by Jucha, S. H.
ESPERO
A Silver Ships Novel
S. H. JUCHA
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by S. H. Jucha
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Published by S. H. Jucha
www.scottjucha.com
ISBN: 978-0-9975904-0-1 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-0-9975904-1-8 (softcover)
First Edition: October 2016
Cover Design: Damon Za
Formatting: Polgarus Studio
Acknowledgments
Espero is the sixth book in The Silver Ships series. I wish to extend a special thanks to my independent editor, Joni Wilson, whose efforts enabled the finished product. To my proofreaders, Abiola Streete, Dr. Jan Hamilton, David Melvin, and Ron Critchfield, I offer my sincere thanks for their continued support.
Despite the assistance I’ve received from others, all errors are mine.
Glossary
A glossary is located at the end of the book.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
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Glossary
My Books
The Author
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“Stop where you are!” Alain de Long shouted, speaking the New Terran’s language.
A broad-shouldered man, whose heavy-world frame was dimly backlit in Hellébore’s fading light, hesitated in the alleyway’s mouth. He spotted the stun gun in the Haraken’s hand and bolted back around the corner onto one of Espero’s main streets, but his steps faltered at the sight of a second Haraken identical to the man he just encountered. Shaking off his hesitation, the New Terran dropped his head and accelerated, intending to bowl the slender man over.
In a deft movement, Étienne de Long, co-director of Haraken’s security forces, dropped down, spun on his left leg, and used the right to cut the man's legs out from under him.
With an “oomph,” the man smacked face down onto the street. The force of the impact dislodged his ear comm, which struck the walkway and snapped the tiny transmitter off the comm’s body. Before the New Terran could recover, he found his hands pinned behind him. “Why are you attacking me?” he cried out.
“Why were you running?” Étienne replied, as he applied wrist restraints.
“How do I know who you are? Is this a kidnapping or are you adz?” the New Terran asked.
“As to the former, the answer is no; as to the latter, what are adz?” Alain, Étienne’s twin and crèche-mate, replied.
“Adz … you know … administrative types, police and such.”
“Then we’re adz,” Étienne replied. “Allow me to introduce ourselves. We are Haraken security forces, and you are under arrest.”
“For what?” the New Terran demanded, struggling as Étienne and Alain hauled him upright. No easy task for the twins, since the man massed more than their combined weight.
“We’ll answer your questions at the Directorate, as we’ll expect you to answer ours,” Alain replied.
“These ties are too tight,” the New Terran complained. “They’re cutting off my circulation.”
Étienne signaled the tiny chip in the restraints to ease the tension. The wrist cuffs were new tools for Haraken’s premier “escorts,” the Méridien term for security personnel. Restraints wouldn’t have been required for their own people, but Haraken’s primary city, Espero, had doubled its population in the last four years to nearly a million individuals. Many of the new emigrants and visitors were from New Terra and some were from the Confederation, more so from its colonies than its home world, Méridien.
Due to their constrained social fabric, Méridien behavior would be exemplary, but with the New Terrans, it was a different matter. A younger society of much more independent-minded people, New Terrans were still experimenting with social boundaries, and the twins, Étienne and Alain, were discovering that the culture was importing its excesses to Haraken.
Étienne and Alain loaded the New Terran into their grav-transport, a four-seat unit with a modified rear seat that operated as a containment cell, and flew back to the Security Directorate building.
The suspect stood briefly before Julien, a Haraken SADE (self-aware digital entity), who scanned him, recorded his physical aspects, loaded his DNA into the Directorate’s database from a touch on the man’s skin, and sampled his voice pattern when the man asked, “So, who are you supposed to be?”
“You need not worry your simple human mind about that, Ser,” Julien replied.
“Oh, you’re one of the Harakens’ pet computers,” the suspect snidely shot back. When the New Terran saw the Méridiens’ hands twitch toward their stun guns, he adopted a nasty grin, thrilled to see he had struck some nerves.
Julien checked the Directorate’s database.
Alain sent to his brother.
Étienne squinted at his twin, who chuckled. They escorted the New Terran to an interrogation room, while they communicated privately with Julien about the circumstances that might have brought the man surreptiously to Haraken. It had been reported by citizens that several New Terrans they had met were incapable of producing Haraken IDs, which were required of the planet’s visitors.
The interrogation rooms and holding cells within the Directorate were also new implementations. Espero’s population changes, resulting from an explosion of New Terran visitors and residents, had required the construction of the Security Directorate’s new building only three years ago, and the suspect processing areas were added a year ago.
Espero’s tremendous influx went hand-in-hand with New Terra’s construction of faster-than-light (FTL)-capable transports, passenger liners, and freighters, courtesy of Haraken technology. The vessels were owned and operated by New Terrans, so they flew under the system’s banner, Oistos. It required the Harakens create stricter entry controls by constructing the ne
w McCrery Orbital Station, where all foreign vessels docked for Haraken entry and exit. But as tonight’s operation by the twins indicated, the new procedures weren’t foolproof.
After seating the New Terran in an interrogation room and removing his restraints, Étienne asked, “What’s your name?”
“Names seem so unimportant today,” the man said. “It’s all about numbers anymore, but for the sake of our discussion, you can call me Henry or Henri, if you prefer,” he added, gesturing toward his captors and acknowledging their Méridien origin.
From the initial moment of his capture until now, Henry had slowly dropped the façade of the innocent victim. Now, the man who sat before the Harakens displayed the mannerisms of the criminal who the twins had sought. Henry leaned comfortably back in his chair, folded his hands over his stomach, and smiled condescendingly at the two investigators.
“How did you arrive here, Henry?” Alain asked.
“So this is it? This is how the big, bad Harakens are going to interrogate me?” Henry asked. “From what I hear, you people can't do much more than scowl or raise your voices.” Then he laughed long and hard at his joke.
Julien applied his considerable crystal-processing power in search of a means of unlocking the man’s secrets. Terrible things were insinuating their way into Haraken society, tempting the planet’s vulnerable Haraken young and New Terran visitors alike. Henry was the first interloper they had caught, and his information could be invaluable in understanding how the new passenger controls at McCrery were being circumvented.
Julien left his post by the door and stood in front of Henry, saying, “Well, Ser, if you refuse to cooperate with us, we’ll have to be rid of you. We can't have a human of your ilk walking around Espero free to do as he will.”
“You can’t twist me,” Henry said, confident of his position. “The worst you can do is deport me, and you know it.”
Accessing a stored image of Admiral Tatia Tachenko’s feral grin, Julien twisted his face into a facsimile, and said to the twins, “Ah, so our secret is yet to be discovered, Sers.” A black, stovepipe hat appeared on Julien’s head, projected by his avatar’s holo-capable synth-skin. It gave the SADE the image of a man intent on conducting dark business.
“Digital freak,” Henry snarled. “I’m done dancing with you people. Put me on a freighter, and let’s get this over with so I can get some sleep.”
“Freighter? Who said anything about a freighter?” Julien asked innocently, looking at the twins, who adopted their own evil smiles in an effort to play along.
“Étienne, we will require a transport to the cliff tops where the Swei Swee can get rid of this piece of human trash,” Julien said, dismissing Henry and walking out.
“What are you talking about … your president's precious aliens?” Henry yelled at Julien’s retreating back. Swiveling to regard the twins, he said, “Those things are supposed to be ferocious looking, but everyone knows they're gentle with humans.”
“And therein lays the secret, Ser,” Alain said, catching on to Julien’s ruse.
“Oh, yes,” Étienne agreed, building on the story, “the Swei Swee can be gentle, but if you know anything about them, it’s that they’re carnivores, and, as much as they enjoy fresh seafood, they’ve developed a fondness for human flesh.”
“Keep your tall tales … like I said, you’re not going to twist me,” Henry declared firmly, but some of the bravado he had exhibited earlier had evaporated, and even more of his confidence waned as he was hauled out of the Directorate and loaded into the investigator’s transport with the SADE for company in the containment cell.
During the flight, the stars twinkling overhead through the transport’s clear canopy, Henry sought to determine whether he was being twisted or he was indeed headed for his death at the hands of aliens. But the three Harakens ignored him, and Henry was forced to listen to a macabre exchange between the twins in the front seat of the transport, which played heavily on his nerves.
“I say we place a wager on it,” Étienne said to Alain.
“They haven’t fed on a human in over fourteen days,” Alain replied. “I think they’ll do the job in fewer than 0.11 hours.”
“That fast? But you’re not counting the skull,” Étienne challenged.
“No, you’re right. I mean they’ll crack the skull eventually, but you know how they like to play with it for a while.”
“Have you ever figured out their game … you know … what they’re doing, smacking it around like that and twittering like a bunch of old women?” Étienne asked, his face screwing up and swallowing, as if to prevent retching.
“May the stars protect us,” Alain said, shuddering. “It’s gruesome to watch. I want to be back aboard the transport by then, if you don’t mind.”
“No objections from me. I can’t stand to observe that part either. I still have nightmares,” Étienne agreed.
That the investigators weren’t asking Henry any more questions scared him to death. They didn’t seem to care whether he talked or not. As silently as the grav-transport lifted off, it quietly descended onto the cliff top that overlooked the ocean to the west of Haraken’s capital, Espero. The planet’s bright moons lit the cliff top in a pale glow, and the night air blew sweet and salty scents from the tall grass and sea.
Alex greeted the twins as they hauled the New Terran out of the transport. When Julien told him of their plan to encourage the trespasser to talk, Alex broke out in laughter. He was still laughing as he closed the comm and started the walk to the cliffs.
“Sorry to bother you so late this evening, Mr. President,” Julien said, greeting Alex as they exited the grav-transport, “but we need to process this one immediately. He’s an interloper so there’s no concern about recordkeeping.”
Henry put on a brave front, standing straight and puffing out his substantial chest. But the president’s sudden high, shrill whistle caught him off guard, and he watched with concern as the Haraken calmly extracted a live fish from a small container.
To Henry’s horror, the stories of the Swei Swee hadn’t even come close to the truth. A giant, six-legged alien with huge claws raced over the edge of the cliff top, and as the creature scurried toward them at high speed, Henry’s sphincters loosened, and he soiled his pants. The rapid snapping of the monster’s enormous claws threatened to collapse Henry’s knees, and his captors were forced to support him.
When the president offered the fish to the alien, it snatched it up in a claw, tearing at it with the other, and feeding bits of it into its mouth, smacking away. Nausea and lightheadedness overcame Henry. His imagination ran wild, and he envisioned his bones stripped of flesh by the ugly creature. With his last moments of consciousness, Henry blurted, “I'll tell you what you want to know. I'll tell you everything. Just keep that thing away from me.” Then he fainted, and the twins lowered him to the ground.
The four eyestalks of the Swei Swee First, the leader of the alien hives, swung to the man on the ground, and he whistled his concern. “Is the human in distress?”
“I believe he might be ill,” Alex whistled.
“No introduction this night?” the First inquired.
“Not this evening. Perhaps another time,” Alex warbled, offering his sympathy for the event’s failure.
The alien leader popped the last piece of sweet fish flesh into his mouth parts, swallowed, and whistled his farewell, hurrying off to join his mates at home, a domicile built into the cliff side. The hives could only fish during the daylight hours when they could see what they hunted, and they consumed what they caught. So a late-night snack offered by the Star Hunter First, as Alex was known by the People, was always a treat.
“After Henry comes to and is cleaned up,” Alex said, wrinkling his nose in disgust, “I will be interested to know how he slipped past our security procedures and made it to Espero. Most important, I want to know what he’s doing here.”
* * *
Renée de Guirnon, Alex’s partner, warned of his return by implant, hastily prepared a late-evening repast and some hot thé. For the slender, genetically sculpted Méridien, thé was all Renée desired, but a heavy-world body such as Alex’s required many more calories daily, and her lover was one substantial New Terran.
“Did he talk, or was the First forced to nibble on some body parts?” Renée asked, giggling at the thought of the amiable Swei Swee hurting a human. It was the aliens who guarded their son, Teague, when he swam in the bay at the base of the cliffs with the hive’s younglings, who Teague thought of as his friends.
“He did agree to talk right before he passed out,” Alex said, kicking off his boots at their home’s entrance. It was a Swei Swee–built house, a right demanded by the First as tribute for Alex’s efforts to free his people from the Nua’ll, the mysterious, unseen aliens, who hid in the upper reaches of a massive sphere while they coerced other races to harvest their needs from the planets they ravaged.
Alex had agreed to the Swei Swee construction simply to keep the peace, but over the years he came to appreciate his decision. The roof and walls of his house required zero maintenance, and they still glowed with the soft luminescent blues, greens, and whites that marked the Swei Swee matrons’ craftsmanship. It was the same application that created the shells of travelers, the Haraken’s grav-driven shuttles and fighters — Swei Swee “spit.”
