Aristotle & Sons
Set ‘em Up
The debtor is in
By A.N.G. Reynolds
Copyright © 2018 by A. Reynolds
20560 Huber Road
Athens, Alabama 35614
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
ISBN 978-0-9600207-1-3 (print)
ISBN 978-0-9600207-0-6 (ebook)
www.ang-reynolds.net
Cover design and formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com
Contents
Foreword
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Bonus Scene
Author Biography
Foreword
Greetings, my dear reader! I hope you are having a lovely week (it must not be too bad, since you currently have a book in your hands).
I started writing this foreword shortly after receiving the edited version of this book from my amazing editor. Usually, forewords are the most boring part of the book, second only to the appendices. I believe Tolkien was the only author in the history of authors to actually make appendices interesting.
To that end, I abhorred the idea of subjecting you, my dear reader, to either of those. My editor, however, made me realize that if I didn’t at least explain why some of the things in my book are the way they are, I’ll probably do more harm than good.
Fear not, however, this will be an entirely spoiler-free foreword/reference; it will only give backstory to the universe I have created, sidestepping any important plot details of either this first Aristotle & Sons book or the next one. And if you feel that even that is too fraught with spoilerage, then feel free to stop here and dive straight into Chapter 1 of this book.
The first thing to clarify is that this book does not take place in the near future. Or, to some degree, even the far future. Instead, this is set roughly — I haven’t actually done the calculations yet — 1.23 billion years into the future. Yes, that’s with a “b”; may you never say I lack a forward-thinking mind.
Due to this a lot has changed. Humanity has risen and fallen a countless number of times technologically, culturally, and in geographic dominance. To this end, if you read a reference of a “few centuries ago” or a “few millennia in the past”, rest assured that that past is just as foreign to you and I as the book’s current present.
The other important thing to note is that the Solar system we call home is currently enveloped inside a massive, yellowish-green nebula, similar in color to the cover of the book. The cause of that nebula is currently shrouded in mystery, but the important thing to note is that it is as murky as a foggy London night and twice as thick, making travel and communication through space a sluggish endeavor.
Yes, I am aware that nebulae are not thick enough to be “murky” and that they technically aren’t supposed to be green or visible to the naked eye, but for my book, both of those lovely scientific truths were thrown completely out the window. Like the multitude of scientific impossibilities lurking within all other space operas, sometimes style must be chosen over fact.
I like to think that where I lacked in astronomical precision, I made up for in biological correctness. My nebulae may be green, but my ecosystems are well-balanced.
The final — and perhaps most irksome — clarification is why I chose not to use the typical naval lingo when describing the story’s main living ship’s (the Lilstar) interior features (i.e. “bathroom” instead of “head”; “kitchenette” instead of “mess”).
Setting aside my arguments against naval elitists who feel sci-fi should adopt naval parlance and attributes solely because we happen to call the interstellar vehicles starships — need I remind anyone that the U.S. Air Force has had more members launched into space to the current date than the Navy has? — my reasoning for using more plebian terms is quite simple: the Lilstar was never really a ship.
While I do call her a ship throughout the story simply for ease of understanding, in my mind she was little more than a recreational vehicle designed for an adorable retiree couple to go sight-seeing across the solar system. The Lilstar is definitely not formal enough to use stuffy naval terminology on. Other ships in this universe — much larger and more “navy-like” — will probably get the “proper” terminology, but rest assured even that it will also be under severe protest.
I believe those are the most important facts you must know before reading this book. Of course, I’m sure many of you have skipped this foreword purely out of habit and are now tumbling through my story, lost and bewildered, wondering exactly where you went wrong. Alas, I cannot be held accountable for such an impulsive and reckless action.
With that, dear reader, I bid you happy reading.
- A.N.G. Reynolds
Skiptracing (verb):
The process of tracking down a debtor or fugitive who has fled and whose location is currently unknown, most often by following their paper trail. A paper trail may consist of receipts, tax data, credit card information, or other kinds of information left by the fugitive. It is used in a variety of occupations for various situations but may stand as an independent profession.
Skiptrace (noun):
A person who engages in skiptracing as a profession. (Archaic: skiptracer)
One
The wall wasn’t kind as I bounced off it. For a moment all I did was lie on the floor, inhaling the warmed-over wheat smell of the organic deck material. I hurt all over and caring about the skiptrace took more effort than I was willing to put into it.
And yes, the fight was my fault.
Blood seeped from my forehead, leg, and a thousand other little cuts onto the deck. Who brings a knife to a fistfight, anyway? The greenish, fibrous floor began to absorb the thick red liquid, providing plenty of evidence of my being here. I tried to move to prevent too much evidence from escaping, but found myself quite unable. I was sure more than just a rib was broken. That gigantic shadow of a man stalked toward me. I went limp, or at least, limper.
“You need to learn some manners,” he said as he dragged me to my feet, snarling. The skiptrace held on to only my upper arms. My side felt like it was splitting open and my insides were threatening to fall out at any moment. I kicked my toe trying to find the floor again.
“You wouldn’t,” I sputtered, trying not to spit out a mouthful of blood all over the skiptrace. Since it wasn’t as though the station authorities couldn’t identify me now, I just had to be careful not to offend my overbearing target. “You wouldn’t hit a woman, would you?”
The brute paused for a moment, looking me up and down. If nothing else, my disguise worked. He laughed like a crow with chest congestion.
“Yeah. I think I might,” he decided. His breath alone should have killed me. He heaved, trying to throw me into the wall or down the hall, I couldn’t tell which one. I caught hold of his suspenders and, although that didn’t stop me from flailing in the air like a drunk monkey, he wasn’t expecting my weight to snap back toward him. He fell backwards. I flipped over his bulk, landing head-to
-head with him across the floor.
For a second I stared up at the bioluminescent lighting that ran along the sort of greenish beige ceiling. Drops of nutrient-rich ooze splattered my face from a ruptured vein and I noticed some bruising along the nearby wall. Poor space station. I hadn’t meant for you to get hurt during my fight. With that thought, I vowed to end it quickly.
“You are a jerk,” I said simply. Scrambling to my feet, I kicked the skiptrace’s head twice. He didn’t thrash very much, still gasping from where the wind had been knocked out of him. Before he could regain any sort of traction with his next movements, I wrapped a long piece of fibered material around his pudgy wrists. The organic material I had carefully peeled from another part of the station fused with the deck and tightened horribly, trying to be whole again with its assigned being. It would eventually stop tightening, long before the skiptrace suffered serious damage to the circulation in his hands, as it formed a suitable amount of nerve and nutrient ooze connections with its host being. I gingerly lifted the license out of the immobile skiptrace’s pocket.
“Good luck getting another one,” I said, standing up. I dodged his thrashing legs and limped from the scene. Curses and swearwords were my wretched, but only, followers.
As much as I tried to focus on my next step, a sense of relief washed over me. After spending the last few years chasing after this poor excuse for a skiptrace, I’d finally managed to make sure he’d never be able to take another legal bounty. It was entirely possible for him to find another company to hire him, but getting your license taken away from you was an automatic blackball. Nobody wanted to turn over a valuable skiptrace license to someone who would so easily let it be stolen, since most employers were legally bound to let the stealer of the license keep it for at least one bounty. Plus, I’d checked his record; he was only successful in just over sixty percent of the missions his employer sent him on, which was as close to the low side as any reputable skiptracing business would want…and he’d had a license stolen before. Another strike and the Skiptrace Alliance would blacklist him from ever receiving a skiptrace license again.
Take that, jerk.
I made it to the populated part of the station slowly. You could tell you were getting closer to the population by how many tattoos the walls had. A poor or practicing graffiti artist used an undetectable paint that could be scrubbed off. A good artist, who didn’t want his or her work so easily erased, used a speed-gun with an extra wide needle. Of course, the station usually didn’t appreciate it. How would you like it if someone doodled inappropriate words all over your innards? Not very much, I would imagine. However, the nerve endings along the heavy traffic areas of the station had been dulled purposely, leaving the main hallways relatively numb and easy to tattoo without setting off any alarms. Provided you weren’t caught by station patrols, you could finish a whole, full-sized garden scene without so much as making the station twitch. I passed a pair of station crew currently trying to laser-remove a particularly crass phrase from the walls as I made my way toward the docking area.
I counted my injuries as I walked, all 34 cuts and bruises total, thankfully I discovered my ribs were merely bruised, not entirely broken. I rested temporarily in a more or less empty hallway to bandage the ones that bled most. Whoever said revenge was sweet never had to take on someone bigger than they were. I ached in places I didn’t know were possible and as much as I would have liked to pass out or go to a doctor, that would have been too easy. No, getting off the station was still my plan.
Though, of course, that wasn’t a very legal operation. Sneaking aboard the craft would be easy enough, but making sure the ship didn’t see you was more difficult.
Well, the ships really didn’t see you as much as feel or smell you. If you were lucky and onboard an undisciplined or lazy ship, it would most likely ignore you. A young ship was usually too quick to judge: you get caught, you get thrown out an airlock. I grew up on horror stories like that—ships sensing intruders and venting the compartment into space without a word to captain or crew. That’s why you have to scout about, pick just the right ship. Right age, right route, right crew. Really old ships on mundane routes were best; usually most of their senses were too dulled to detect one small stowaway. The crew on such dinosaurs were usually an odd conglomeration of young and old and very bored; they really weren’t paid enough to care about illegals.
I read through the list of departing ships. I knew most by name; the ones I didn’t belonged to the Reichen Concern. Not that they were any different from any other company, but they dealt mostly with the Centauri and therefore none of their ships ever had routes to Earth.
Earth. Home sweet home.
Of course everything would have been easier if I had had the money to buy passage on a ship. But that wouldn’t happen until I turned in the skiptrace’s license. The cost to launch a formal complaint against the man drained me dry. Some days, when I was lying in bed staring at the ceiling too hungry to move, I wondered if it was worth it. Then I would roll over, seeing my brother’s face forever young in a stupid photograph. I’d get angry and sad, roll back over, and tighten my belt one more notch. Yeah, of course it was worth it.
The company gave me the standard ultimatum. Find the skiptrace, take away his license, and return it. The reward being either to be the man’s replacement or to receive a lump of cash. They hardly let me leave the office before they started cackling.
Fools. I’ll take the cash.
U.O.S. Meramec. That seemed the best. It still had an Organic Ship title making it about fifty or sixty years old. Not very old, unfortunately. But it was going to Earth and the route it took was enormously complex to avoid the ever-prevalent helium pockets. The ship would probably be too distracted navigating to check its holds regularly.
And the cargo selected was greasy engine parts for locomotives. Of course, I would have to put up with the smell. Grease and metal never bothered me as much as it did some of the old timers. Anyone over eighty is sure to tell you about the good old days before the return of steam-powered transportation. The only thing I hated about trains were the whistles; I can’t tell you how many banshee nightmares that blasted shriek gave me as a kid.
The ship wouldn’t depart for a few hours, so that gave me plenty of time to pack my provisions and sneak onboard. As if on cue, my stomach grumbled loudly, and I figured it was about time for me to refuel.
I can’t say I ever liked stealing food or supplies, and I know that my brother was probably looking down on me with some measure of disappointment, but it couldn’t be helped. I was beyond poor and on a mission.
I had discovered relatively quickly that I was a horrible pickpocket. My clumsy hands and poor reflexes only made for some very awkward situations. Rescued time and time again only by my innate knowledge of the station, I switched to a much more devious approach. After a few weeks on the station, you could hear the station shopkeepers mutter about ‘that bloody phantom.’ What can I say? Those people should really upgrade their security system to include those new-fangled Centauri optical cameras on top of the easily fooled organic olfactory and auditory sensors. While the organic sensors worked great a few decades ago, new and largely illegal Centauri technology like voice recorders made them much easier to fool. I had gotten my hands on a fairly sub-par but functional recorder that recorded only the important frequencies needed to fool the door. The olfactory sensor was even easier to fool because all you needed was an old hat or piece of clothing from the shop owner. Of course, sometimes neither trick worked; I passed by the bakery nearly every day to stare at the fresh bread forlornly.
I made my way to the old corner I used as a hideout. It wasn’t a very pleasant place, sticky from the station’s wastes, smelly from the air filtration system, and relatively cold and mildly radioactive from the weakened, space-side walls. As far as I can tell, it suffered a massive asteroid strike a few decades ago. While the station had repaired itself as best it could, the residual scarring meant radiation f
rom space seeped in and, unless the station was on one of its sunnier orbits, the ambient heat seeped out. I was secure in the knowledge that my cash prize returning the skiptrace’s license would allow me proper radiation treatment if it became necessary. The good news was that this area of the station was completely numb, since all of the implanted nerve endings had been fried when this compartment depressurized. In essence, I could hide as many supplies as I wanted without the station ever catching on.
I stuffed as many of the more-important supplies as I could into an old toolbag. I couldn’t carry very much onto the Meramec since the extra weight could very well alert the ship to my presence. I also coated the bag in a layer of slimy, ship-temperature goo that felt like lotion and made the scratchy canvas virtually undetectable to the ship’s nerve endings. I carried a small bottle of the stuff with me to apply to my shoes later. I wouldn’t make it very far wandering around the station with contraband goo all over my shoes, could I? The toolbag I could hide under my long coat.
Setting aside my packing for a moment, I tried to attend my wounds again. This time my wrist was beginning to stiffen horribly and I had lost feeling in half my leg. A doozy of a headache danced itself across my forehead. Carefully moving to sit on one of the thrumming pipes that made up the ship’s respiratory system, I used the faint glow of decaying, bioluminescent lights to rebandage the wounds that were still bleeding and apply a brace to my wrist. I tugged at the sleeve of my jacket to hide the brace and pulled my hat down a little farther on my forehead, hiding the dermal patch that covered the three-inch slice above my left eyebrow. By now someone had probably found the skiptrace, with all that hollering he had been doing when I left.
For a moment I found myself sitting, waiting until it was close enough to the Meramec’s departure that I could sneak aboard. So I worked to take off my disguise. The hat was smelly and I wouldn’t miss it, along with the cargo pants that were itchy beyond measure. Those were both replaced with a hooded jacket and a pair of dark-colored capris, the only thing I had managed to steal in my size. The only remnant I kept on was the oversized shirt. It reminded me of the kind of thing my brother used to wear when he wasn’t working, plus it was nice and warm.
Set'em Up Page 1