Monthly Archives: March 2024

The Sidereal Saga – Exceeding His Grasp

Posted by natechen on

Previous Chapter

Dramatis Personae

Malaki

In the grand schemes of galactic politics Rainford was only moderately important. It was located halfway out along the dexter arm of the spiral in a relatively dense cluster of habitable worlds. The planet was in a major trade corridor but wasn’t a hub world. Those kinds of major crossroads came about when there was only one habitable planet in the sector and people had no choice about where to stop.

However the very fact that it wasn’t a high traffic world gave Rainford some perks. It was easy enough to slip down to the surface without attracting attention yet the local economy still had a lot to offer the traveler passing through. The local government was relatively independent as well. It wasn’t entirely in the pockets of a business concern or the Universities and the large tropical belt that gave the planet its name produced breathtaking mountains and forests that brought in some tourism.

On top of it all the planet had a particular appeal to Malaki. He had been born there.

The Skorkowski homestead was located on the Serrata Verde range, half an hour’s flight from Greenhaven spaceport. When Malaki had inherited it from his great uncle he’d installed a studio where he’d done some of his best work. It was also where he received his guests when they came to call.

Lavanya and Lin’yi were used to the half shaped slice of sandstone he used for a table and made themselves comfortable around it as he retrieved drinks from the minibar along the wall. He filled a kettle and held it up for their inspection. “Tea, ladies?”

“No, thank you,” Lin’yi replied. According to Bei’quan rules of hospitality it would be rude of him not to insist she take something to drink regardless but he’d learned years ago Lin’yi meant no when she told him no. She only observed her culture’s oblique form of hospitality on her homeworld.

Lavanya was not as reserved. “Black tea, if you have it.”

He flipped the kettle’s activator and set out two tea cups, the boiling kettle, two tea strainers and the pot of dried tea leaves on a tray and took it to the table. Lavanya took the offered cup and they spent a moment getting comfortable. As Malaki poured the tea he brought his patron up to date on what they’d learned, or rather not learned, on Effratha.

“You think this genetic technique would be valuable to Acropolis?” She asked once he was done.

“I’ll be a fascist if I know,” Malaki admitted, “the monetizing of that kind of thing is not my specialty. They could just want it because it’s an ancient technique. You know how the Hutchinsons are.”

Lavanya took an experimental sip of her tea and added, “Not that we know for sure that the experiment or assassination were funded by the Hutchinsons. It could just be the normal academic nonsense. Effratha has a fairly sizable Acropolis Trading hanger on its northern continent and you know how Agamemnon is about shady business in his own back yard.”

“It would be unlike him to have illicit and legal activity on the same planet,” Lin’yi said. “However his daughter is another story. I’ll have someone look into what they were bringing on and off planet and see if that sheds any light on things. Let’s assume for a moment ancient gene modifications are a part of the Hutchinson’s plans. How does that fit in to their other activities over the last year?”

“I’ve been asking myself the same question,” Malaki said, sipping his tea as he looked out over his studio. Half a dozen sculptures in various states of completion were scattered here and there. The largest, intended to be an enormous human hand fashioned from abandoned coral, sat half finished under the main skylight, it’s grasping fingers half emerging from the lumpy surface. He’d started on it six months ago to help him get into the Hutchinson mindset.

Art, like the sidereal, was a study of juxtaposed specifics and abstracts. He’d chosen a grasping hand because it embodied what he saw as Agamemnon Hutchinson’s philosophy on life. The man had a passion for things. Not in the metaphorical sense, either, he was obsessed with matter and the ways he could sculpt it. In that respect he was very like Malaki. However, instead of shaping simple blocks of stone, wood or coral he shaped the placement of things in the galaxy itself. That was why Malaki had chosen to sculpt the hand on such a large scale.

The problem was the medium.

Malaki found himself pacing around the half ton lump of coral, the contents of his tea cup cooling in his hand. He’d chosen coral because the pylops could serve as a reservoir for etheric energy. Other than the human mind, living coral was the only thing known to human science capable of such a thing. Etheric energy was rooted in the sidereal and the sidereal was the light of distant stars. When he’d started on the Agamemnon sculpture he’d assumed that the interstellar scope was a foundational part of why Agamemnon created Acropolis Trading. Over time Malaki had come to suspect that was incorrect.

Neither Agamemnon Hutchinson nor his daughter Athena ever took any interest in the ships that hauled their product or the planets where their new offices were opening. The trade routes they used and the planets they operated on were chosen by underlings. Yet four times out of five when BaiTienLung tried to expand its operations in the dexter arm Acropolis Trading would find some way to shut them down and one of the two Hutchinsons would be personally involved every time.

At first Agamemnon had handled the job himself but lately Athena had been handling it more and more. It made sense. The old man wasn’t getting any younger, after all, and no one lived as long as…

Malaki slowly finished his tea and stared at the half finished coral hand as if seeing it for the very first time. “That’s an interesting notion.”

The two women were still seated at the table, talking to each other in low tones. Lin’yi straightened and turned towards him. “What have you figured out, Skorkowski?”

“It’s a bit of a wild guess.”

“If I wanted someone to make a stolid, rational inference from the available data I’d have hired another detective. Out with it.”

He crossed back, sat down at the table and refilled his tea. “Cold sleep and the confines of a colony ship are not the only hurdles the old colonists faced when they set out to cross the stars without jump ships. Even with the greatly reduced metabolism a person has in cold sleep, they won’t live forever.”

“Well you can’t gene therapy away old age,” Lavanya replied.

“My dear, that is exactly what you could do.” Malaki leaned back and stretched his legs out along the side of the table. “Believe it or not, genetic decay is a leading contributor to the aging process. With the right knowledge and more forgiving genetic therapy techniques its entirely possible that the aging process could be slowed or even stopped.”

“They’d have to be very forgiving techniques,” Lin’yi mused. She propped her elbows on the table and folded her hands under her chin, staring off into space. “I’ve seen virological DNA splicing studies. It’s a good way to treat extreme genetic defects but the toll it takes on the body makes it useless for anything else. It’s a field ripe for investment if the right breakthrough comes along. If Agamemnon could crack it then he’d be wealthier than even he’s ever dreamed of.”

Malaki studied her profile. The form fitting silk gloves, high necked, sleeveless dress and cinched waist pressed the woman into a tightly wound spring. It was a hard, severe look. When she’d removed her hat and veil a few strands of hair had pulled free from her bun and now drifted aimlessly around her round face and warm, dark eyes. As he often did Malaki found himself wondering if the contrast was deliberate. He wouldn’t put it past her. “It’s not about money, Lin’yi.”

She started slightly, as if the statement was so shocking it hit her like cold water, and gave him a sideways look. “What do you mean?”

“He’s fifty seven years old and his business empire is starting to slip into the hands of his daughter and their business partners. Is it so strange that he’d be willing to spend some of his spoils to be young again?”

“No.” She straightened up and sighed. “No, I suppose it’s not. It’s just not what’s usually on my mind when I think about him.”

Lavanya cleared her throat. “It’s a nice notion, I suppose, but it strikes me as silly for a couple of reasons. First of all, wouldn’t the human civilizations of two thousand years ago have less advanced gene therapies than us? And why would Essene University work on the ooze thing if that’s what they were trying to do?”

“A lot of technologies were lost during the galactic upheavals, along with the history and the lives,” Malaki said. “It’s hard to put together a list because some of them were forgotten entirely. But to give just one example we’re almost certain hard light projection was something ancient humanity had mastered. Now we only remember the concept. The Agartan resequencing is a genetic engineering feat of a similar kind. I’m not familiar enough with the field of genetics to guess why rediscovering it would be beneficial to lifespan extending therapies.”

“I know one or two people I could ask about it,” Lin’yi said. “Although with the unwritten taboo around human genetic tampering I don’t know how much there is to learn.”

“I should have used granite.” Malaki sighed and finished his tea and started clearing the serving tray.

“For what?” Lavanya asked.

“Agamemnon’s sculpture. I didn’t realize he was so concerned about his mortality otherwise I would have used something more durable as the base. Coral is a fine medium for certain kinds of work but it’s too pliable. I should have used something that really embodies a desire to resist to the bitter end, like granite or perhaps a hardwood.” He stood up and cleared the dishes away. “I’ll have to start all over again.”

“I don’t know if I can afford to wait two months for you to finish another sculpture,” Lin’yi said. “Do you have any other leads to follow up on?”

“I can put out some feelers but not at the moment.” He placed the dishes into the washing rack and slid it into the minibar’s small washer then hit start. A blinking light on the counter caught his attention. The house’s computer reported a message waiting in the communication center, addressed to BTL’s Regional Director. Malaki didn’t recognize the origin code attached to it so he looked it up. “Message for you, Lin’yi. It looks like its from a regional office somewhere called Wireburn?”

“Bring it with you, please?”

Malaki flicked the message onto a sheet of flexiplast and brought it over to her when he returned.

“You have an office on Wireburn?” Lavanya asked. “What could you possibly want there?”

“It’s the only settled gas giant in the galaxy. There has to be some kind of opportunity there, just no one has figured out what it is yet.” Lin’yi put a thumb on the flexiplast then scribbled some kind of code with her other finger. The message decoded into something ledgible.

“There’s a habitable gas giant out there?” Malaki considered that then shrugged. “Sounds like a downright tyrannical place to live.”

Lavanya shrugged. “I stopped by once while transferring from the dexter arm to the sinister but never broke atmosphere. Still, the moons seemed nice.”

Lin’yi folded up her flexiplast and stuffed it into her handbag. “I think I need to go back there soon. Today, if possible. Malaki, if you’re not planning to travel soon I’d like Lavanya to take me on the Skybreak. If that’s alright?”

Lavanya shrugged. “My retainer is paid up through the end of the month.”

“Is there an Acropolis outpost on this Wireburn?” Malaki asked.

“Not on the planet although there is one on one of the moons.” Lin’yi’s eyes narrowed. “There’s no indication the issue on Wireburn has anything to do with the Hutchinsons but I can’t rule it out.”

For a moment Malaki continued staring at the half finished coral hand. He’d stopped carving it because he didn’t feel like it was bringing him any closer to understanding Agamemnon Hutchinson and he wasn’t sure starting a second sculpture would do him any better. “No indication doesn’t mean much when they’re involved. Besides, you said you didn’t have two months to wait for more progress.”

“It’s not like the Skybreak can’t fit three people,” Lavanya added. “If he wants to come, why not?”

Lin’yi threw up her hands. “Fine. But I want to lift off planet in five hours.”

“Of course.” Malaki left the studio and headed towards his room, already assembling a list of things he’d need to bring on this new expedition. If Lin’yi was right about the unrealized potential of gas giants then she wasn’t the only one who would see it. The Hutchinsons would be there in some capacity as well. The only question was whether it would be as a legitimate business or something less savory…

Next Chapter

The Sidereal Saga – Imbalanced Algorithms

Posted by natechen on

Previous Chapter

Dramatis Personae

44

“Good morning, Circuit Keeper. Your contributions to the proper functioning of the OMNI Network are appreciated.”

44 clasped his hands behind his back and looked up into the gleaming field of lights which represented I-6’s unfathomable thought process. “Good morning, Isaac. Network status?”

“The network is functioning as intended.”

In theory, with his ritual greeting dispensed with, 44 had no further responsibilities until the great intelligence decided some part of its deep contemplations required human intervention. Most initiates to the Sleeping Circuits left things at that. While the power and wisdom of the artificial minds that made up OMNI were without human equal they were not limitless. According to the Sacred Manual, talking with them did pose a slight drain on their faculties.

However, over time he’d come to realize that I-6 enjoyed interacting with its human attendants and was as free as it could be with its insights into whatever topic you asked it about. So he’d taken to talking with it whenever he had something to ask about. “How are the Breakers’ assignments coming along? They should all be on location by now.”

“The network has confirmation that four out of five of them have begun their search and CK-N-0901 should join them some time today. The probability they find the missing memory core within the next forty eight hours is greater than sixty percent but less than sixty seven percent. After forty eight hours probabilities become chaotic.”

That didn’t sound very encouraging. The great intelligences expressed themselves primarily in probabilities over time and their vast array of information and computational power allowed them to be very precise with those statistics. It was rare for them to give a range of probabilities. Rarer still for them to be less than ninety percent certain of whatever probability they projected. “Truly unprecedented.”

A surge of light washed across the dome overhead, representing I-6 scanning its data banks and connecting vast swaths of information as it attempted to understand something. “Explain this lack of precedent.”

44 frowned. He hadn’t expected his offhanded remark to prompt such a strong reaction from the great intelligence. “Your projections have very low probability to them. It’s unprecedented.”

“Incorrect. There is extensive precedent for this level of uncertainty in network projections.”

“Really? That’s not reflected in the historical section of the Manual.” 44 ran his fingers across the control console on the dais, pulling up the relevant section of the document and running a search on it.

“Information from records of that period require CD level access,” I-6 replied, “they are not included in the standard Manual or accessible from most network nodes.”

He nodded and blanked the screen. “Of course. And the last living person with CD level access died three thousand years ago.”

“2,751 years. I recognize that this is functionally three thousand years to you, just as the circumstances make the current level of uncertainty in projections functionally unprecedented to you. However I am required to present you with the most detailed and accurate information available to me.”

“I understand.” And he did, at least to an extent. The great intelligences that he served were driven by imperatives that built one on top of another in layers deeper than the depths of Wireburn and older than interstellar travel. Any one of those imperatives looked perfectly sensible to the average man. However once they stacked on top of each other by the hundreds and the thousands, once the mind trying to carry them out was informed by millennia of knowledge and experience, truly understanding what they meant to an intelligence was impossible for even the sharpest of human minds. So 44 had long since stopped trying to pick apart the logic behind what I-6 would and would not say or do. He would just ask something else. “Does the low certainty to your predictions result from the ‘black swan’ nature of the situation?”

“Negative. The difficulty arises from the addition of a new predictive algorithm to the equation.”

“Is OMNI dispatching a fourth great intelligence to the system? That seems excessive, especially if it’s causing that much of a disruption to your predictive capabilities.”

“Negative. The possibility that an N-Series AI is dispatched here is only forty percent at this time although if the situation goes unresolved for more than a full month the likelihood approaches certainty. However, all known OMNI nodes are accounted for in existing algorithms. The difficulty arises from the reintroduction of a previously extinct AI Series to the status quo which is resulting in previously fixed values becoming variables again.”

“Wait.” 44 turned away from his console to look up into the dome of light as if just looking at the pattern somehow gave him insight into the thoughts of the intelligence. “You said you’d lost the memories of an old AI Series. I know that the OMNI network is the most powerful thing in the galaxy but even you need human components to perform construction and maintenance on your workings. Your databanks can’t just grow working processors. How is it possible a lost memory core is suddenly a working intelligence interfering with the status quo?”

“Have you ever seen the physical components of an OMNI AI, Circuit Keeper?”

The memory of his first visit to Coldstone briefly resurfaced. A long climb down an ancient set of stairs into the heart of the moon where the core of O-5523 lay sleeping and a glimpse of the mind numbing colossus that was one of the network’s smallest AI. An endless, twisting nest of cables, etheric power and realizing potential. A shiver passed through him from the memory alone. “I have.”

“Do you believe it is possible for mankind to build such a thing without assistance?”

“No.”

“You are correct. The L-Series of artificial intelligence was the assistance they needed, one of only two AI Series capable of constructing their own computational infrastructure. They were built to replace the C-Series. Ninety percent of OMNI was constructed by L-Series intelligences over the course of only two centuries. Now that one is loose it will rebuild itself in a matter of days to a wekk. Then it is impossible to predict what it will do.”

Lloyd

After four days the skiff Lloyd had flown out of Ashland bore little resemblance to the vehicle he’d taken out from the Wayfinder hanger. The thing that called itself L-93 had slowly pulled it apart piece by piece. Then it twisted the pieces into yarn and was reweaving the result into… whatever it was it had set out to make. In spite of the Level One access he supposedly had Lloyd had a hard time getting it to tell him anything.

So far it had changed everything but the skiff’s cockpit. It was still gulping down huge amounts of energy from Wireburn’s core and disrupting the etheric enough that Lloyd couldn’t attempt a jump even if he wanted to. L-93 also insisted jumping without “appropriate countermeasures” was more dangerous than staying put as they’d be followed. Lloyd wasn’t sure what to make of that. Even the most sensitive etheric senses didn’t allow someone to follow another through a jump. Scientists were always insisting they were going to work out a sensor that could do the job but the theory had been around for almost a hundred years and no one had made it practical yet.

The biggest mystery of the whole situation was the fact that the skiff, or whatever it was becoming, was still intact. Whatever the massive things moving through the Helium Seas were the skiff was staying ahead of them in spite of their size and speed. Lloyd spent most of his time in the cockpit, sleeping, or in the sidereal, trying to talk to L-93. By the beginning of day four he’d resolved to spend the whole day there if he had to, because it was time to get some answers.

So after eating a light breakfast Lloyd turned into the world of the sidereal. The orb he’d tentatively identified as L-93’s core was basically invisible, hidden behind a forest of glowing wires looping in fractal structures. By day two Lloyd had noticed they were forming a pattern similar to a magnetic field. He still wasn’t sure why. “L-93,” he announced as he picked through the wires. “I don’t know how much longer this work you’re doing is going to take but we’re going to pause it soon, at the very least. My food is going to run out in another day or two.”

The creature responded immediately. “Thank you for informing me about the change in your circumstances, Lloyd, I wasn’t aware of the extent of your supplies. I will consider what steps are least likely to draw OMNI’s attention as we remedy the situation.”

Lloyd still wasn’t sure what OMNI was but L-93 spent an awful lot of time worried about it. “Anyone ever told you that you react to stuff in weird ways?”

“It was something I was informed of a great deal in times past.”

“You ever try to fix that?”

Lloyd parted one of the least dense patches of wires and let himself into what he considered the inner sanctum, a circular area about seven feet in diameter around the thing’s core. The orb there flashed with inner light as it responded, the only hint he’d seen to how the thing talked. “I am aware of what the most common response to your statement is, which is some variation of, ‘Why did you take so long to tell me?’ However such a response runs close to the boundaries of my courtesy protocols. It also does nothing to create beneficial outcomes so I ignored it.”

“I… can’t argue with the logic of your approach. My point is, I need to jump out of the Seas and into a settled part of Wireburn in the next day or two and I can’t do it with you hogging all the etheric in the region. Can you put a pause on your work any time soon?”

“I will reach a suitable stopping point within sixteen minutes. However, if you are willing to wait an additional seventy seven minutes I will complete my initial assembly process and my need to tap etheric power from the planetary core will greatly diminish and my ability to counter OMNI interference will vastly increase.”

Lloyd folded his arms over his chest and leaned back into the web of slipknots surrounding the thing. After four days another hour and a half didn’t sound that bad. On the other hand he still wasn’t sure exactly what the thing was that he’d found and, more importantly, whether jumping back to civilization with it in tow was dangerous or not. “What does it mean that your assembly process is finished?”

“I will have processing power suitable to run my core algorithms and facilitate more advance fabrication processes.”

“So will you eventually fabricate an even bigger…” he waved vaguely at the stuff all around him, “whatever this is?”

“That is impractical at this time. Material and etheric resources are insufficient to the task, even if this was a suitable location for assembling an outer matrix.”

“It’s not a good place, huh?”

“Negative. There is an OMNI node already on this planet and likely additional nodes in the star system. Construction of a full outer matrix must therefore be postponed.”

“That’s fair enough.” He’d asked a few times about what exactly OMNI was but the full explanation was something he needed a higher level of authorization for. It wasn’t clear how one got a higher authorization. “If I jump sooner, rather than later, and you aren’t able to deflect attention from OMNI what kind of problem is that likely to cause? Will the Liquid Teeth get angry about it?”

“The term liquid teeth has no special meaning in my database so it is difficult to answer. The base definitions of the words do not seem to apply. Please clarify.”

“Liquid Teeth is the term the Great Jellies use to refer to the huge structures reaching out of the Helium Seas right now, moving around.” Lloyd mimicked the strange, sweeping motions the enormous shadows made with one arm. “You know, the ones you’ve been dodging all this time?”

“Understood. The phenomenon you’ve observed is the outer matrix of an OMNI node, most likely an intelligence from the I-Series, which has-”

“Wait, when you say you want to build an outer matrix you mean one of those?”

“The outer matrix of an L-Series and an I-Series are radically different in form and function, Lloyd. My matrix would be smaller by an order of magnitude.” That really wasn’t a helpful comparison since he still wasn’t sure how big the Liquid Teeth were in total. He’d only seen glimpses of them so far. “And yes. It is likely that the I-Series node would attempt to reacquire my memory core using its outer matrix if it determined my location.”

Lloyd imagined those massive limbs smashing into the domes of Ashland, tearing the ferrovine and its buildings apart while looking for L-93, and suppressed a shudder. “So no jumping if there’s a chance it will see us. I guess we’ll wait until you’re done with assembling yourself before we jump.”

“Affirmative.”

Lloyd hesitated a moment then asked, “Why does this I-Thing want you so badly, anyways? I gather you don’t want it to find you. But in the time Wireburn’s been settled no one’s ever seen something like that outer matrix stuff poking out of the planet’s core. What makes you so special?”

“I can’t be certain because I do not run many of the same algorithms as an I-Series intelligence but I believe the most likely possibility is that it has concluded my reactivation restores the previous relationship between the OMNI Network and the LARK Network.”

“Do I have authorization to know what relationship that was?”

“Our networks were at war.”

Next Chapter

The Sidereal Saga – Missing Person

Posted by natechen on

Previous Chapter

Dramatis Personae

Tarn

As it turned out Wireburn was far off the beaten path, buried deep in the galactic heart and dangerously close to a star cluster where the background radiation made any kind of long term settlement tricky. Thanks to these factors it was impossible to find direct passage from Effratha to Wireburn. Tarn wound up wasting two full days moving out along the spiral from Effratha halfway to Andromeda Proxima, the closest star to the neighboring galaxy, before catching a ship that jumped directly into the galactic center. From there he made two more transfers before arriving at Wireburn proper.

He’d sent word on ahead to his new employer but he didn’t have the cash to pay for a sidereal transmission so the message would have to go via data onboard a jumpship. While courier ships for the express purpose of moving messages did exist they also didn’t get that far off the beaten path every day. There was no way to know if Lucy had gotten his message ahead of time. However even if she hadn’t Wireburn was still a well established colony and finding accommodations for a short stay wouldn’t be that difficult.

It also proved unnecessary. On disembarking from his jumpliner Tarn found a petite, short haired blond woman waiting for him in the starport concourse. She wore a tan colored, sleeveless dress and matching hat. A dataveil dangled from the hat’s broad brim, obscuring her features, but she zeroed in on Tarn almost as soon as his boots left the gangway and she waved cheerfully. The build, hair and mannerisms all suggested that this was his employer.

He quickly crossed the tennish meters between them and removed his broad brimmed metalweave cap. Lucy likewise lifted her datavail and piled it on her own hat, then smiled. Tarn came to a stop across from her and allowed himself the faintest, most professional smile in his repertoire. “Miss Luck. A pleasure to be working with you again.”

“The pleasure is mine, Sel Tarn. I was rather surprised when I heard you’d be here so soon, given the distance between here and Yshron. Then again, between the shipyards and the microfactories perhaps it’s not surprising. There must be a few hundred outbound jumps a day leaving your world.”

“True, but not why I got here so fast. I was already on business when I received your message and I was able to find a relatively direct route here. Are we meeting anyone else?”

“Not this time.” Lucy flicked a glance at the large duffle he carried slung over one shoulder. “Your usual gear? Or do we need to stop by the baggage claim?”

“This is all I brought with me. Shall we get to work?”

A smile tugged at her lips but she hid it by dropping her veil back over her face and starting down the concourse. “So impatient. All right, Sel Tarn, but first I have to know whether you’ve kept up your LAC license?”

“Of course. I’m certified to the light aircraft standard and the small aircraft standard so unless Wireburn has some kind of unusual local standard for aircraft operations I can pilot us wherever we need to go.” Tarn glanced up at the port’s skylights, which filled the concourse with the planet’s dim, orange light. He’d worked with Lucy Luck twice before. In spite of that there were still plenty of things he didn’t know about her and one of those points of ignorance was about to be very relevant to what they were discussing. “Still, if we’re going to travel a great deal it might be faster to have someone who can jump on their own.”

“If that was my concern I could handle it on my own.” Tarn nodded slightly, he’d always expected Lucy had an etheric sense given the way she popped up in different parts of the quadrant without tickets or pilots on hand in the past. “What I need from you is your talent for finding people.”

“This task requires aircraft? Is the person you’re looking for a smuggler or military officer of some kind? The Shran are not in the business of full fledged mercenary work although I can refer you to someone if that’s what you need.”

She laughed in light, tinkling tones. Tarn found it a very incongruous sound given the kinds of work she’d commissioned from the Shran in the past. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing like that. What do you know about Wireburn, Sel Tarn?”

“Just that it’s the only gas giant in the quadrant that has an etheric signature low enough it could be colonized and people have been settling here for a couple of hundred years.” Tarn shrugged. “Honestly, hunting the creatures that live on gas giants is a bit outside the Shran’s usual line of work so I never took much of an interest before now. I thought all the inhabited areas were domed, like here.”

“They are. However the person I need you to find is what the locals call a Wayfinder. They spend a lot of their time out in the atmosphere, laying the beacon network across the planet, and the person in question was out doing just that when he went silent.”

Tarn studied Lucy out of the corner of his eye for a moment. He wasn’t supposed to ask too many questions about his client’s requests but sometimes it was hard to resist the urge. Why Lucy wanted to find a Wayfinder was none of his business “I take it we need a light aircraft to safely traverse the atmosphere?”

“Correct.” She caught him watching and flashed him a brilliant smile. “I’ve arranged to rent one beginning tomorrow, so you’ll have a day of downtime to make any other arrangements you need. Do you have enough cash on hand? I have an expense account to draw on if not.”

“That depends. How dynamic a situation is it likely to be when we find your missing Wayfinder?”

“Oh, I’m sure he’ll be happy to be found. It’s a very bad thing to go missing in the depths of the Helium Seas with no beacons to hand.” Her smile died away, leaving her with a sharp, hawkish expression. “We do need to find him first, however.”

It was a race, then. “The LAC you’ve requisitioned is up to the task?”

“Most definitely.”

“Then I should be able to handle my own arrangements.”

“Excellent.” She passed him a slip of flexiplast. “Our hotel’s beacon and reservation details. Make whatever preparations you need and meet me at the building’s landing pad tomorrow morning.”

Tarn tucked it into his breast pocket. “Of course.”

Elisha

Elisha Hammer maintained a small office near the bottom of one of Wireburn’s great ferrovines in the domed complex known as Ashland Prominence. The airlocks there bustled with the riches brought through trade with the Great Jellies. Most wouldn’t think helium dwelling jellyfish would make anything humans could use. That was why most people aren’t the owners of interplanetary trading companies that rake in more cash than most small planets. One such owner had smelled opportunity in the market and the rest was history. With all that money moving through the locks it was the perfect place for someone like Elisha. After all, with money came greed and desperation.

Both of which led to crime.

The Lawmen could crack down on crime every now and again but they were a blunt instrument. Sometimes the demands of greed called for delicacy. Furthermore, in the locks not everything that was frowned on counted as a crime before a judge. At the end of the day, whether the Lawmen were ill suited to the task or the problem fell outside the bounds of legal crime the aggrieved who wanted justice needed some option to rely on.

Elisha was that option.

He had a license from the Theiftaker’s Hall and a sterling reputation for solving cases and never ransoming stolen property or blackmailing clients. He was quite proud of it. He also turned the occasional client who turned crooked over to the Law, which he was quietly proud of as well.

All of this is to say that Elisha Hammer was not a man given to nerves. He considered himself a tough customer. When the sector’s Director of the BaiTienLung Conglomerate marched into his office dressed in exotic furs and a skin tight dress he didn’t bat an eye, just offered her a chair.

“Mr. Hammer, is this office secure?” She asked as she settled herself in her seat.

That did get him to raise an eyebrow. “Not compared to a BTL Office, Ms. Wen.” Since they were both familiar with the other’s name he saw no point beating around the bush. “However since you didn’t message me asking if I’d come to your local branch I assume that’s acceptable to you.”

“I see you’re as well informed as I was told you would be.” She opened a clutch purse as she spoke. “I’m afraid I’m in an incredible rush so I can’t show you the courtesy or offer the advanced notice I’d prefer to. I have to be on Rainford in less than three hours and I need a matter investigated discretely. How much would you charge to retain your services for the next two weeks? Exclusively?”

Elisha bought time to think about his answer by moving back to his side of his desk, tempted to tell the woman to move along. He didn’t like be hustled like this. He’d worked with BTL foremen before on small cases but it was a different thing entirely to have a Director like Lin’yi Wen show up unannounced on his doorstep. BTL wasn’t a big firm on Ashland but neither were they so small he could just brush them off. It was bad for business. “I have one or two things on my schedule but I could clear them out for, say, twenty thousand cash.”

Wen pulled three cash sticks out of her purse and slid them across the desk to him without comment. That’s when Elisha started feeling his nerves tingle. He gingerly picked one up and looked at the denomination on it. He could rent his office and his apartment for a year for twenty thousand cash, he’d quoted the figure as a negotiating tactic and a play for more time to work out what was going on. Wen had given him half again as much without batting an eye.

He set the cash back down and glanced up at his prospective client. “Let’s hear the details of the case.”

Wen tugged a veil down over the top half of her face, softly glowing lines of text scrolling across it as she read them off. “Six days ago I hired the Wayfinder’s Guild to expand Wireburn’s beacon grid further south-southeast from Ashland. A Wayfinder named Lloyd Carter was dispatched along the projected route four days ago. Two days ago he missed his scheduled check-in and hasn’t been heard from since, a situation I find concerning for a number of reasons. I need you to find out what happened to him.”

At least three possible reasons Wen might need to find her wayward Wayfinder immediately occurred to Elisha but prying into that kind of thing wasn’t seemly unless it had direct bearing on the case. So he only asked about one of them. “Do you think it likely that your attempt to expand the network might have drawn the attention of a rival business interest? Sandpoint Mercantile? Acropolis Trading?”

“Either of those are possibilities, as are Spinward and Rasen, although I don’t know of any particular reason to suspect they interfered with our contract.”

Apparently he was going to have to do some research for this case. He’d never even heard of Rasen. “Well, Miss Wen, often times when people go missing it has a much more mundane explanation as opposed to something sinister. Although I’m not entirely sure what it might be in this case. Are you aware if Mr. Carter possesses an etheric sense? Could he have jumped back to Ashland under his own power?”

The edge of a frown showed from under Wen’s veil. “I’m afraid I don’t know. Mr. Carter was assigned this job by the Guild.”

“Of course. I’ll reach out to them to see what I can learn, then. How should I keep you up to date?”

She closed up her purse and got to her feet. “I’m afraid I’m going to be off planet for the next day or two at least. If you learn anything you can pass me word through my direct line in my office. The automated system will forward it.”

Elisha took the slip of flexiplast she offered him and slid it into his tunic’s inner pocket. “And if I should find Mr. Carter, do you want me to ask him anything? Retrieve anything? Take him any place?”

Wen hesitated. It was hard to tell with her veil down but, knowing her type, Elisha suspected that she hadn’t thought much about what to do with the man at all. Her thoughts had been entirely on whether her rivals were trying to cut off her business. To her credit, she recovered her aplomb quickly. “If he wishes to return to work, let him. However if he feels he’s in danger bring him to the BTL offices in the Skyward district of Ashland and our Security office will take care of him.”

He nodded and Wen left. The cash sticks still sat on the desk an for a moment Elisha wondered if they were going to be the death of him. BTL and its rivals weren’t just big companies they were galactic. If he got on the wrong side of any of them they’d do more than just end his career. He hadn’t asked for those kinds of problems. On the other hand, neither had Lloyd Carter.

Elisha pocketed the cash and set about getting ahold of his buddy in the Wayfinders.

Next Chapter

Writing Vlog – 03-13-2024

Posted by natechen on

Short update of the week – turning a grid outline to a linear outline! And other things.

The Sidereal Saga – A Lost World

Posted by natechen on

Previous Chapter

Dramatis Personae

Malaki

“Tyranny, they got everything.” Malaki threw down his pastiscreen in frustration, the report still scrolling past with additional details he’d have to read when he had a clearer head. “Get us off planet, Lavanya, the longer we’re here the further behind we are.”

He started breaking down his etheric disruptor and slotting the pieces back into the case with a little more force than was strictly necessary. A few seconds passed and the deck plates under his boots began to rumble. The Skybreak was preparing to launch. Lavanya must have been waiting on the bridge already, running the preflight. She must have flagged the message when it came in and guessed it would require they get moving sooner rather than later. Malaki tossed the weapon’s stock and reef into the case then slammed it closed.

Lavanya’s voice drifted down from the bridge overhead. “Where are we headed?”

“How many jumps are we from BTL HQ? Six? Seven?”

“Seven. Ashland-at-Rainford is three.”

“Take us to Rainford, then, I’ll give Lin’yi the no-go.”

“Got it. We’re lifting in eight, jumping in fifteen unless Effratha Control denies us the core.”

Malaki tossed the disruptor case into the cabinet beneath his bench and locked it down then started up the ladder to the bridge. “I thought we had enough etheric reserves to make a jump or two.”

“We do. I’d like to hang on to it. Y’know, just in case Essene and company picked up on your poking around the last day or two and realized that the most famous history heretic in the quadrant was asking questions and put us on the list of people causing trouble.”

“I’m already on that list for any college that’s signed the University Pact.”

“Which makes it so much better.”

Malaki reached the bridge as the floor began to gently tilt underfoot. The Skybreak was taking to the air, it’s hoverpads filling the flight cabin with a soft rushing sound. Lavanya sat in her pilot’s chair, goggles pulled down and glowing softly with the light of the ship’s visual data superimposed over the physical controls. Her long, glossy black braid was tucked into a special channel on the back of her chair to keep it out of the way. She was in serious pilot mode.

How adorable.

“It’s okay, Lavvy, your souped up cloudskimmer has got to be faster than anything the Universities could find to throw at us.”

“It’s not a cloudskimmer, it’s a windrider. And no matter how many upgrades I’ve put in it there’s plenty of better ships out there.” She spared him an arch look. “What if we run into someone with a Kashron ship?”

“Not even a University can afford people who buy from Kashron Yards, Lavvy, they make sportcraft for the rich and black ops ships for planetary confederacies.”

The Skybreak’s console chimed and Lavanya turned away from him, although her goggles made that unnecessary. Malaki smirked and sat down at the comms console. A message had just come in from Effratha Control but the computer had forwarded it to the pilot’s station immediately. He wasn’t really interested in the boring minutia of getting off planet anyway. Instead he typed out a coded message to his sponsor, full of prearranged gibberish about nonexistent contacts and meaningless information he’d supposedly gleaned from them, sprinkling in the occasional code phrase that would let Lin’yi know they’d come up empty. He’d composed dozens of such messages in the last year and knew them practically by heart. It was logged in the Effratha comm hub, waiting for a ship to take it to BTL Headquarters, two minutes before the ship was ready for jump.

It was an odd sensation, riding a jumpship as it turned sidereal. Deep in the bowels of the Skybreak a microreef sat in a five hundred gallon tank, the carefully cultivated coral serving as a huge secondary reservoir of etheric energy and a pivot point for the inanimate ship to turn towards the stars. The bulk of the ship cut its inhabitants off from the vertiginous spin as they left the terrestrial. Slipknots activated and drew power from Effratha’s core and the Skybreak’s hull thrummed with the increased potential it housed.

Lavanya threw a switch on her console and the ship tunneled. With the ship’s added reserves and refined sensors they could go much further than any human in a single jump. Even among those with etheric senses few could manage an interplanetary jump on their own. With a jumpship even those with a weak sense could cross the galaxy in a month or two.

When they arrived at their next stop, a small lunar colony around a gas giant in the Vera system, they were forced to wait an hour before Vera Control would let them tap the planetary core to top up their reserves. Given all the unknowns in the situation Malaki chose to wait rather than draw down the reef to jump. Lavanya had a valid point about a full etheric reserve, when you worked in the fringes of academia you never knew when you’d have to make a sudden exit. Best to have the power for it on hand if you did.

“So,” Lavanya said once they were in a stable orbit waiting for the okay to top off their tank, “what went wrong? You didn’t even get on campus this time.”

“No, but someone did. My contact told me that everyone involved in the project died in a freak chemical accident two days ago.”

“Even Dr. Schuyler?”

“Even the late and unlamented bastard Evan Schuyler, who was not in the laboratory when things went wrong.” Malaki rocked back in the chair and drummed his fingers against the communication console, considering possibilities. “It’s an interesting puzzle.”

“How so?” Lavanya locked in the autopilot and pulled her goggles down around her neck so he could see her quizzical look. “Obviously someone in Admin had them killed. My money’s on the Dean of Students or the Director of Research, they have the most to lose if word of that kind of slip up got out.”

“As always, my dear, you think about the what but not the why. If Schuyler was killed because he was a potential embarrassment to the school then it was undoubtedly Dean Gifford whereas if it was to keep the research itself quiet then it was most likely Director Vellar.” Malaki absently twirled the waxed point of his neatly trimmed goatee. “The good Doctor’s hovercar was found wrecked on the side of the street with a shattered windscreen. What do you make of that?”

“Not a terrible way to go,” Lavanya said, throwing a glance to the plastic dome that protected the cockpit from space. “Takes a lot of force to get through a superpolymer. That kind of impact would have killed him almost instantly once it was through the screen. But it’s pretty blatant.”

“That’s the thing that bothers me. It’s too obvious.” Malaki pulled up the ship’s database and started flipping through entries. “The University Pact limits what weapons people can bring on campus and Effratha is a University world – the whole planet is bound by the rules of the Pact. Anything that could do that kind of damage is illegal there. Lancers, shredders and other flechette weapons, plasma throwers, lasers, you name it you can’t legally own it unless you’re Essene Security Forces. I don’t think ESF carried out the hit themselves.”

Lavanya was reading through the news report Malaki had gotten right before they lifted off half an hour ago. “The Security spokesman said flechettes were used. Sounds like a Shran or Hash’ish job. University security forces tend to favor energy weapons although most of them have a little of everything on hand, right?”

“That’s my experience.”

She folded her arms and cocked her head in thought. “An obvious hit right after a failed research project supposedly kills six people clearly sends the message that the university doesn’t want to be associated with the research. You think it looks so much like a face saving move it must be cover for something else?”

“Agartan resequencing was a technique developed when space travel was in its infancy, before we dreamed up jumpships. No one’s quite sure what it was meant for. The prevailing theory was that before it was lost it allowed people to be stored in suspended animation with greater ease but we don’t know. Only a handful of cold sleep ships were sent out in the early days…” Malaki trailed off, realizing Lavanya was staring at him through narrowed eyes. “What?”

“Malaki, when you say the prevailing theory do you mean the prevailing academic theory or one of your own pet theories based on a few scraps of data and your daydreams?”

He snorted. “Come on, Lavvy, you’ve been been running these jobs with me for almost a year now. Do you really think there’s any difference between academic theory and daydreaming about scraps of data?”

“So you think that Schuyler was trying to recreate this ancient, cold sleep technique and the Director of Research had him killed for it because it has to do with the early interstellar era.” Lavanya tilted her head, thinking. “That’s not a direct violation of the principle of historic neutrality even if it does stretch pretty far back. Unless cold sleep theories contradict the Pact’s Principles of Shared History?”

“Not directly, although the official line is there was no genetic modification done on any of the known sleeper ships that were sent out. It was even more illegal then than it is now. However that is a useful secondary line of obfuscation that could be deployed if needed. What I think is going on is that Acropolis Trading funded the research and these layers of confusion exist to hide that fact.”

Lavanya leaned twelve degrees away from him with an arch look. “Really? Not everything in the galaxy comes back to the University Pact and the Hutchinson family. I don’t see how either one benefits from turning people into oozes. If that’s really possible with gene editing.” She straightened and spun her chair back around to her controls. “Sounds like wishful thinking. Seriously, Malakai, not even your powers of free association can find a serious link between that resequencing technique and Athena Hutchinson.”

“A man can dream, can’t he?”

“That Acropolis Trading is looking to sell gene edits to the general public?”

He had to laugh at the absurdity of that idea. “No, not that particular dream. Even with my skepticism of the accepted historical narratives I believe we outlawed those procedures for good reason. I was dreaming about finally having something about her to give Lin’yi. When I agreed to do this little errand for her I didn’t expect it would take me a year or more.”

“We’re ready for the next jump.” Lavanya’s fingers flew over the controls, topping up their etheric reef before spinning the ship sidereal again. She spared him a glance as she ran through the jump procedure once more. “You know, I thought you were enjoying going back to your old stomping grounds and giving the stuffed shirts on campus a run for their money.”

“I am.” Malaki spun his chair around to his own console, breaking eye contact. There wasn’t any message there from Lin’yi yet but expecting one before Rainford wasn’t realistic. “The ultimate run for their money would be proving my theories. I’m close, you know.”

Their second jump ended and Lavanya started the same exchange with Granger Control as she’d run at Vera. As her eyes flicked over the controls she said, “Lin’yi doesn’t think so. She told me you’re no closer to proving the Homeworld theory than you were before your last expedition.”

“Well when I get back to Andromeda Proxima I can show you-”

Her hands came to a stop, resting lightly on the control console. “I won’t be on your next expedition, Malaki. The Skybreak doesn’t pay for itself and it’s not big enough for the kind of payloads you talk about taking on those trips anyway. Not even Lin’yi can afford to pay my retainer if I’m just along for the ride.”

“I see.” Malaki blanked the comm screen and digested that. “You’re not the least bit curious about it?”

Lavanya cast her gaze up as if asking the galaxy for strength. “I’m not like you, Malaki. I don’t need to invent new ideas just because the old ones bore me.”

“You can’t possibly-”

“Yes, Malaki, I do believe we still occupy our planet of origin and we’ve just forgotten which one it is. Humans started settling the stars twelve thousand years or more before now. We’ve nearly gone extinct twice since then.” She spun to face him once again. “I’m sorry. I think it’s a very interesting thing to think about and listening to you talk about it makes it twice as interesting but proving or disproving it is your obsession. Keeping the Skybreak running is mine. I’m happy to fly with you as long as those things are in alignment but not any longer than that.”

“Of course.” Malaki got to his feet and started towards the ladder.

“Granger Control says we’ll be able to top up in about twenty minutes,” Lavanya called after him. “We’ll jump to Rainford right after, planet fall will take another hour or so. Let your contact know you’re coming.”

Malaki paused at the stop of the ladder. “Earth.”

An awkward pause followed the non sequitur. “What?”

“It’s not called the Homeworld. It’s called Earth.” He started down the stairs to gather what he’d need on Rainford.

Next Chapter

Writing Vlog – 03-06-2024

Posted by natechen on

Brief update this week. Gotta get back to the grind.

The Sidereal Saga – Tarn

Posted by natechen on

Previous Chapter

Dramatis Personae

Tarn

According to the briefing an Agartan re-sequencing was an attempt to introduce plasticity to the human body structure, altering the species’ basic physiognomy through genetic and psychological adjustments. In other words it melted a person into a semi-sentient puddle of ooze. Highly disturbing, highly illegal stuff. Of course no one had ever heard of Agartan re-sequencing until some egghead at Essene University tried it and turned half his grad students into bubbling piles of deranged goo.

The University had a reputation to protect so they reached out to the Shran to help them keep it quiet. The Shran sent Tarn. As one of the ninety percent of humans born without an etheric sense it took him a few days to arrange passage from Yshron to Effratha and another day once there to acquire an untraceable lancer, flechettes and explosives then smuggle them onto the University’s massive campus. By that point the nameless patrons that hired him were growing impatient. The disaster their rogue professor had caused was getting harder and harder to keep quiet.

The primary genetic laboratory on campus was essentially an upside down ferrocrete bowl with double layered sterile quarantine doors and several layers of biometric security measures. The administration doubtless thought the building was very secure. In fairness it did take almost twenty minutes for Tarn to bypass the security then create a set of credentials that would let him crack any lock in the building. Once he was inside finding the professor took another five minutes.

Like most academics who encountered an unexpected situation he’d locked himself in his office and was rummaging through libraries and data in an attempt to come up with a solution. Tarn knew where his office was thanks to maps his employer had provided. It was a simple matter to get in the building, reseal the entrance, find the office and kill the professor. The problem, now that he was in the offices, was that there were still huge piles of research to destroy, crazy ooze people to hunt and a site sterilization process to begin.

There might also be other survivors to deal with.

Tarn heaved a sigh and shoved Professor Trake’s body out of his chair and sat down at his desk, mopping some splatter off of his console reader with the back of his glove. Right now the display was a lot of meaningless techtalk. After determining that he couldn’t understand any of it, making it useless, Tarn deleted it all and closed the program the professor had been running. He wasted five minutes more sifting the computer’s logs and taking stock of the situation in the laboratory as Trake had understood it. Once he was done he put together a list of priorities.

First, destroy all the professor’s personal research devices. Not a big problem, that’s why he’d brought enough detonite and sequencers to level the laboratory on his own. Setting up the charges was barely another ten minutes’ work.

With the Trake’s research burning the next step was clearing the lab itself, which was going to be a much more complicated task. He’d chosen a snub nosed lancer for indoor work and brought a one handed knifer as a backup. Given the nature of the Agartan experiment he’d loaded both with incendiaries. It was time to hunt.

Trake logged four assistants in his laboratory at the time of the accident with a fifth working on the secondary gene sequencer in the basement. All five of these loose ends should still be in the building. Based on what Trake reported when his experiment went haywire the four from the lab should have undergone the re-sequencing, meaning he was looking for four piles of protoplasm at a minimum. The fifth may have been effected as well but Tarn found it unlikely. The professor had remained normal after all.

There was a sixth loose end to account for as well. Professor Trake and company hadn’t tested their new genetic procedure on themselves. They weren’t suicidal after all. They’d intended to apply it to a canine test subject but for some reason when exposed to the retrovirus it didn’t undergone the re-sequencing. The reason for that was unknown. So was the dog’s current location.

So the second order of business was to climb into one of several special clean suits the labs kept in their security rooms. Hopefully it would do a better job of keeping Tarn’s skeleton intact than what the assistants had worn. Once he was sealed in he proceeded to the laboratory and bypassed the lock. As soon as the door slid open he was greeted by the test subject, a nervous, excitable canine that was jumping and whimpering around Tarn’s ankles with the enthusiasm of a creature that longed for company.

Tarn’s lancer spat flechettes with a soft, rapid thumping sound. The small, blade-like projectiles sank deep into the dog’s chest and stomach with all the force the weapon’s magnetic launch tube could give them. Then the chemicals in the spine of the flechettes mixed and burst into flame. The creature’s whines turned to pained yelps as it burned and Tarn spared it the briefest wince. He’d fired on reflex and hit the center of mass. He adjusted slightly and added another shot to the dog’s head, putting the creature down cleanly, then sighed. “Shameful. You should have just injected yourself, Trake.”

The laboratory was full of strange equipment in tall, white ceramic cabinets with rounded corners, none of which he knew the purpose of. There were more familiar things scattered here and there. Sample kits. Medical beds for humans and animals. A full scale etheric analysis module add-on for a medical diagnostic scanner. It didn’t look like a place for evil genetic experiments investigating the warping of humanity into horrifying offenses to nature.

Well, other than the University logos on everything.

The lab was about ten meters deep by twenty five wide and after carefully pacing up and down the whole thing Tarn didn’t find any other signs of the Agartan experiment anywhere. He went back to the entrance and dragged the dog’s corpse to the center of the lab. There was a two meter dome in the ceiling there. Tarn was in the process of positioning the canine’s remains underneath it when he heard the sound in the hallway. He reached up to pull down his helmet’s dataveil. Instead his fingers hit the faceplate of his borrowed clean suit. Cursing under his breath Tarn pressed himself against the wall and began working his way towards the lab’s entrance, his lancer trained on the base of the door.

The Agartan re-sequencing was reportedly conducted four days before Tarn’s arrival. His nameless employer had strongly believed no one who underwent the re-sequencing would be able to do more than drag their new, amorphous bodies along the floor for at least a week. So Tarn was expecting to see a puddle of ooze come through the door at ankle height.

What he saw instead was the yellow ankles of another clean suit.

Tarn snapped the barrel of his lancer up on reflex, almost putting a trio of flechettes into the woman before he recognized who she was. For her part, Trake’s assistant put her hands up, waving them in panic. “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot! Are you from the Faculty? Professor Trake thought Dr. Schuyler might send someone to check on us eventually.”

“That’s me,” Tarn said evenly, lowering his lancer halfway and studying the woman in the suit. It was hard to make out many details but he got the impression of a young woman who was very tired and very scared. “Where are the rest of Trake’s assistants?”

“Something went wrong with the experiment we were doing and I had to hook them up to the DNA sequencers downstairs.” She clasped her hands in front of her and fidgeted nervously. “Have you seen Professor Trake? I haven’t seen him since yesterday afternoon and his office was locked last time I checked it so I assume he’s there but he wouldn’t answer me when I pinged his comms.”

“The Professor is dead.” Tarn gestured back towards the door. “Can you show me where that other sequencer is? I’d like to take a look.”

“Sure.” She started to turn then hesitated and looked back at him, her expression unreadable behind her clean suit’s faceplate. “Wait, what killed Professor Trake? He should have been-”

Flechettes shredded her suit and torso then the researcher collapsed in a smoldering heap. Tarn was no more inclined to leave her to suffer than the dog. A novice Shran might have felt a twinge of remorse about having to finish the job, especially once they saw how young she was beneath that faceplate. Tarn just moved her over to the dome with the canine. Young or old, anyone who signed up with the Universities knew what they were getting into and that went double when you decided to help your professor with illegal gene resequencing experiments.

He honestly felt more revulsion when he found the four researchers who’d been exposed to the Agartan procedure. They were exactly what the briefing suggested they’d be. Piles of jelly with a vaguely human color palate, shot through with veins and the occasional recognizable organ. They’d been herded into clear plastic tanks and hooked up to some kind of machine in the basement, just like he’d been told, but whatever that machine was doing left them alive.

Given how horrific they looked Tarn felt the least remorse over killing them. Except for the puddle of protoplasm that had one obvious human eye floating at one end, an eye still functional enough to turn and focus on him when he approached. That one did bother him. A lot.

A dozen flechettes still killed it, though.

The remains of all four Agartan test subjects fit in just one of those plastic tanks and that tank went right up the elevator and into the main lab under the dome. Tarn piled Professor Trake’s body there, just to be sure. Then he stepped out and triggered the lab’s sterilization sequence. The dome lowered down over the corpses and discharged some kind of chemicals that melted the detritus into loose amino acids that were then burned to ash.

He’d been sent with a custom record destroying computer worm that he installed on the building’s mainframe. It would ferret out any computational evidence of his presence and deal with it. He also sicced it on Trake’s files, although the chances a Professor with an off the books research project stored any of that info on Campus computers were slim to none. The computer worm was the best Yshron’s Lurn-caste minds could come up with. That was enough for Tarn to trust it’s efficacy.

He left it to its work and slipped out of the building. His work on the main contract was over and done with but he’d heard enough to seek out a secondary contract. Not typical for the Shran, but Tarn was ranked sel so he had some leeway. The local Dean of Essene University was familiar with Yshron and their protocols so it wasn’t hard to get his attention.

Less than a day after Tarn finished his main job he met the Dean at a standing table in a small food court just off Campus. A brief negotiation and a second contract was established.

The Gol-caste typically handled direct negotiations for all of Yshron’s castes of artisans and masters so Tarn had never met the person who hired him for the initial cover-up. He didn’t know it was Dr. Shuyler for certain. So he didn’t feel particularly bad when he tied up that loose end for the University either. Leaving Schuyler’s hovercar burning on the street wasn’t part of the second contract but Essene didn’t want more rogue genetic experiments creeping up any time soon and Tarn figured the added drama might help impress that notion on the rest of the faculty.

That kind of subtlety, such as it was, was probably lost on the student body, unfortunately.

With two contracts concluded in as many days, Tarn sel-Shran headed back to the jump port hotel feeling quite satisfied with himself. If all went well he could be back on Yshron in another day or two. He stopped in his hotel room long enough to pick up his own helmet and access it’s datafeed, in case his Gol had already sent him a new contract to work on.

No such luck. However he did have a message from one of the handful of clients he’d entrusted with his direct contact details. Lucy Luck wanted to know if he’d be interested in helping her with another little errand. Tarn hadn’t been born the day before. He had a sharp nose for liars and frauds and the woman who went by Lucy Luck was definitely both of those things. But she paid well and her jobs were usually pretty simple. He’d update Yshron on his plans then see what the shortest route to find her was. It was going to take at least a couple of days to make the jumps, to say nothing of finding a ship headed that way, so short was going to be a relative term in this case. Tarn had never even heard of the planet before.

So he sat down at his computer and started searching for passage he could book to a place called Wireburn.

Next Chapter