“I was thirsty!”
“Master Ramus...” Gen said, her voice barely audible above the din.
Ramus kept yelling. “And no more gin either! No stills of any kind!”
“Master Ramus...”
“This is an outrage!” Fugg declared. “I’ll lodge a labor complaint. You’ll see!”
“Master Ramus...”
“What?” the captain shouted, causing the robot to cringe. He sighed. “I’m sorry, Gen. What is it?”
She smiled and pointed, this time at her captain. “Are those supposed to be doing that?”
A bluish hue surrounded Ramus’ arms. The tattoos were glowing.
“Shit,” he said.
“You’re not going to transform into a monster or anything, are you?” Fugg asked.
Ramus shook his head. “No, this is something else.”
His face more ashen than usual, the captain left the cargo hold and went directly to his cabin.
Over thirty years ago, a biting wind was swirling across the Palatine Mountains, drawing tears from Kanet Solan’s eyes. Thousands of miles from Regalis, the peaks of Aldorus were remote and sparsely populated. Most Imperial citizens preferred the hustle and bustle of the capital city to the wilderness sharing the same planet. Solan could have taken a gravcar, but he climbed the summit, wanting to prove himself to the monks at the top. The Dharmesh Monastery was the finest school of psionics for light years in any direction, but the only way in was through the front door.
Bundled up in a heavy coat, Solan tightened his grip on the insulated hood. Wisps of red hair blew around his face as if attempting to flee. He stuffed them back under the hood, struggling to see the rough trail winding along the mountainside. A young human in his twenties, Solan’s legs were strong, but the long hike had taxed them to their limit.
A fog bank rolled in, turning the path into a gray soup. Solan slowed his pace to a crawl. A false step meant plummeting to his death, so he took his time, knowing patience was one of his virtues. Good things came to those who waited, and he was good at waiting.
The fog eventually cleared, revealing a flight of stone steps leading to a wooden door.
Weak with fatigue, Solan felt his legs wobble as he climbed the stairs. He steadied himself at the top, pulling the hood away and letting his orange hair fall loose. He could barely hear his knocking against the door with the wind howling in his ears. He waited several minutes until the metal sound of a bolt being shoved to one side set his heart pounding.
Like a log splitting in half, the door creaked open slowly. A face protruded from the gap. Pale with pointed ears and blond hair, it was a Dahl, the elf-like people who ran the monastery. His amber robes, just visible in the candlelight coming from within, meant he was one of the monks.
“What do you want?” he said.
“I’ve come to learn psionics,” Solan replied, smiling with pride for making it this far.
“You’re human,” the monk said.
“Yes.”
“We only teach Dahl here.”
“But I’ve come a long way...” Solan began.
“Then you’ve come a long way for nothing,” the monk replied. “Go home.”
“Please!” the human begged, but the door slammed shut.
Solan, his eyes darkening, stared at the door, the wood grain weathered by centuries of unforgiving wind.
It remained closed.
Pulling the hood back over his disheveled mop of hair, Solan turned and hiked back down the mountain, his anger growing with every step.
On the Wanderer in the present time, the captain’s cabin was devoid of much of anything except for bare metal walls and dirty laundry lying on the floor. Coming through the hatch, Ramus nearly tripped over his leather jacket, kicking it out of the way as the tattoos on his arms glowed with a pale blue. He was glaring at them when another, even brighter, light caught his attention.
Like a ghost, a translucent figure floated in the corner. The apparition wore a black robe with gold fringe. A hood covered his face.
“Goddammit, Solan!” Ramus said. “How long have you been here?”
“I’ve been waiting for you to exit hyperspace,” the ghostly figure replied.
“If I’d known that, I would’ve taken longer.”
“You know, Rowan, if you worked on that personality of yours, you’d probably have more friends.”
“Friends like you? No thanks.”
“So ungrateful, after all the Psi Lords have done for you!”
“Whatever,” Ramus grumbled. He motioned at Kanet Solan’s floating image. “What’s all this anyway?”
“Psionic projection,” Solan replied. “It took several painful surgeries, but I think the results speak for themselves.”
Solan pulled the hood back, revealing a man in his late fifties, a mesh of circuitry embedded into his otherwise bald head. His red eyebrows were the only hair visible.
“Of course, you could probably do it without augmentation,” he went on, “but then you’re a Dahl after all...”
“Don’t be jealous.”
“I’m doing my best, but it’s just so hard when I see what a success you’ve become.”
Ramus scowled. “Right.”
“If you had simply stayed with us, things could have been different.”
“Maybe,” Ramus replied, “but I doubt I could’ve lived with myself.”
“You seem pretty happy with those tattoos,” Solan remarked. “You’ve certainly been using them a lot, most recently on the Magna home world if I’m not mistaken.”
“You heard about that?”
“We’re a data cartel, Rowan. I know what you had for breakfast...”
The captain sighed. “What do you want?”
“I have a job for you,” Solan said.
“No.”
“You haven’t heard the details—”
“I don’t care. I’m through with you people.”
“Come now,” Solan said. “You know our arrangement. You got to walk away from the Psi Lords with the gifts we’ve given you, but when your services are needed, back you come.”
“Fine. How long is this going to take?” Ramus asked.
“You’ll be done in a jiffy,” Solan replied.
“Where is it?”
“Come to Aldorus,” Solan said. “I’ll fill you in more after you arrive.”
The ghost smiled and faded away. The tattoos on Ramus’ arms no longer glowed, returning to their original black ink.
When Kanet Solan got to the bottom of the mountain over thirty years ago, having walked all the way down from the Dharmesh Monastery, he knew he could never be like the monks. As a human, Solan lacked the natural psionic abilities enjoyed by every Dahl. He hated them for that, but he wasn’t going to let genetics determine his destiny.
When Solan came down the mountain, he had a plan.
Over the next several years, Solan studied the art of mind magic, both academically and physically. In both cases, he used outcast Dahl to teach him bits and pieces of the various schools of psionics. As exiles, none of them knew what Solan needed in its entirety, but as his knowledge grew, he knitted the parts together into something approaching a whole.
As he learned, he grew more powerful. However, he eventually reached an impasse. He could not stretch his human mind to the extremes necessary to achieve true mastery like the Dahl. Faced with the choice of accepting his limitations or taking drastic actions, he chose the latter.
In the Imperium, humanity was king. Among humans, purity symbolized their superiority over all others. The idea of modifying themselves and thus making themselves less human was abhorrent. Self-mutilation through implants or genetic manipulation was outlawed by Imperial decree. Although lesser procedures were ostensibly legal, the kinds of changes Solan had in mind were not. If he went that far, he would need to be shielded from the law. In that case, he could either choose those above the law, like Warlock Industries, or those outside it. Again, he chose the latter.
Stories of the Psi Lords were common among those needing information. They were a data cartel, selling secrets for the right price. They collected those secrets using a school of psionics called Dark Psi. Outlawed by the Dahl, Dark Psi gave powers that conventional psionics strictly forbade.
After joining their ranks, Solan first became one of their agents, called collectors. Eventually he became a handler of other agents, a controller, and he facilitated their clandestine activities and kept an eye out for new talent. All the while, he remained patient while continuing to augment his abilities.
Patience was one of his virtues.
Thirteen years ago, a cold mist was falling as Ta Demona made her way through the crowded streets to the Temple, home of the Augmentor Sisterhood. Water beaded on her black robes before rolling off her shoulders. Seventeen years old, with emerald skin and piercing blue eyes, she walked past the other natives of the planet Technas Delphi while their thoughts whispered quietly in the back of her mind.
Demona was not like the other sisters.
Reaching the Temple, a priestess greeted her. She bore implants running along the side of her shaved head, denoting a higher rank. Demona could hear her thoughts.
Such a strange little girl, the sister thought. She gives me the creeps!
“Greetings, sister,” she said politely.
“Greetings,” Demona replied.
“There’s an off-worlder who’d like to speak with you.”
“Yes?”
“He’s in the surgical recovery unit.”
“What’s his name?” Demona asked.
“Kanet Solan.”
Although the request was unusual, Demona often worked with foreigners looking to benefit from the Augmentors’ technology. She had assisted in several operations, mostly involving advanced prosthetics for lost or crippled limbs. A few clients, including Solan, requested more involved surgeries. However, she had no idea what he wanted with her. Her expertise was still in its infancy.
She passed beneath the high ceiling of the Temple’s main hall. Supported by flying buttresses on the outside, visible through large windows, the hall was like the chest cavity of a beast enclosed by metal ribs. Unlike the stone cathedrals of ancient Earth, the Temple of the Augmentors was made from alloys and composite materials. Optic fibers, embedded into the walls, transmitted information throughout the Temple while also illuminating its space with shades of pink and blue light.
On the altar at the far end of the hall, the shape of a person stood with her arms spread like a cross. Demona paused to kneel, paying her respects to the High Priestess who had gone through complete conversion, from a living, organic being to a cybernetic machine. Enclosed in metal and plastic instead of skin, the High Priestess was immobile like a statue, with cables running from her casing to the building itself. The Temple was an extension of her body and consciousness, acting as her eyes and ears far beyond the altar on which she was anchored.
Demona rose and followed one of the side corridors to the surgery unit which took up an entire wing of the Temple. Even at night, the department bustled with activity. Doctors and nurses, all priestesses in their own right, rushed from one procedure to another. Demona knew better than to interrupt and, after looking up the room where Solan was waiting, went to him directly.
He smiled when she opened the door. In his forties with red hair fading into gray, Solan bowed, exposing an implant shaped like a half crown running along the back of his head. Demona recognized it as one of their psionic enhancers.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Solan?” she asked.
“At the risk of sounding cliché,” Kanet Solan replied, “I’d like to think I can do something for you.”
Her blue eyes widened as she felt his mind reach into hers.
This place is wasted on you, he said telepathically. I want to offer you more.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Demona said aloud. “I’m happy here.”
“Perhaps you are,” he replied. “And eventually you may work your way up through the order until you even reach full conversion. How old was the High Priestess when she ascended?”
“She’s one of our elders — I don’t know — probably in her sixties.”
“What if I said you didn’t have to wait that long?”
“For conversion?” Demona asked.
“For anything,” Solan replied.
“You’re from the Psi Lords, aren’t you?”
“Yes, and we have many resources at our disposal. You would have access to them if you joined us.”
Her eyes narrowed and her mouth bent into a frown. “You’re asking me to join the Psi Lords?”
“Why not?”
“What would I do?”
“You’d be a collector,” Solan explained. “You’d use your powers to gather information for us.” You can hear my thoughts, can’t you?
Yes, she replied. I can hear everyone’s thoughts.
Then you know what I already do, that your sisters don’t trust your powers. You’re an outsider and they’ll never allow you to reach total conversion.
Tears collected in the corners of her eyes as she looked at the floor. Yes.
“If you come with me,” Solan said, “you’ll leave them behind in more ways than one. Your future will be unlimited.”
Demona looked up and gave him a hard, piercing stare. “I have some ideas.”
He nodded. “I know you do.”
In the present, Rowan Ramus climbed from a gravtaxi onto the crumbling sidewalk of Ashetown, the poorest district of the capital Regalis. To the North, the skyscrapers of Middleton glittered in the warm evening air while to the west, across the Regalis River, the West End and its mansions kept a respectable distance. In Ashetown, there were no estates or buildings above ten stories. This was the land of the Underclass where humanity kept mostly away, and the aliens walked the streets.
Ramus felt at home.
Passing the withered skeleton of a long-dead tree, he avoided a questionable puddle on his way through a neighborhood of closed businesses and vacant lots. When he got to an alley between two liquor stores, Ramus stopped. The smell of garbage wafted from the narrow backstreet, but the captain of the Wanderer ignored it, ducking into the shadows.
Although the alley was a dead end, Ramus had been there before. The rats breeding between the trash cans and the words Free Marakata painted on the wall were all too familiar. It was like he had never left, and that feeling sat poorly with him. He had hoped he would never be in this alley again.
Ramus recognized something else, a drawing on the wall of an ancient tribal mask with dark, angry lines of indigo ink. He laid his flat palm against it until the lines started to glow between his fingers. A section of the wall retracted and slid away, exposing a passageway. The faint odor of jasmine incense escaped from the tunnel, for the moment overpowering the aroma of garbage.
Ramus preferred the smell of trash.
The secret door closed once the captain was inside. He followed the corridor, the floor at a downward incline, until it opened into a large chamber filled with expensive rugs and tapestries.
I’ve gotta admit, Ramus thought, Solan has impeccable taste.
Through a beaded curtain, Kanet Solan made his entrance. He looked like his psionic projection, a thick robe covering his body and circuits covering his hairless scalp. At least he was solid this time. Ramus wondered if that meant he could be killed.
“I wouldn’t try it,” Solan remarked, having apparently read his mind. “But you’re welcome to try.”
“No thanks,” Ramus replied wryly. “I don’t want to stain the rug.”
Solan motioned towards a low table surrounded by pillows. Taking a seat, they eyed each other from across the table.
“I see you still love jasmine,” Ramus said finally. “You should try sandalwood. I hear it’s very popular among evil geniuses.”
“Is that how you see me?” Solan replied.
“Well, the evil part a
nyway.”
“Good and evil are just words, Rowan, you know that. If the universe doesn’t care what we do, why should we?”
Ramus didn’t reply. He had heard the argument before and didn’t feel like retreading yet more familiar ground.
“You wanted me here, so I’m here,” he replied. “What’s the assignment?”
Solan smiled. “Yes, of course. No sense wasting time, I suppose.”
Between two pillars draped in silks, a video screen came to life. The image of a humanoid with a nearly featureless head appeared. The face had a pair of eyes and a mouth, but no ears or nose except for small indentations, and the skin was a light shade of blue. He wore a tunic woven from rough, white fibers with a tall collar. His three-fingered hand was raised as if speaking to an audience.
“What do you know about the Erudites?” Solan asked.
Ramus shrugged. “They’re a race obsessed with racial purity. They adhere to strict breeding protocols, trying to keep as close to a perfect specimen as possible.”
“Indeed,” Solan replied.
“My engineer Fugg would say nobody can tell them apart, but in this case I have to agree. They all look alike.”
Solan nodded. “In fact, they use telepathy to tell each other apart. It must be highly confusing.”
“So, what about them?” Ramus asked.
“The Erudites are holding a formal dinner tomorrow night at their consulate. Our client has hired us to attend and gather information.”
“You realize I don’t read minds...”
“That won’t be a problem,” a woman’s voice said.
Behind Ramus, a woman in black priestess robes stepped into the light. A respirator covered her nose and mouth while circuits were sown across her emerald scalp. Only her blue eyes remained untouched, their gaze fixed on the Wanderer’s captain.
“Demona,” Ramus said.
Chapter Five
On cloven hooves, Horngore trotted to the top of a hill overlooking the steppes. From a race called the Ferans, he had the arms and torso of a humanoid but the lower body and legs of a goat. He had a ram’s head with curling horns, and he was covered with hair the color of charcoal.
Behind Horngore, the earthen lodges of his tribe were scattered across a low depression, protected from the wind. The dome-shaped homes were partially submerged in the soft soil, with wooden frames for walls filled with mud and sod.
Imperium Chronicles Box Set Page 62
