Life Sentence (Forlani Saga Book 1)

by John M. R. Gaines

  Try they did. On and off for quite a long time. Afterwards Klein felt exhausted but couldn’t seem to fall asleep. He just lay back with Helga’s head on his shoulder and his left hand cupped around her right breast. There are things I must remember about this, he told himself. Let’s see, her hair is thinning, decidedly. She has a weak chin. The skin on her elbows is chafed and scaly. She could smell better. He wracked his brain trying to fill it with negative things so that he would not be haunted too much by memories of his first sex with a human female in over half a decade and – who knows? – maybe his last? He even felt guilty, despite himself, because there were moments during their coupling when he had lost focus on Helga and thought about Entara instead. Certainly Helga might not be happy if she knew that during their passionate embraces he had imagined himself in the limbs of an alien prostitute. This was not working out.

  “You must really like breasts,” her heard Helga whisper.

  “Sorry, I thought you were asleep.”

  “I can’t seem to open my eyes. You really hit the spot, and I have to tell you, that doesn’t always happen with me, so you can write it down in your little book if you have one. You’re as good as the very best boys back home.”

  “Where’s home?” he asked, to make polite pillow talk.

  “Right now, under water somewhere. I came from one of the last of the polderized Frisian islands. My family raised pigs and had an orchard – luxury foods now. Finally the cost of keeping the sea out was just too much and the government closed us down and moved us to Jutland, where I studied medicine.”

  “I’m from Bremen. Once my dad took me on a boat ride to see Old Bremen. After the sub was down a couple of meters, you could see the plan of the streets, and further down, you could still read the signs on some of the shops. Except the only customers were eels and plaice. To see the cathedral down there was really something. Made me think of that music by Debussy.”

  “There’s probably a mussel ranch on top of the fields were I used to play.”

  “What the hell did you do to get up here?”

  “Didn’t you realize?” she laughed. “I’m in the same line of work as you really. I killed a man. I could have taken my degree and moved to Greenland and become rich. Instead I broke the law and was commuted to Tau Ceti.”

  “You’re just full of surprises. Sorry, Helga, but you don’t seem like much of a gunman to me.”

  “That’s not how. I killed a fellow with a fork lift.”

  “A fork lift? That’s original!”

  “Spur of the moment. The bastard had molested my niece. Actually, he had molested me, too, and lots of other girls in the neighborhood, over the years. I got over it pretty soon, but my niece and sister were absolutely overwhelmed, so I took it on myself to do something. I knew complaints were no good, since there had already been plenty and nothing meaningful had happened. So I went to the plant where I knew he worked, full of rage and without any organized plan. When I saw him next to a big wall of crates laughing with some other workers, I couldn’t help think he had just told them about screwing me and my niece. There was a fork lift right next to me and any girl brought up on a pig farm knows how to use one, so I climbed on and accelerated right at him. He turned around when he heard the noise and just stared at me like a dolt for a few seconds. At the last minute he tried to leap away, but I followed him and skewered him right through the guts with one of the blades of the lift. I felt very proud of myself. “

  “You actually killed somebody for justice. I just sort of fell into it without thinking,” Klein said, wary of telling her about Kinderaugen and Dorfman. “I’ve had so many enemies over the years I have trouble remembering them all—except Cashman. The time I was on Earth on the run from the cops seems to alien to me now, like fragments of another man’s life. Domremy does that to you.”

  “Nice talk. Let’s get back to something else. Tell me how nice my breasts are.”

  “That’s easy, because they’re round and delicious.”

  “You lie. They’re starting to get droopy. You know, I already have two teenage sons down on Tau Ceti. How old do you think I am?”

  “I couldn’t possibly say. You know, I’m not used to having partners with breasts.”

  “Of course, there aren’t many women on Domremy. You must sleep with aliens! Which ones?”

  “Only Forlani, and not many of them.”

  “I thought they had breasts. Several in fact.”

  “Only when they’ve had children. Before that, it’s just a row of little nubs in the brown hair.”

  “How erotic.” She sat up straight. “That’s probably why you tolerated the fact that I hadn’t shaved. I hear pubic hair is very out of fashion again back home.”

  “Forlani have all kinds of hair in places we don’t,” he chuckled, stroking her head, “And no hair in places where we usually do.”

  Helga became quiet and hugged him a little closer. Klein hoped she wouldn’t get too sentimental. Mankillers were not allowed to receive calls from off-world, and he didn’t want to think of her being unhappy because she couldn’t speak with him again. He realized that he couldn’t really forget either. It was true that a couple of hours of Helga was not much compared to the bond he had forged with his courtesan Entara, regardless of the futility of a human coupling with a Forlani, from the point of view of procreation. Yet he couldn’t help admiring this woman’s innate kindness, her instinctive gentleness, and – he had to admit – her shear bravery for thinking of having a child with a convict like him in the confines of penal servitude. No matter how her chin receded or how many scaly spots she had on her skin, he knew she was going to stay with him for more than a little while. It was not impossible that the next time he cuddled up to his newest Forlani girlfriend, he might think of Helga at some point. Life is such sweet shit, he thought. It’s a good thing we have somebody to order us around most days.

  “What time is it?” Helga finally asked.

  “Soon six bells ship time.”

  “Damn. My ship has to leave soon. And I still have to pack up some of the medical supplies. I’d better get moving. You’d better leave while I’m in the shower.”

  That sometimes scaly, sometimes heavenly smooth epidermis was moving away from him for good. Yes, it was better if he got dressed and went to have a long drink or two before they started to think of juicing him for the ride back to Domremy.

  Just as she was stepping into the shower she turned and faced him. “I have to ask before you go. Do you want to know? I would feel better if you did. I don’t exactly know why. I promise not to bother you, whatever happens, but it would feel better if you knew.”

  “Well,” Klein drawled, staring at the deck, “There may be a way. I have friends in a special group and they have their own way of communicating without using digital. Could you write me a letter?”

  “That’s really retro,” she chortled. “Would you like a clay tablet or would pen and ink do, if I can find them?”

  “They would do fine. Send it inside a parcel of some kind of agricultural stuff, well wrapped. Here’s the address.” He grabbed her phone and tapped in the delivery coordinates for his old landlord Peebo, who would give an extra degree of secrecy from the prying eyes of the authorities.

  “That should work, Klein. Please don’t get in trouble by sending me anything, understand?”

  She suddenly trotted over and kissed him on the lips, quickly, before turning and saying, “Please get on your way, now.”

  Ayan’we’s discovery of the “FastTrack” program her father was involved in had frustrated her natural sense of curiosity. She knew that Tays’she was involved in something he would never disclose willingly, but she didn’t have a sense of what it was. Did it have something to with gambling debts he had racked up on a brief but eventful trip to the Laguna Casino three years ago? Could it be grade inflation in certain Academy courses to graduate more Forlani candidates for interstellar travel before they were truly ready? Ayan’we remember
ed how her father had reacted to a description of a young Forlani woman who was so desperate to get an off-world passport that she had become mentally unstable. Tays’she had casually dismissed the poor woman’s suffering with a flippant “She should have tried harder,” showing no more compassion or empathy than one would show for a crushed insect.

  It was Tays’she’s un-empathetic, dismissive attitude towards everyone but his new First Wife Ha’maya that had caused resentment to fester into hatred in Ayan’we’s mind. Her mother had been treated with injustice, and she wanted to see just how low her father could sink! She pulled out her tablet computer and began to hack into Tays’she’s files and secure data – he wouldn’t allow anyone else to use his laptop, but she had become an advanced enough hacker from her time in the Echidna’s Children group to learn how to remotely activate his computer and access his files. It was extremely common among the Forlani, who often traveled to far-flung places in their lives and careers, to utilize a code that would allow them to activate their home computers regardless of location and to access local files.

  With the help of some code breaking software she had acquired courtesy of her past hacking career, Ayan’we began to bore through Tays’she’s computer security. The remote activation code was relatively easy; her software managed to crack it in 10 minutes. The true challenge was trying to navigate the sprawling mountains of data in Tays’she’s computer to find what she wanted. There were seemingly endless photo files of the dullest vacations, leftover essays and diagrams from Tays’she’s career as an artist, copies of letters Tays’she had written in response to ezine articles, and much more. Making her search even more bewildering was Tays’she’s incredibly lazy system of organizing his computer’s data; many of his folders were organized by date, rather than by content, forcing her to search through dozens of folders with bland names like “Projects December” and “Letters Fall.” Finally, in a folder unassumingly titled “Tax Calculations May,” Ayan’we found the main file labeled FastTrack.

  Ayan’we was not surprised that her father had encrypted the FastTrack info; the information on the file was obviously something he wanted to conceal at all costs, and that only served to spur her curiosity. However, she was shocked by the nature of the encryption – instead of a simple alphanumeric password that could be cracked by automated software, the input screen mandated that she trace the answer on the computer screen in the glyph script of Ancient Forlan. She gave a hiss of displeasure at her realization that she would have to use knowledge from her absolute least favorite class at the Academy to crack the code. Ayan’we began to doubt whether Tays’she was as careless and airheaded as he had seemed to her for so long.

  The first puzzle was relatively simple, the clue being “The First Council.” Most graduates of the Academy – at least those who kept their Ancient History classes fresh in their minds – remembered the date of the First Matriarch Council, when the matrilines were originally established and Forlani culture truly began. Ayan’we’s progress was hindered only by her difficulty at forming the number glyphs. The intricate flowing script confounding her hands after a lifetime of simple typing and touch gestures. Once she finished the first puzzle, she anxiously waited for the screen to display the next puzzle as a green disc spun to indicate the encryption program was still running. The second clue was the phrase “Walk the Path,” which was far less specific than the clue to the first password. There were many descriptions of “paths” and “roads” in the religious and philosophical literature of Ancient Forlan that Ayan’we had muddled her way through in writing papers and reports for her class. Just what path was Tays’she thinking about, Ayan’we wondered.

  Ayan’we took a guess based on Tays’she’s penchant for narcissism and self-interest. The Value of the Men of Forlan, a philosophical book written by the philosopher Tash’An to proclaim the glories of Self, seemed like the “path” that Tays’she would be most interested in. She entered the opening passage from the book, “As I sat under the tree in the falling rain, I realized my greatness,” and breathed a sigh of relief as the green disc spun again and the encryption program generated the final puzzle. When the hint to the final puzzle was displayed onscreen, her relief quickly turned to dread; the hint was “Beyond the horizon of tomorrow,” a phrase that sounded nothing like what either her instructors or the philosophy books she had read for her courses had described. Meh’tra! How can I possibly solve this, she thought as she frantically attempted to recall any references to “horizons” in the Academy courses she had completed. She heard a loud knock on the door as she tried to stifle her frustration with the unsolvable puzzle. She shoved her computer into a drawer in her desk as she saw her mother enter through the doorway.

  “Ayan’we, what have you been doing alone in here? You said you finished your work for the Academy an hour ago!” Entara exclaimed.

  “I did. Mom, I know this is going to sound dangerous to you, but…”

  “What have you done, Ayan’we? Did you do something that could get you thrown out of the Academy again?”

  “No, Mother, not this time. I did nothing…but I think Tays’she did. Remember when I told you that Tays’she was involved in something called ‘FastTrack’?”

  Entara nodded. There was a look of anxiety and dread on her face. Her irritation with Ayan’we had been quickly silenced, replaced by fear of her daughter’s coming announcement.

  “Well, I think I found out exactly what ‘FastTrack’ is. I hacked into his computer remotely, but I can’t get through the security program without your help. The last question is something I never went over in my classes. I need your help solving it.”

  Entara felt a sense of relief at her daughter’s confession, although she didn’t show it on her face. “Yes, I will help you. A few days ago, I saw security police outside our house. I think they were looking for info on whatever Tays’she is involved in through this ‘FastTrack.’ It may be so severe that it could affect our matriline if they find out. Show me what this security program is, and I’ll try to solve the puzzle.”

  Ayan’we gave a brief, nervous smile as she reached into the drawer and pulled out her tablet. Entara glanced at the hint onscreen and began slowly tracing an intricate pattern with her left hand. After finishing the pattern, she put the tablet back down on the desk. Ayan’we could see the familiar spinning green disc again, indicating that Entara had entered the correct response. Her mother had ensured they would finally understand what FastTrack was!

  “I can see why you couldn’t solve the final puzzle,” Entara explained. “The hint about ‘the horizon of tomorrow’ was a reference to a book called Beyond the Great Spiral, a philosophical text which was judged heretical by the Culture Ministers long ago. In the time when my generation was going through the Academy, it was possible to take elective courses which included a few brief fragments of the book. By the time your generation went through the Academy, the Culture Ministry had changed the curriculum and eliminated all references to Beyond the Great Spiral.”

  “Dad chose a password that I couldn’t solve!” said Ayan’we.

  “Yes, I think that was his intention,” said Entara. “He always knew you were rebellious and strong-willed, even before you found out that FastTrack existed. I think he had always tailored his passwords for protection against you, rather than me. He doesn’t consider me a threat to his plans—or at least he won’t until he realizes that it was me who cracked the code.”

  “I have a spoofing program installed,” Ayan’we said. “It creates a false IP address for my device, so he won’t be able to trace the hack back to this machine…”

  “Even if he doesn’t know the exact address, he’ll be suspicious. If he’s as clever as the strategy of devising a password system that you couldn’t solve indicates, I’ll doubt he’ll make the same mistake twice. We’ll have to be very careful.”

  The tablet gave a high-pitched beeping noise to indicate all the security had been successfully passed. Entara picked up the table
t and began reading about the FastTrack program that Tays’she had tried to conceal.

  As she read over the details of the FastTrack program, Entara realized what it was, and why Tays’she had tried to keep it secret—it was a program to export young Forlani women, most of whom would have failed the Psychological Stability tests the Passport Office gave, out into the human colonies without official passports. Any Forlani who left the planet without an official passport could never return to Forlan, and would have to live forever on another world making a living any way they could—or as a slave to humans and other races that dominated the other worlds. To be in a family that invests in the slave trade was a crime so grave that the family’s matriline could be utterly destroyed. Her line sisters might be disenfranchised, impoverished, and dispersed into menial roles. Entara’s disgust that her husband was so morally weak that he would invest in slavery mixed with her fear of her own daughters being forced to beg in the crowded city, with no mahäme, no matriline, and no future.

  “Ayan’we, about delivering that message to Klein through your contacts at the Academy. I’m going to finish that message tonight, and I need you to deliver it as soon as possible. It may be the only way to save this family from what Tays’she has done.”

  “Mom, what’s FastTrack about? What exactly is it that Tays’she did that’s so dangerous to us?”

  Entara sat down next to her daughter and took a deep breath, preparing to explain to her daughter the horrors of FastTrack that she had just discovered.

  The next icing did nothing at all to clear Klein’s mind from the dizzying experience of the massacre at Clavius and the subsequent tryst with Helga. In his jumbled dreams during the return trip, he could barely tell if he was making love to a human or an alien or to both at once. The visions were incredibly exciting and at the same time strangely humbling, as though his own body was just part of some higher process he could never manage to grasp.