Ace of Thralls (Freelance Courier Book 3)

by Lawrence M. Schoen

  The playback ended with a faint chirp. Gel had teared up at some point, and now wiped at her eyes with the back of one hand as she slipped the wafer into a pocket of her leather flight jacket. Doing so, she was reminded that Randolv Greyce had gifted her that jacket after his actions back on Sharmalaro had caused her previous garment to be set on fire. Gel sniffled into a handkerchief and blew her nose. It was an odd thing. She only looked Human, but was in fact a hybrid child of the Plenum, a race of teleporters that, as far as the rest of the galaxy knew, didn’t exist, and who hid in plain sight in the guise of members of other races scattered across hundreds of worlds. Randolv Greyce had been correct. Plenum always traveled in pairs. More specifically, sibling pairs. She was the only exception, a mutant among her own people. That special standing had led to more than a few problems, including sanctions and probation.

  It was a core belief of the Plenum to do nothing that might attract the attention of other races, and they managed this by planting their own people on worlds belonging to the various races they resembled, all the better to understand their ways and stay abreast of their cultures, societies, and governments, while nonetheless remaining true to what it meant to be Plenum. Of the known sapient races in the galaxy, the Clarkesons were unique as colony beings, and that uniqueness prevented them from ever serving as a template for Plenum hybrids. This reason, over and above the Clarkesons’ ancient tendency to meddle in the affairs of others, had resulted in a one-sided emotional relationship. Put simply, the Plenum hated and feared the Clarkesons who, for their part, were blissfully unaware of the existence of their archenemies.

  The leaders of the Plenum Senate, Ytpino and Relgrado, were well aware that she’d had dealings with a Clarkeson and counted it as a mark against her. Some of that reaction had been abated by her sharing information of a heretofore unknown series of small portals, representing new linkages between areas of the galaxy, as well as the specifics of how to locate and access several of them. Still, Gel had thus far refrained from explaining to the Senate that her relation with Randolv Greyce was not a one-off, that she had accepted his retainer and was prepared to provide future courier services — services that she had no doubt would have been much more complicated than simply moving an item or an individual from point A to point B. The Senate would not look with favor on that arrangement, but she saw no point earning their displeasure in advance of performing the services themselves. Given the Clarkeson’s last message to her, that concern was no longer an issue.

  Gel lifted her gaze and stared at Aushthack, leaning against a nearby table beyond the edge of the sound suppression field. Not a Clarkeson, he’d said, and Randolv Greyce had confirmed that. She didn’t entertain the possibility that the message he’d brought her was less than genuine. It contained too many pieces that only that Clarkeson had known, though conceivably some portion of their colony could have rebelled and taken that knowledge with them and set up a fake recording. But to what end? Far more likely — however dire it might be — that the message was genuine and Randolv Greyce had believed Aushthack’s cause to be worth sacrificing their long-lived identity and the trillion souls that comprised it, and challenged the beliefs of their entire race.

  The whole thing was ridiculously monumental, and she still didn’t know any of the particulars, not least of all why her Clarkeson had ever imagined she might be able to help. But the only way she was going to find out anything more — let alone answer any of the resulting questions — was to sign on as Randolv Greyce had hoped she would.

  She lifted a hand to catch the not-a-Clarkeson’s attention and waited for him to come back to the table then glanced down at the plate of food she’d toyed with but not sampled. In this larger context, the possibility of tampered food was the least of her worries and she felt a pang of regret that she hadn’t even tasted any of the meal,

  Aushthack approached soundlessly, holding his words until he passed within the suppression field, and even then, said only “I trust the message was informative.”

  Gel nodded, wiped at her eyes again, and then folded her arms across her chest. “All right, if you’re not a Clarkeson, then exactly what the hell are you?

  The Origin of Clowns

  “My people call themselves Tosh.”

  “I’ve never heard of a race called the Tosh.”

  “Not surprising. We began as a servitor race, millions of years ago, on the world you would consider to be the origin point of the Clarkesons. We were barely sentient, four-limbed mammals, akin perhaps to the naked mole rats you have on your own homeworld, though of considerably larger size. In that ancient age the individual cells of the Clarkesons were just beginning to acquire sapience. They had learned to form small cell assemblages — nothing like the colony beings you know today, but this was their beginning. They were more akin to algae floating in the lakes and pools of that world, learning to think their thoughts. Some of my ancestors ingested such assemblages when lapping at the edge of the water to drink. Most of the proto-Clarkesons imbibed in that way were destroyed in the course of normal digestive processes. Some escaped that fate and instead traveled through the body of creatures that had consumed them. A journey of new experiences within the biology of their warm-blooded hosts began. Some connected to the nervous systems they encountered and set up home in the small brains of their hosts, tapping into senses they had never dreamt of, experiencing the world in miraculous new ways.”

  “You’re saying the first Clarkesons were parasites?”

  Aushthack shrugged. “This is all a reconstruction by legions of our scientists from their efforts to describe a phase in the evolution of both races. As my people understand it, many of those early cell assemblages found value in their new discoveries, but their components had not yet learned to work in concert and they overreacted. They drew on resources of their host bodies to increase their own numbers, effectively becoming self-aware tumors. Where this occurred, they grew too vast and killed both parties. But some took a more moderate approach. They too grew and expanded their number, but they maintained only a minor network within the brain of their hosts, little more than a caul, choosing instead to extrude the rest of their being and forming themselves into small external mass attached at the base of their hosts’ skulls. This arrangement proved mutually beneficial.”

  “So now you’re saying they went from parasites to symbiotes?”

  “I wasn’t there,” replied Aushthack. “As I said, this is all just our best theory of what took place. We believe that over time the Clarkesons used this relationship to guide and shape my ancestors’ evolution and development. Not for our sakes, mind you, but to mold us into better tools for their own goals. Over the course of time we rose up on two feet, grew in size, acquired enhanced dexterity, and larger brains. We developed our own sapience, which led to language and culture. We formed communities, art and architecture, and if we did these things more rapidly than other races have, we managed it because of the guidance and control by our symbiotic overlords.”

  “That doesn’t explain why you look like Clarkesons, or the other way around.”

  “Our development stopped with the form you see here: hairless bodies with pale skin, save for the fluorescent tufts on our heads and the brightly colored facial markings. We had evolved into a self-aware race, yet despite our advancements, we were still hosts. It wasn’t enough for us to build cities for ourselves; the Clarkesons had us construct temples and palaces for them, extravagances far beyond their needs or even our own use. Think of these as demonstrations of our reverence for them, our inborn need to serve. Over time, as they continued to experiment, the Clarkesons learned how to transfer themselves, their physicality, from one Tosh to another, merging their respective cell assemblages into larger communities. This freed some Tosh from serving as hosts, and without that constraint we too grew in number and we spread across our world, to other lands where we had no overlords.”

  “I’m guessing that didn’t go over well.”

  “It
did not. A contingent of them embarked on a new project. They began to direct their own physical evolution much as they had shaped ours. Drawing on their hosts as both a template and a source of raw materials, they began expanding the complexity of their cellular assemblages. Over the span of tens of thousands of years, they developed the form you know them as now. And while they were achieving that form, they guided their hosts in the development of science and engineering, creating the technology that would one day allow them to leave their world. They saw that as their destiny, to expand out into the galaxy, much like they had expanded their experience by leaving behind their algae-like existence and joining with land creatures to experience the larger world. The Clarkesons spread out into the galaxy, each consortium existing by its own rules, independent of the others of its kind. They shared only a single commonality: to leave no trace back to the world of their origin. And why would they? There’s nothing there that any of them need. The other races of the galaxy, whom the Clarkesons refer to as singular beings, cannot fully appreciate every Clarkeson consortium contains a gathering of voices greater than the population of entire planets.

  “So there’s nothing to bring them back?” Gel cleared her throat. “Not even procreation?”

  Aushthack gave her a sympathetic smile. “You’re being deceived by their humanoid appearance. They don’t breed like singular creatures. Technically, no Clarkeson needs anything from another consortium to reproduce, though when two or more meet up there is an exchange of millions of sapient cells which they store against future need, mingling them with their own to develop a new nascent consortium. But otherwise the identity conceived by any given consortium is effectively immortal. Just as you are constantly losing and regrowing cells over the course of your life but nonetheless remain yourself. We have that in common with the Clarkesons, but little else.”

  “Why are you telling me all of this?”

  “Because the Clarkesons that roam the galaxy don’t simply refrain from discussing the world of their origin; they have actively hidden it, and having done so they have turned their backs on it. Since the time of that original exodus, no additional Clarkesons have departed our world, and those left behind have slipped into stagnation and decay, dragging the Tosh down with them. Their once glorious civilization, the advances and achievements that eventually sent them to the stars, has declined. And we, their faithful thralls, have lost nearly everything. The gleaming cities my people built for them have fallen into disrepair. They have abandoned any interest in technology and artistry and instead define themselves by decadence and melancholy. Their benign rule over their servitor race has faded away, leaving my people completely bereft and directionless in the resulting void. The same biological drives that enslaved us to the Clarkesons have kept us from advancing our own culture and civilization. The yoke of their direct influence has slipped away, but we have not escaped it. Like them we have regressed. Most of my people now exist in little more than tribal chaos, embracing ignorance and engaging in violence and all the other actions the Clarkesons that wander the galaxy have always looked down upon singular races for. Nearly all of the Tosh have become little more than ignorant savages.”

  “Obviously that doesn’t describe you.”

  Aushthack nodded. “Millennia ago, a handful of Tosh rallied, pulling themselves out of the stupor that had affected the world. They gathered in a small corner of the abandoned estate of some vanished Clarkeson consortium and sought to serve as a focal point for others seeking to relearn. They dreamt of reclaiming the cities we built for ourselves rather than as the playsets of overlords who have lost interest in their toys.”

  “You talk about it like those attempts failed.”

  “Not failed,” said Aushthack. “Squashed. Each time the rise to self-direction was enough to stir the interest of the formerly ruling Clarkeson. It is one thing for them to lose interest in their toys and discard them — they consider that to be their prerogative — but they believe it completely unacceptable for those same toys to regroup and reorganize and begin their own games.”

  “Games?”

  “Games of self-rule, of cultural growth, of civilization. To the Clarkesons, each member of my race means no more than one of their nonsapient cells. They think nothing of wiping those individuals out of existence, not even when they number in the millions. They would rather purge the cities they abandoned, cleanse them with fire and destruction, than permit the cities we built for them to become productive under our own hands. Emptying them out of all their life has, in far too many cases, become an entertaining distraction for them. And when that goal has been accomplished, they collapse back to what I believe is an endless despair.

  “The Clarkesons you know were driven from our homeworld by a desire to experience new things, to engage with the galaxy as if it were a puzzle or game. They are seeking new experiences, always challenging themselves by playing with the singular races they encounter. They entertain themselves through interaction and manipulation. They bask in the wide variety of so many different races and mindsets, cultures and civilizations. The Clarkesons that remained behind on my world have only us. But when we begin to exhibit the same signs, pursuing the same characteristics that their cousins beyond our world seek out, an intolerance takes over and they end our ambition. Once we designed starships for them so that they could know the wonders of the galaxy. Today, fewer than one in a thousand of my kind are even literate.”

  Gel shook her head. “That doesn’t make sense. If all you say is true, how are you even here?”

  “As to that,” said Aushthack, “I escaped.”

  From the Ashes

  “Escaped?”

  Aushthack turned to stare out the viewing window at Finiskifel and when he resumed speaking his voice held a tension that the soothing image of the Trelniki world barely held in check.

  “Because of their own melancholy, our overlords could not be bothered to completely eradicate all resistance. Pockets of proto-civilization endured. Small clans managed to survive, hiding themselves even as they struggled to retain pieces of what the Tosh once were and the things we once knew. The numbers have always been small, limited by a need to appear no different from the masses of Tosh surrounding them, even as they differed in every significant way.”

  “An underground of like-minded Tosh?”

  “Both literally and figuratively. The wonders that my ancestors built for their masters were not limited to the immense, city-sized temples created as tribute to honor them. Beyond the population centers that the Clarkesons mapped out for their own demesnes there existed no shortage of abandoned labs, forgotten warehouses and deserted proving grounds. Over the centuries, these sites have been lost to swamps and deserts, firestorms and earthquakes, but on rare occasions one clan or another stumbled upon assorted subterranean fabrication sites which had survived with their contents intact. We moved into their tunnels and chambers and by trial and error learned to activate and make use of miraculous devices. We uncovered ancient records and teaching machines, mastered lost techniques of food production, regained lost wonders of engineering and medical skills and experimental science, and discovered an ability to create art. All this and more. Most especially, one thing in particular.”

  “What’s that?”

  He turned back to face her. His eyes wide and bright. “Starships.”

  “What do you mean ‘starships’?” said Gel. “I thought you said the Clarkesons that left took the ships your ancestors made.”

  “Yes and no. Generations ago my clan uncovered a series of underground hangars left over from the ancient past when the Clarkesons left our world. My ancestors had constructed those ships but manufactured more than were needed. By studying the leftover vessels, their databases and schematics, we remastered the technology and more, until we had regained — and in some areas surpassed — what earlier Tosh had achieved.”

  Maybe it was the passion in Aushthack’s voice, maybe some effect of the light of Finiskifel playing on
her mind, but Gel found herself gasping at this latest revelation.

  “And so you escaped? Is that what you meant? You and all the like-minded Tosh got away? You threw off the history of enslavement and fled?”

  “No. We could not.”

  “But why not? You had the means, you—”

  “We few clans had recovered what most of the world’s Tosh had lost even the memory of, but otherwise we were not so different from them. Yes, we had a sense of purpose and dared to dream of inventing a civilization of our own while they wandered listlessly through the deserted streets of abandoned cities, pining for the approval of their disinterested masters. But in the end we were constrained by the same biological need to serve as they were. We survived in our hidden compounds by telling ourselves that everything we did was for the greater glory of the Clarkesons, that one day they might turn to the Tosh and again require technology and art, and preparing for that possibility gave us purpose, but we were still hopelessly enthralled to the Clarkesons.”

  “But you were living apart from them,” said Gel. “You told me the Clarkesons had left their own cities and given up humanoid shape. Why can’t you help your own people? If the Clarkeson are so disinterested, what’s preventing you from boarding the ships you discovered, or building more, and just leaving? I mean, clearly, you did!”