Ace of Thralls (Freelance Courier Book 3)

by Lawrence M. Schoen

  Ace of Thralls

  Lawrence M. Schoen

  COPYRIGHT

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted, in part or whole, by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from both the copyright owner and the publisher.

  Ace of Thralls © 2021 Lawrence M. Schoen.

  This book is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

  Cover Art by Tulio Brito

  Book design by Lawrence M. Schoen

  Author photo by Nathan Lilly

  Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-951391-45-4

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-951391-44-7

  Vers. 210610

  This one is for the folks at Capclave.

  Not only is reading not extinct there,

  But they understand the value of a plushie.

  Contents

  The Calm Before The Client

  A Trillion Voices Stilled

  The Origin of Clowns

  From the Ashes

  A Plan Revealed

  Entanglement and Manipulation

  Commitment and a Question

  Two More Wafers

  Approaching Dawn

  Alleged Xenophobic Assholes

  Fruit Preserves and Other Social Lubricants

  Impossibilities and Pragmatics

  The Problem of Novelty

  A Hypothetical Gauntlet of Death

  The Founders’ Finding

  Gravel From Another World

  Reminiscent of a Clown Car

  Down the Rabbit Hole

  Technology and Translation

  Schrödinger’s Portal

  Algae No More

  More Gravel

  An Enormous Clown

  The Second Side Heard

  A Reduction In Scent

  Planning Freedom

  Randolv Greyce Slept Here

  The Win-Win

  The Shortest Distance Between Two Points

  Acknowledgments

  Bonus Offer

  About Lawrence M. Schoen

  Also By Lawrence M. Schoen

  The Calm Before The Client

  The twenty-six orbital stations above Finiskifel were among the largest in the galaxy and their constant rotation ensured every room offered a view of the planet. Reservations were nearly impossible to acquire, whether for a restaurant or a sleeping room, or even a seat in one of the orbital’s viewing lounges. Few places boasted higher prices, and the citizens of the galaxy paid without hesitation. More, they waited years for an opening, trading favors and bribes, fortunes and familial heritages, for an opportunity to visit. Just getting there involved a thirty-seven day wait in line to access the other end of either of the two portals that led to the Trelniki star system that Finiskifel called home.

  It wasn’t just that Finiskifel was a garden planet; an entire sphere pulsing with so much raw vegetative life that it all but glowed green. It drew an endless parade of pilgrims and penitents, people who had everything life could offer and others who had nothing, and all for the same reason.

  To gaze upon the verdant glory of Finiskifel was to be healed. Seriously, that’s not hyperbole. An hour spent looking down on the planet cured mental illness, halted the worst diseases, eased the most brutal trauma. No one could explain how just soaking up the reflected light while in orbit above the planet’s surface restored whatever you were missing, and no one had managed to duplicate it. The experience, regardless of one’s race or beliefs or biology, left one transformed. Somehow the Finiskifel Effect — as it was called by many — produced a primal belief shared by all sapient species for a garden of grace and perfection.

  And the Trelniki kept it that way. Everything used or consumed or otherwise needed by any of the stations was brought in from one of the other three planets in the system, all of which were perfectly fine places in their own right with thriving cities, a range of climate zones and geologic features, art and commerce and anything you might want, save for the lack of the totality of being a magical healing garden.

  The only industry on Finiskifel existed to maintain a space elevator up to one of the stations. Fewer than three thousand Trelniki were privileged to work on Finiskifel itself, and even they had no permanent residences but came and went on decade-long contracts. It was the exceptionally rare and honored non-Trelniki who was privileged to wander through that green perfection.

  Angela “Gel” Colson was a rarity among the rare. Had the Trelniki known and appreciated that, maybe she’d have been allowed downworld. But they didn’t and she wasn’t and she had no regrets, feeling incredibly privileged to even be in the star system, let alone experiencing the light of Finiskifel from the vantage of a broad window of a posh bar on an orbital station because a potential client had requested a meeting and ensured she’d accept by supplying everything for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. She had no obligation to accept the job, but she’d have been the galaxy’s biggest fool to pass on the opportunity provided by the meeting.

  Gel managed to arrive early and had been shown to a private booth that the client had reserved in advance, and where assorted nibblies and a flight of ales had been left out for her enjoyment. The client was running late, which didn’t speak well of someone wanting to hire a courier.

  Her courier company consisted of just herself and Tiggly, a past-her-prime Colian Thistler-class ship that had traveled much of the galaxy and had the wear and tear to show it. The potential client’s invitation had included twenty hours of docking credit. Docking fees there approached what she charged for several dozen courier gigs. It’d been less than two hours since she’d docked, and if her client had thus far failed to show she’d been content to spend the rest of her time soaking in the view of the planet, and experiencing the legendary peace that it produced. All the stress and aggravation and worry that she’d accepted as her lot in life had just melted away. Her life, she realized, was damn good.

  But she wasn’t going to eat the food or drink the beer.

  It’s possible she was being overly paranoid. The likelihood that someone with enough funding to lure her here would offer her tainted hors d’oeuvres or drugged refreshment had to be pretty low. Even so, she played at the morsels of her small plate of snacks but didn’t actually eat any of it. She did sip from the glass of pale ale she’d selected from one of the flights, but only after first teleporting its contents to a sink back in Tiggly’s galley and swapping in an equal volume of apple juice from a container in the fridge to the side of the sink. Teleporting things was Gel’s talent.

  She sipped her juice. A sound suppression field kept the noise of the lounge’s other guests from intruding into her booth. The languid turn of the world below soothed her and kept away even the slightest hint of annoyance at being made to wait by an unknown, would-be client. It also explained why she didn’t notice when he finally arrived and stepped up silently behind her. A fragrance that was a blend of something like violets and spearmint reached her before his words.

  “Ms. Colson. Thank you so much for coming. My name is Aushthack.”

  His voice, more than his words, startled her and she spun around. Then she startled again at the sight of him and stopped herself so quickly that she sloshed apple juice all over his clothes.

  Aushthack wore a beige one-piece that left him completely covered save for his hands and head. His skin, what she could see of it, was pale as a corpse left out in the sun for a few days. His mouth curved up in a wide grin made even wider by a clown’s
makeup that also showcased his eyes. He had a bulbous red nose and his hair was limited to a dense ring that might have invoked a monastic style if it hadn’t been a brilliant aquamarine. The clothing was all wrong, but Gel needed only a brief glimpse to recognize her would-be client for what he was, a member of arguably the most dangerous race in the entire galaxy: Aushthack was a Clarkeson.

  A Trillion Voices Stilled

  “Despite appearances, Miss Colson, I am not a Clarkeson.” He raised a hand as if to forestall an argument, rotating the palm outward to gesture at the emerald planet shining through the window, its patient light emphasizing his point. “But rather than begin by attempting to convince you of this, I bear a message for you from a mutual acquaintance who is a Clarkeson.”

  Aushthack reached into a pocket of his jumpsuit and withdrew a slender, lavender wafer. He placed it on the table alongside Gel’s now empty glass.

  “The sound suppression in this lounge works both ways. I’ll step outside of it so you can listen to this message in private. My hope is that it will convince you to hear me out. But if not… well, if not, then I won’t take up any more of your time.”

  “Wait. You haven’t said who it’s from.”

  Aushthack looked surprised, over and above the exaggerated expression of his facial colorations. “Oh, I’m sorry, it didn’t occur to me that you might be acquainted with more than one Clarkeson.”

  “Are you saying this is from Randolv Greyce?”

  “I am, and it is.”

  “Why didn’t they just contact me directly like they always have?”

  “Ah. As to that, well… that option no longer exists.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Aushthack gestured toward the wafer. “You will, but best you hear it in his own words.”

  He turned and stepped away, leaving Gel behind in the resulting silence of the table’s sound suppression field. The wafer, despite its color, looked like a cookie, albeit a cookie with three small indentations of differing sizes, widest at the top and decreasing in diameter as they progressed down the length. Gel pressed the tip of her forefinger to the smallest depression and a voice emerged from the wafer, the voice of Randolv Greyce, the Clarkeson who had manipulated her into accepting a retainer and kept her on call as their personal courier whenever the need arose.

  “Angela Colson. I hope this message finds you well. I apologize for reaching out to you in this way. But my more traditional methods of communication are not available. As I’m sure you will soon come to appreciate. Let me begin with fundamentals. The bearer of this message is not a Clarkeson, though any confusion you might currently experience in that regard is perfectly understandable. He is, in fact, a representative of a race known as the Tosh. And while I’m sure you will agree it is fair to say that his people quite resemble my own, if we are being perfectly accurate, you should know that it is the Clarkesons who have chosen to resemble the Tosh. I’ll leave it to him to elaborate on this once you’ve heard all of my message. But for now, it is sufficient to tell you he approached me with what you would consider a profoundly humanitarian project.”

  Gel glanced up from the wafer. Aushthack — the being Randolv Greyce had labeled a Tosh — had taken a seat two tables away and sat staring out the viewing port at the green planet below, his face a clownish visage of serenity.

  “Under normal circumstances, I would be disinclined to involve myself in such a goal. The philosophy and morality of the galaxy’s singular races such as his or yours are not the concern of my people. We serve a higher calling, one which I neither ask nor expect singular beings to comprehend. I’m sure you will recall some of our conversations along these lines during our enterprise on Sharmalaro, as well as in our correspondence since then. Be that as it may, Aushthack’s project inspired me, and I have chosen to support it, even though its successful outcome is unlikely and any efforts on his behalf would be viewed with great disfavor by other members of my race. Indeed, my decision to extend backing to Aushthack will quite literally be the end of me. My own consortium, which in your limited way you are prone to thinking of as the individual you know as Randolv Greyce, is dissolving in protest. Soon after this message is sent, I will cease to be.”

  The wafer tumbled from Gel’s grasp, the casual finality of the Clarkeson’s remarks catching her completely by surprise. The recording continued and she lost a few words as she stooped to reclaim the wafer.

  “…as a parting gift, I’ll share a secret of the Clarkesons with you, a quirk of the anatomy of our consortiums and our lives as colony beings. We are hollow. Just as each of our cells is largely self-sufficient and chooses to work in harmony within larger cellular collectives and assemblages for any remaining biological requirements, so too we lack the need for the more common physiological elements of singular races, including skeletal structures and internal organs. As a courier I have no doubt you can appreciate the advantage and convenience of possessing your own personal and discreet storage space. Over the vast years of the life of this identity, I have transported a wide range of objects and artifacts within my consortium’s body: implements and instruments and weaponry. Also exotic organic substances. Even foodstuffs, which includes, as it happens, some of your father’s famous cheese. I trust you will not share this secret with anyone, though I doubt you would be believed if you did. Certainly no other Clarkeson would confirm such a story. Still, it may prove a useful data point for you.”

  “That still doesn’t explain how you got Amadeus’s cheese in the first place,” Gel muttered.

  “But back to the main point of this message. I know you’re aware that Clarkesons are colony beings. Every one of our individual cells evolved to sentience more than a million years ago. As they clustered into groups, some of them acquired sapience. Those sapient groups then combined to form the beings you know as Clarkesons, consortiums with agency and purpose. Among most singular races such as yours, individuals are composed of roughly 30 trillion cells. Owing to our hollow construction, Clarkesons have far fewer, let us say a third. Of these ten trillion cells, barely a single trillion are sapient. Keep these numbers in mind in your travels, Angela Colson, because while there may be as few as one hundred thousand Clarkesons wandering the galaxy, living as catalysts to influence and alter the events of other races and societies, each of us represents a trillion souls, a greater population than is enjoyed by the vast majority of civilized worlds within our galaxy. The biology that makes intelligence possible at a cellular scale is not understood by the scholars of singular races, and my people have actively discouraged research that might reveal our secrets and how we came to be. This, in part, is why they would not support Aushthack’s project. And indeed, why my own consortium has chosen to end not just my existence as a colony being, but rather, in effect, engage in mass suicide on a scale that likely defies your imagination. After this message is sent, a trillion voices will cease. They have decided that it is not enough to simply dissolve the consortium that is Randolv Greyce and spread its members to other Clarkesons so that they might continue as part of other consortiums. Were they to do so, there is fear that they might carry some piece of whatever quirk that has led to my decision to others of my race, resulting in a cascade of still more Clarkesons finding favor with Aushthack’s goal. That possibility is even more abhorrent to them than the goal itself. And so they’ve chosen, not merely to end my identity, but their own existence as well. It is my hope, Angela Colson, that you will appreciate the weight of this and accept Aushthack’s purpose as your own, lending him such support as you can manage.”

  The recording paused and Gel frowned at the wafer in her hand. “You still haven’t said why you thought I’d be able to help? And if you’ve died, it’s not like I’m going to have the opportunity to ask you. Seriously, what did you imagine a courier could accomplish that your own vast experience and trillion members couldn’t do better?”

  As if in reply, the Clarkeson’s voice resumed.

  “I know you are more than
you appear to be, more than a simple courier, more than a singleton daughter of Amadeus Colson, all of whose other children travel in pairs. You came to my attention because you are a puzzle, one worthy of my interest and study, and I had made it my goal to unravel your mystery. Alas, the current situation requires me to set aside satisfying my own desires and sacrifice pursuing that solution to the larger cause that Aushthack has laid before me. Back on Sharmalaro you accepted a contract with me. You took my retainer, with the understanding that in addition to monetary payment I would release to you, one by one, the coordinates and pass codes to the series of smaller, ancient Clarkeson portals that have resided for millennia hidden within the atmosphere of gas giant planets in star systems that also contain mourning worlds. My imminent dissolution should not be viewed as an acceptable reason to terminate our agreement. As I have amassed sufficient capital, and am leaving behind no fragment of myself to utilize it, I have arranged for you to receive regular payments so long as you maintain your courier business. Likewise, on a regular basis, an agent representing my estate will transmit to you pairs of coordinates and codes of additional Clarkeson portals. It is my hope you will use both these funds and this information to further your career goals and expand your personal mystery. I expect you to render no additional services in exchange for these payments. It is enough that you have provided me with a puzzle, the only one in my long life that I will be forced to lay down unsolved. If you choose to support Aushthack’s goal once he explains it to you, do so because you see the rightness of his cause, and not out of some singular misperception that you owe me anything. There is no debt between us. I will miss you, Angela Colson, to the extent that one of my kind is capable of missing a member of such a short lived, singular species, but I end my identity enriched by the experience of our acquaintance. May you find your way and may your ultimate destination be both a surprise and the fulfillment of your desires. We will not speak again.”