to arrive for their meeting.

  “The invaders are here, Prefect,” Harry told her as the scout hovered overhead. “They’ve landed a few kilometres from the town. We’ll send a garrison to protect you, and we’ll deal with the First Column.”

  The Prefect watched in wordless confusion as they clambered into the scout.

  “Tell as many of your people as you can to stay in their houses,” Harry shouted to her as the ramp retracted.

  “Marta picked up the enemy as they came in,” Chloe reported. “Only one ship. Must be First Columnists. Not enough for an invasion.”

  “Thirty soldiers?” Laurel looked to Chloe for confirmation.

  “That’s right,” Chloe nodded. “We can take care of a ship that small, Commander.”

  Harry was deep in thought, and Laurel wasn’t overly keen on where his thoughts were heading.

  “Chloe,” he said, “bring in Eli and coordinate your attack to take out that carrier before the enemy disembark. If you can destroy it in one simultaneous blast, they won’t be able to get out a warning. We can be waiting when anyone comes looking.”

  “Harry,” Laurel couldn’t imagine ambushing people and killing them in cold blood, war or no war. “There’s only thirty. Can’t we take them prisoner? We don’t have to kill them.”