Ace of Thralls (Freelance Courier Book 3)

by Lawrence M. Schoen

  It didn’t matter whether this was a rational fear, just the idea of it triggered a response that they were on the way to violating one of the unwritten biological rules that kept the entire race in check. Every few centuries one complex or another had sent out an explorer, armed with the same records of the locations of fabrication facilities. None had ever returned, and there was no indication that even one such explorer had arrived at another inhabited compound. Likely the compulsion to return to the demesne of one’s own overlord had grown stronger as that distance grew and as the explorers had penetrated deeper into another Clarkeson’s territory. What had been different in recent years was that as they reached the limits of their resistance, the Tosh armed with portals could open their end and can fall through into the relief of suddenly being back home, letting another volunteer step through, completely fresh, and continue the journey.

  It was still impossible to carry a portal through a portal without rending the quantum coupling that made the whole thing work. Each of the found eight communities used the shared knowledge to create and distribute their own portals, using this same methodology, until paths existed between all nine sites with multiple backups for when the temperamental devices ceased working.

  Over the ensuing days, once the Tosh of Aushthack’s complex had acquired a modicum of fluency in Traveler, he gave up his job as her translator to devote his time to recounting everything he had seen and done since leaving, schooling the other Tosh about the galaxy beyond their experience. These debriefings were recorded, and he spent time each day translating them into Traveler so that teams of other Tosh had more material to help them fine-tune their command of the language.

  When Gel was awake she was never alone. Three or more Tosh were always with her, escorting her throughout the hallways of the underground complex, guiding her through the various labs and research sites, answering any questions she had and offering suggestions of questions she ought to ask. It was never the same trio. The positions were in rotation so that more of them could enhance their fluency by access to Gel. The exception to that was when they took her through a portal to a compound somewhere else across the world. There she’d be met with days of feasting and celebration and similar tours of similar facilities. Rather than tax the portal system by continuing to rotate her companions, whichever Tosh had accompanied her to the other site stayed with her and remained at her side during the days of her visit. These then remained behind to begin teaching that population of Tosh to speak Traveler as well, leaving Gel to return alone. In this way she visited the research and fabrication facilities responsible for producing theoretically impossible portals at three different compounds, and in the process doubled her understanding of what made the technology possible, both as related to the traditionally massive devices that linked the galaxy and the inherently unstable conditions that made the individual-sized mechanisms a possibility, however briefly they lasted.

  In most ways, the compounds were all alike. The layout of their hallways differed, but the decor was always the same, lightly glowing walls and ceilings, the same bland decor everywhere punctuated here and there by a seemingly random splash of color. Funny thing about those splashes though, none of them lasted more than a day. Gel never saw anyone clean them away, but she never saw anyone apply paint either. And even assuming it was paint, was it some weird temporary paint that somehow sublimated and vanished in hours?

  The real difference was the scent given off by the Tosh of the other compounds. Where the majority of the Tosh at Reshmor produced a fragrance much like violets — though Gel had noticed several individuals who smelled of peonies and even a few like salty roses, a majority of the Tosh at each of the other eight compounds had different flowery scents. As she traveled to the various compounds, learning more about the Tosh in general and about their portal technology in specific, she took more careful note of the variety of Tosh fragrance.

  It was on one of these visits away from Reshmor that Gel worked up the courage to ask a favor, one that she suspected in all likelihood would fail tremendously and cost a compound one of their portal pairs.

  “I don’t understand what you want them to do,” said Kerloan, a theoretician and second only to Evlerp in sheer brilliance. Kerloan’s designs had been critical for making the personalized-portals a reality, and she now held ultimate authority for the portals across all nine sites and could sway any decisions at the Tlener compound where the majority of portal research occurred. Kerloan had mastered speaking Traveler in a handful of days and was endlessly bemused by the idea of a new language. This, more than anything, had led to her speaking with Gel, making time in her overbooked schedule rather than assigning the task to an assistant.

  Gel recognized this and took full advantage.

  “I want to try something with one end of a portal.”

  “What does that mean, ‘try something’? It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

  “I appreciate that but, unfortunately, I can’t explain any further. And honestly, I think there’s a very real chance that my test will rend the quantum entanglement between the two sides of the portal. But I need to be sure, one way or the other.”

  “Angela Colson, you understand that each portal we create involves a tremendous allocation of resources. Make no mistake, all of us are grateful that you have returned Aushthack to us, and rejoice over everything that his return represents, but this is still a huge request.”

  “So your answer is no?”

  Kerloan shook her head. She was perhaps the oldest Tosh that Gel had met, and the shocks of her fluorescent pink hair were little more than wisps.

  “I didn’t say no. I need to think on it. Not all of our portals are immediately pressed into service and sent off to other compounds. Other pairs remain here for testing. We are constantly working to improve the lifespan of these devices, albeit with only minimal success thus far. The math says it’s impossible. You understand that?”

  “The math is the math,” replied Gel. “But then, I had thought what you’ve made was impossible, so clearly you found new math. Maybe you or some other Tosh here will do so again.”

  Kerloan smiled. “That is our view as well, and why I now strive to prove myself wrong and push beyond the limits as we know them, and why as some portals near the end of their usefulness I have them returned here for use in experiments. Perhaps a set of these would serve your mysterious purpose?”

  Gel grinned. “Absolutely, as long as they’re currently working.”

  “Very well. Tell me what you need for your experiment and my team will provide.

  In the end it had been a simple thing. Using the space of one of their proving labs, Gel had requested the Tosh to construct a large crate, the width and height of one end of a portal, and some 10 meters long. She had climbed into the box and paced back and forth along its length, pausing repeatedly before calling for the help of a pair of lab assistants who leaned over the side and hauled her up and out. At her direction, others of Kerloan’s researchers had positioned one part of a portal inside at one end and then sealed the crate.

  “This makes no sense to me. Why have you had us do this thing?”

  “Paranoia mostly,” said Gel. “I knew you’re recording everything I say and do here, right?”

  “Of course. Not just for the linguistic components, but for other insights we might glean upon reviewing your behaviors and the choices you make. But frankly, this choice… I don’t begin to comprehend.”

  “I’m okay with that. But you can’t record what’s going on inside the box, right?”

  “Nothing’s going on inside the box,” said Kerloan. “You sealed up one end of a portal at one end of your crate.”

  “Right, but even if you thought something was going on inside. You couldn’t experience it. You couldn’t see it, couldn’t hear it, and you’d have no record.”

  “That’s correct, but I still don’t understand.”

  “I have a plan in mind.”

  “To do what?”<
br />
  Gel paused, imagining what the Plenum senate would say if they were here now, and deciding it wasn’t their call to make. “To move the portal from one end of the box to the other.”

  “What? How?”

  “The how isn’t important. What’s important is that you can’t tell where that portal half is inside the box.”

  “It isn’t a question of superposition,” said Kerloan. “There’s nothing inside that would cause the portal to move in the first place.”

  “But imagine if there were.”

  Kerloan frowned. “I appreciated the concept that you illustrated yesterday with your anecdote of a smaller, shielded box and a mammal that was both alive and dead within it. This is not the same thing.”

  “I agree. It’s not.”

  “Then why—”

  “I want to know if the portal will still work once it’s been moved.”

  “But you can’t explain how it will move.”

  “That’s not important. Just the outcome once it moves.”

  “And when will that be?”

  “Oh, it already has,” said Gel, who hadn’t bothered to summon Barry to her hand, it being one more thing that would spawn questions that she didn’t want to answer. She didn’t actually need the plushie to utilize her abilities. He was more of a comforting habit.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Open her up,” said Gel. “Top and sides, please.”

  The crew that had only just finished sealing the lid stared at her in confusion but followed through when Kerloan chittered her request.

  “Do you want us to hoist you back inside?”

  “No. Let’s take down the sides of the crate. That might be important.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “I have no idea,” said Gel. “But normally when you use the portals they’re not boxed in on all sides.”

  More instructions were relayed and the side panels of the crate were carried off, causing all the Tosh in the lab to gasp. The portal had somehow moved to the other end of the crate.

  “And where’s the other half of this portal?”

  “In an adjacent room of the lab,”

  Kerloan led her to a wall display with a clear view of the other half of the portal.

  “And both ends are still active?”

  “There’s been no change in the readings to suggest otherwise.”

  “Let’s test that,” said Gel.

  “You want someone to pass through it?”

  “Oh no. I don’t know if it’s been altered. Can we send an object through instead?”

  “You have studied the theory and the construction alongside our best technologists. You understand either it functions as it should or it doesn’t function at all. There is no in between.”

  “I understand that up here,” said Gel, tapping the side of her head. “But here,” and her hand moved to her chest, “there’s an irrational part of me that says asking someone to step through might scramble the molecules of their body, or flip all their left hand proteins to right hand proteins, or something else, just as inexplicable.”

  “You read too much entertainment fiction,” said Kerloan.

  “Even so,” said Gel. “Indulge me. Just a few quick tests.”

  “Such as?”

  “I don’t know, I hadn’t really thought that far ahead. Throw a ball through and… maybe a decorative plant.”

  “And if those go well?”

  “Follow it with a lab animal?”

  Gel blanched at that last suggestion, but Kerloan accepted the suggestions and began instructing her underlings, who quickly lined up with the requested objects.

  “You understand, we don’t know how many more transits this portal has before it exceeds its stability.”

  “Well, at least one, right?”

  “At least one, possibly more than the three you propose. But it is in the late stage of things where predictive models have limited reliability. I tell you this so you won’t be disappointed if we cannot attempt all three of your trials.”

  “Got it,” said Gel. “Let’s begin while we can.”

  “Time is not the limiting factor,” said Kerloan. “Only the available number of transitions that remain.”

  “Right.”

  The researcher chittered to a lab assistant who held a multicolored ball in his hands, twice the size of his own head. After confirming that the portal in front of him was active, he’d lightly chucked it through. It vanished as it broke the vertical plane of the portal, instantly simply emerging along the same vector from the other portal, as shown by the wall display.

  “Test number two,” said Kerloan.

  On the display they watched another lab assistant approach that end of the portal, carrying what to Gel looked like some form of houseplant that had adapted to life in the underground complex. It was a mass of vibrant leaves and clustered vines overflowing a wooden pot. The lab assistant gripped the plant by some of its vines, lifting it free of the pot and used both hands to hurt it through the portal. The plant passed through much as the ball had without any incident, striking the floor in the lab where Gel and Kerloan stood, breaking apart and scattering dirt everywhere.

  “It’s supposed to do that, right?” said Gel.

  “Supposed to? I suppose. You had obtained the same effect if you had lobbed the plant across the room without benefit of a portal. Are you ready for the third test?”

  Gel pressed her lips together and nodded. “Let’s do this.”

  A third lab assistant had been standing cradling a wire box in her arms. Some warm-blooded creature that could have passed for some variety of rodent back on Earth skittered around the cage. The lab assistant placed it directly in front of the portal without touching the device’s event horizon. Then she pulled up on a tab that raised the side of the cage closest to the portal. The not-quite-a-rodent scurried free, arriving without any apparent change in the other room.

  “Someone catch that thing,” said Kerloan. She turned it back to Gel. “I don’t understand what you think may have happened, but your concern for possible consequences seems very real to me. I’m going to have that animal dissected and a full workup done. Our people will analyze every system in its tiny body, look at every organ. And we will perform similar tests on its littermates, looking for any difference, any discrepancy, any change, that may have been wrought by its passage through the portal.”

  “Thank you. I really appreciate that. I can’t begin to tell you how much.”

  “It’s fine,” said Kerloan. “And when we find nothing, perhaps you will tell me what the point of all this was.”

  Gel nodded and bit her lip. “I don’t know that I’m going to be able to tell you anything specific,” she said. “But if it all works out, then believe me when I say, we’ve just changed everything.”

  Algae No More

  “Everything’s changed,” said Aushthack, grabbing Gel’s arm as she emerged from the portal and all but dragging her from the room.

  When Gel had first arrived at the other Tosh compound, she’d asked Kerloan for a small journal and a writing implement. Gel had been filling page after page with notes and observations — especially her thoughts regarding her experiment with the personalized portal — intending to transfer the contents to Tiggly’s logs when she returned to the ship. Her penmanship was atrocious.

  As a little girl, she had practiced her letters in the one-room school she shared with siblings both younger and older. Amadeus had been very old fashioned and very pro-literacy. Reading made sense, sure, but few people had any cause to actually write any more. And once she’d learned Traveler — a language specifically created to be used among alien races, all of whom had their own native tongues and writing systems — the blocky Roman characters of her native English had little utility, and the looping curves of her cursive hand even less. But she’d wanted something to record her notes, to put her ideas down in front of her on a page and move them around. The Tosh had offered her a variety of
recording devices and portable screens, she had no doubt that they would eagerly record and review any and all of her notes, and that would eventually bring questions that she didn’t want to answer.

  It was possible that the same cameras capturing her every move and gesture were also recording the scratchings on the pages of her journal. She did her best to minimize that, hunching over the book as she wrote, shielding her work with one arm. Writing things out in English probably helped, but the illegibility of her handwriting was probably her greatest asset when it came to secrecy.

  She’d returned through the portal to Reshmor as scheduled, her journal tucked into the back pocket of her jeans. As she cleared the plane of the portal she’d heard a fizzle and popping sound, as the unstable pairing finally broke down with her passage. Her first thought was that Aushthack would be alarmed that she might have been harmed in the transit, but among the things she learned while at Tlener was, even with the unstable individualized portals, they either worked or didn’t. If one shut down it happened at the conclusion of a transition and never midway through the process. She doubted Aushthack had learned that yet with the rest of the Tosh keeping him busy with other concerns.

  “It’s all right, I’m fine,” she said. “And they’ve been expecting that portal to crap out. They already have a replacement ready to go.”

  “What? Oh, no, not that. Come on. We have to get you back to your ship.”

  “My ship? Why? What are you talking about?”

  “A Clarkeson is coming.”

  “What?!” She stopped in the middle of the hall and only then noticed that all the Tosh around them were rushing to and fro. Aushthack kept going several steps before turning around to come back. He stood facing her, gripping her arms with each of his hands.

  “A Clarkeson. They’re coming here.”

  “Why?”

  “No one knows, but one of Evlerp’s assistants picked them up on long-range scan, and the elder researchers have confirmed it. They’re coming in a straight line aimed at one of the access points for this complex.”