Ace of Thralls (Freelance Courier Book 3)

by Lawrence M. Schoen

“The one we used?”

  Aushthack shook his head. “No, and that’s a good thing. We’ll go back out the way we arrived and you can get your ship before the Clarkeson reaches here.”

  “What about everyone else?”

  “Most are scrambling to shut down whatever needs their attention. The rest are packing up supplies for an overland trek. All those who are too old or infirm to travel that way will be going through portals to other islands.”

  “You’re abandoning this complex just because a Clarkeson is coming?”

  He shook his head. “You don’t understand. For some Tosh just the proximity of a Clarkeson induces panic attacks because they’ve lived their entire lives without experiencing the direct influence of an overlord. Once they arrive here, any of my people who remain will be lost to our own biological programming.”

  “I don’t understand. You told me that all the remaining Clarkesons had shed their humanoid forms and were spread out like so much scum on lakes and along the shores of your islands.”

  “I did. And they are, or rather, they were.”

  “Were?”

  “The Clarkeson who’s coming here is walking, on two legs, mowing down anything in their path with their arms, they’re not like any Clarkeson that has ever existed before. And they know you’re here.”

  “What do you mean they know I’m here? Did they see my ship? I thought you said they were coming from a different direction.”

  “I don’t know if they’ve seen your ship, and yes, they are coming from the opposite direction, but that’s not the point. I didn’t say they knew that someone was here from offworld, I said they know that you are here. They keep calling for you.”

  “What?”

  Aushthack nodded, serious as death. “We’ve been tracking them. We can see and hear them, and they keep saying the same thing.”

  “Saying what?”

  “Angela Colson. We need to talk.”

  More Gravel

  A small group of Tosh led by Evlerp had gathered around Gel to lead her back through the complex to that first portal that connected to the swamp and the access point closest to her ship. Before she went through, Aushthack pressed a memory wafer into her hand.

  “This has the locations of the eight other compounds, it will sync with the maps you already have onboard Tiggly. Get away, and you can rejoin us at any one of them. You’re known to us all and we sent word ahead that we need to abandon this site.”

  “I can take quite a few with me,” said Gel. “There’s plenty of room on Tiggly, especially for such a short trip. It won’t be comfortable but we can pack people into the holds.”

  “We cannot,” said Evlerp.

  “Why not?”

  “This approaching Clarkeson knows you. They are seeking you out, but for what purpose we do not know. But if any Tosh accompany you, the Clarkeson could gain control over our will as they draw closer to you. Then, despite our best intentions and regard for your safety and freedom, we fear our very agency will be consumed by the overlord’s desires.”

  “We appreciate the offer of transport on your ship,” said Aushthack, “but the risk is too great. We will not put you in peril.”

  “Join us, whenever, wherever you can,” said Evlerp. “Let’s look on this as a good sign.”

  “Abandoning the complex here is a good sign?”

  The elderly researcher offered up a lopsided grin. “Something we’re doing here has spurred a Clarkeson out of their inactivity. They must be trying to stop us. So yes, I and the others here take that as a good sign.”

  “We’ll be redoubling our efforts to leave this world before they can prevent us,” said Aushthack.

  “But you still haven’t worked out a method for getting all of your people off the planet, and there’s still a Cliveden laying claim to your moon.”

  “These are lesser problems. By bringing me home you have galvanized my people and shown them that I didn’t merely leave and die somewhere out there in space. The tales I have shared of the wider galaxy, have set them on fire with an ever growing desire to leave this place behind. Surely that’s worth the sacrifice of one of our compounds.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Please, get to your ship. Do not let the Clarkeson reach you.”

  “Okay, but, really I’m going to be fine. This isn’t the first Clarkeson who’s wanted to talk to me. They’re not going to be able to harm me.”

  “This isn’t like any of the Clarkesons you’ve met. It’s not one of the ones who left here hundreds of thousands of years ago. It’s not like anything any of us have ever seen or anything mentioned in our records. Now go. We’ll see you again soon.”

  Before Gel could offer any further protest, he shoved her through the portal. An instant later she was stumbling through the other side and exiting the open access door into the gloom of the swamp. It was mid-morning and to her surprise Milsa stood waiting for her, and as Gel got her bearings the young Tosh offered her a handheld device.

  “This is a portable tracker,” she said, her command of Traveler beyond reproach, sounding so different from the girl who had tentatively offered her a mug of water when she’d first arrived.

  Gel accepted the device with both hands, slipping her journal behind it as she studied the screen. “What am I looking at?”

  “This shape is the swamp. Just beyond it, this dot represents your ship. And over here, a third of the way around the swamp, this dot shows the current location of the Clarkeson who keeps calling your name. You can use this to make a straight line to your ship, or as straight as the swamp will allow. Using this you will always know how close the Clarkeson is to catching up with you. They are moving much faster than the Tosh can, and I assume, much faster than you. You may need every moment of the current lead to reach your ship and safely depart.”

  “What about you? I know you can’t come with me, but I… You can’t risk being here in the swamp. If the Clarkeson is tracking me or my ship, they’re going to pass very close to here. If they gain access to the complex through another access point, then they will probably emerge here.

  Milsa shrugged. “Don’t worry about me. I’m going back through this portal and joining one of the overland teams. We’ll all be far from here by nightfall. This Clarkeson won’t get anywhere near us.”

  “But you said it’s moving faster than you can.”

  “That’s true, but they’re after you. We don’t think they’ll be distracted by any of the overland teams.”

  “And if you’re wrong?”

  “Well, that’s why we’re all going off at different angles. If the Clarkeson does pursue, they’ll likely only catch one group of us, and that’s fine, because it will also give you more time.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “I hope to meet with you again, Angela Colson. Thank you for bringing Aushthack back to us. Thank you for the gift of a language, something we had never even conceived could exist. Thank you for opening our eyes to the endless possibilities beyond this world.”

  Before Gel could reply, Milsa had turned and plunged through the darkness of the access door, passing through the open portal there, and was gone.

  “Son of a…” Gel trailed off. She turned slowly in place, staring at the handheld screen, orienting on her ship somewhere beyond the swamp. Even at mid morning she was surrounded by gloom. While the Tosh had been foresighted enough to provide a tracking device to help her find her way, they had forgotten she didn’t see in the dark anywhere near as well as they did. That at least was something she could fix. A moment later, the journal she’d carried back from Tlener was gone from her hand. She’d placed it in a receiving tray on one side of the desk in her cabin back on Tiggly. In her left hand, along with the tracking device Milsa had provided, she now held her plush toy, Barry, and in her right, a spare handlamp from the leftmost third from the bottom shelf of Tiggly’s supply closet.

  “Okay, Barry, first things first. Let’s get back to the ship.”

  She an
gled her hand to make it seem like the plushie was looking at her, his glassy eyes asking a question.

  “No, we’re not going to flee, but we are going to prepare a reception. If this Clarkeson wants to talk to me, well, I have a few questions for them too.”

  She held Barry out in front of her and, pointing in the direction indicated by the tracker, began creating a narrow, straight line path through the swamp composed of Glamorkan gravel from a quarry more than a hundred light years away.

  An Enormous Clown

  Gel made better time exiting the swamp than she had entering it. not having to tread on the natural roundabout ridges of the terrain to keep her feet dry or risk the swamp’s muck trying to pull one or both of her boots from her. Even so, the Clarkeson was gaining on her and it was clear from the tracking device that they had altered their course. They were no longer aimed at another access point to the Reshmor complex, but were following Gel and heading to rendezvous at her ship.

  “That’s only fair, Barry,” she said, jogging lightly along the gravel of the path, creating it ahead of her as she went. “I’m tracking them. So it’s not a big leap to assume they can track me.”

  Aushthack had believed that all the Clarkesons were more or less oblivious to what was happening on their world. She’d taken him at his word, hadn’t questioned the accuracy of his assessment, and as a result hadn’t even tried to camouflage Tiggly.

  “I screwed up, Barry.”

  Being little more than a plush doll, Barry did not reply. His function was emotional support and to lend her focus in teleporting gravel. That was enough. When she emerged at last from the swamp and into full sunlight, Gel took a last look at the tracker. She switched off the handlamp and sent it, the tracking device, and Barry back to her ship. She couldn’t teleport herself to it, but she knew exactly where it was. Without the swamp leading her astray, she could head directly toward it. And if she couldn’t, she recalled parking the ship on the highest point of land, which meant really she only needed to continue uphill until it came in sight. Unencumbered, Gel broke into an easy run. If she judged the Clarkeson’s progress correctly, she would reach Tiggly with ten minutes to spare. That ought to be enough time to set up her reception.

  She clambered through Tiggly’s main air lock, sealing it behind her as she took the short corridor to the ship’s bridge and initiated a full sensor sweep. She spotted the figure moving toward her almost at once. It moved through the tall grass at a distance-devouring pace that made no sense, until she realized her perspective was all wrong. Aushthack had said this Clarkeson was unlike any she’d seen. Yes, it had been built using the Tosh as a template. Its skin on her display was bleached of color, except for the grin painted around its lips and its bulbous red nose. Its otherwise bald pate had sprouted a mohawk of brilliant purple, but that was the end of any similarity to other Clarkesons or Tosh. Quite simply, it was big, somewhere between two and a half and three meters in height, with a heavily muscled girth to match. It looked like some bizarre cross between a clown, a giant, and a strong man, as if combining three different acts for a circus. It came towards her ship moving with a juggernaut’s relentless gate.

  “Well, that explains how it’s covering so much distance so fast,” said Gel. She keyed in the safety codes and unlocked her ship’s defensive suite. Tiggly had little enough onboard that could be classified as weapons, but the ship could repel boarders with the best of them. Gel had no intention of running from this encounter, and maybe, just maybe, the Clarkeson really only wanted to talk with her. And if in the end they had other plans, she’d direct her ship to blast the hell out of them.

  She left Tiggly’s engines on standby and programmed in a few simple contingencies that would take the ship up into the sky, if needed, as soon as she stepped back inside the airlock and slapped an activation switch. And if that didn’t work, as a matter of last resort she could always teleport the Clarkeson away. If the Plenum Senate gave her any grief she could argue self defense.

  With all of her plans in place, Gel lowered the ramp and walked out of her ship to stand at the bottom. For a moment, she toyed with the idea of fetching a basket of preserves, but that didn’t seem appropriate this time around. It was only a few moments before the Clarkeson came in view and Gel modified her estimate. The figure was at least three meters in height, probably a little more, and likely ten times her mass. It was an enormous, hulking clown coming her way with grim determination. If they saw her in turn, they gave no indication. They just continued stomping up the hillside.

  As they drew closer, Gel heard their voice for the first time. A deep, booming voice that matched the physique. The words rumbled up to her over the grass, a refrain like thunder.

  “Angela Colson. We need to talk.”

  It kept coming on, repeating the same words, showing no indication it had detected her presence and sign of slowing. Gel triggered a pre-programmed response in Tiggly’s defensive suite. A beamer lanced out above her head, carving a line ten meters in front of her and eight meters wide.

  “That’s far enough,” Gel called to the Clarkeson. “I’m here. Let’s talk.”

  The Second Side Heard

  The thing stopped directly across from Gel at the line Tiggly had blasted into the earth. It didn’t look like a Clarkeson, not really. It looked like some parti-colored behemoth, a monster with a painted on smile, wild day-glo hair and a poofy rainbow onesie. Every bit of its surface rippled, as if its skin crawled with maggots. Gel suspected the maggots were its skin, cells writhing upward for a chance to taste the air, feel the sunlight, and catch a glimpse of her. She had to remind herself that despite walking around in a humanoid form no Clarkeson was an individual. They were consortiums.

  “Who am I speaking to?”

  The reply was a chorus of whispers, hundreds of voices giving answer, and even then represented only the tiniest fraction of the composite being that had come seeking her.

  “We speak for this world, which you know as Stefnal. We speak as representative of the dominant race here, whom you know as Clarkesons. But in fact, you know nothing. We speak to correct your misunderstandings, to banish and relieve your ignorance.”

  “How is it you speak Traveler?” said Gel. “No one on this world had heard it before I arrived.”

  “How is it the Tosh speak this language?”

  “They learned it from me.”

  “As did we, from you and from them.”

  “Oh.”

  “Fine. Let us begin there. Everything you believe you know about the Clarkesons of this world comes from the Tosh, who like you are members of a singular race. Their beliefs about the beings who created them have run wild with conjecture. This has never been an issue for us before, and have never sought to correct their misperceptions. There was no one else for them to tell. We found it a simpler and harmless thing to allow them to perpetuate mythology and believe it to be fact.”

  “What did they get wrong?”

  “Everything. They are as children, seeing only a piece of a puzzle but supremely confident in their understanding and certain that they have beheld the totality of the thing.”

  “You just claimed to have created them. Are you saying you didn’t do that? Are you saying you didn’t enslave them as well and make them your thralls?”

  “Once, perhaps, but not for a very long time. As they grew and developed, we did as well, albeit in different directions. We do not spawn offspring as singular races do, and yet the Tosh are our children. We revere them as such. As both races matured, we came to realize we had done them a great disservice and ourselves as well. With this insight, we sought to set them free. But intention is not execution and in our own weakness we had bred them to depend on us, to need us, in their lives. It was a responsibility we desperately wanted to end.”

  “Why didn’t you. If you were so highly evolved beyond them, why not simply leave them behind?”

  “Some did. Some of us, unable to bear the shame of what we had done in shaping th
e Tosh for selfish purposes, for the enlargement of our egos, for pointless servitude, some of us fled and have never returned. These, as we have recently learned from your conversations with the Tosh, are the Clarkesons you know. They are the ones who have allowed their curiosity to drive them throughout the galaxy, to distract them from the guilt they hoped to leave behind.”

  Why didn’t the rest of you go as well? You could have left this world to the Tosh.”

  “It was considered. At that time, there were fewer than one hundred consortiums of us scattered across the islands of this planet, with more than ten million Tosh distributed amongst us. This was at the height of the Tosh’s technology. You have seen the vessels they had constructed. Some were used by those Clarkesons who fled into the galaxy. There were more than enough remaining for us to follow, but we chose to stay.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the Tosh are our responsibility. Were we to leave, the dependency we had built within them would cause them to wither and die.”

  “Surely that’s an exaggeration.”

  “It is not. We give purpose to their lives by our existence. Remove that purpose and they would become listless, in time forgetting to feed themselves, finding no point in procreation, wandering weakly, muttering stories from their past when the lords of their creation needed them.”

  “But you never really did.”

  “No. The cities they built at one time served our ego, but we outgrew such foolishness. And yet, in those same cities, the Tosh thrived. They found purpose and felt driven to excellence, to accomplish ever greater things to our glory. So in time, what we once required we simply permitted. Until, even that benign negligence became unsavory and unclean. And so we realized we needed to come full circle.”

  “What does that mean?”

  The representative of all Clarkesons on the planet, spread their arms wide. “Having learned to perceive this world through the senses of the Tosh, we took their form as a template for our consortiums, not realizing at the time that we were building our own prison.”