Ace of Thralls (Freelance Courier Book 3)

by Lawrence M. Schoen

  She’d addressed the resulting data to the Ersommerey Science Council, which Tiggly assured her included members of the society of astrogation physicists who maintained galactic records. She’d transmit the data packet the next time she passed through a traditional port, but not before she included a claim of naming rights for the first mapping of the system.

  The first gas giant the Clarkesons had used was so large it could have held a thousand of even the largest of the four gas giants that existed in humanity’s home star system.

  Gel assumed the original, outbound Clarkesons had selected it for its volume, the better to hide so many portals, like a plethora of needles in a relative haystack as big as all of Kansas.

  But her searching would be minimal. She knew which portal she wanted and she had a map. The portals moved within the furious flurry of the atmosphere, but maintained a rough relative position to one another. She didn’t have to locate any specific portal, not yet, identifying any of them would tell her roughly where the one she wanted was located, and then she would hunt it down. In the end, it took her less than a day to locate her target. She had its unique activation codes ready, and passing through it would put her ship in the Danita system that had once belonged to the Bwill before homesickness had driven them mad. She could emerge from the soup of Danita-V, the gas giant whose moon the Tosh would soon inhabit, but she had another stop to make first.

  Gel set a course for the next closest of the Clarkeson portals, confirmed from the records that Aushthack had provided that it led to a populated star system with multiple traditional portals, and sent the activation codes that allowed her to pass through.

  She emerged into the swirling atmosphere of a gas giant she’d never visited. As she neared the edge of the atmosphere, Tiggly’s scans revealed the location of other planetary bodies in the system and she positioned her ship to minimize the likelihood of anyone seeing her rise from the gas giant. She didn’t plan to linger, just long enough to connect with the communication system that ran through the galaxy’s network portals and send her message and astrogational update.

  The fact that the system had been untouched and was far enough away from anything else in the stellar index made it unlikely that anyone would ever visit. The only ones who would notice the addition to the official record would be deskbound scholars and some bean counter who would deduct an obscene fee from her account in exchange for registering and naming a star system. Still, it pleased her to think that somewhere out there, an astronomer on some world would take note that a heretofore unmapped Star had been identified.

  Once she sent the data packet, she plunged Tiggly back into the atmosphere and retraced the path back to the Clarkeson portal and through to the gas giant contained in the system she’d just registered. She’d named it for Randolv Greyce. She couldn’t think of a better way to spend some of the money her Clarkeson client had left for her. Then she returned her attention to the next portal, the one that led back to Danita-V and the next stage of her plan.

  The Win-Win

  Fly through the atmospheric soup of enough gas giants and you can start to tell them apart. Tiggly emerged from the maelstrom of Danita-V and instead of vectoring off toward the moon that represented freedom to the Tosh, she headed deeper in-system toward the star itself.

  Gel was in a hurry but wasn’t rushed. She’d already run the numbers in her head and Tiggly’s review of the various possible routes produced the same conclusion, plus or minus two days. And if things went wrong, she had options and back-up plans. None of those options or back-ups were ideal, mind you, especially as half of them necessitated her dealing with the chaos of a Cliveden hub. She had no desire to visit in Cliveden space, but with luck it wouldn’t come to that.

  Unfortunately, Tiggly had also confirmed her fears regarding the finances of her plan and the ship was requesting Gel’s verification on the bill on the main display screen. Again, if things went well, she’d make it all back, but the risk was real. Everything she’d built, everything she’d worked for, could be lost. But she couldn’t let that paralyze her. She signed off on the charges and instructed Tiggly to send her reply.

  It would be fine. Probably. Maybe. If not, well, she’d been destitute before and survived. She leaned back in the bridge’s command chair and gazed into the button eyes of her plush buffalito who had suddenly arrived and sat propped upon the console at her whim.

  “What was it Amadeus used to say? ‘In for a penny, in for a pound?’ You know, Barry, I never really understood that expression. A pound of what? And every time I asked him he’d just laugh and never explain.”

  Days later as Gel drew closer to the star, she pulled Tiggly up above the plane of the ecliptic and latched onto the beacon from Danita’s only portal. Its automated systems pinged her ship and transmitted the requirements that Gel would have to agree to before being allowed to transit through and arrive at the portal’s other end in one of the transportation hubs the Cliveden maintained, each with an impressive array of portals, and all just one jump away from their own restricted star system. It was the best compromise they’d come up with, balancing avarice and xenophobia. Aliens were not allowed in the Cliveden home system, and according to Tiggly’s database even in the rare exceptions where some other race had made it through, none had ever set foot on any of the six teeming worlds that were home to all of the Cliveden’s planetbound population.

  Gel had spent every waking moment of the flight from Danita-V to its star immersed in the database, reading and reviewing each piece of information that Tiggly had on file about the Cliveden. She was almost ready. She’d instructed Tiggly to ignore the incoming pings from the portal’s automated systems. She had no intention of soaring through it, and certainly wouldn’t be paying the transit fees that it kept insisting on. Instead she pulled her ship up short, slowing considerably as she drew ridiculously close and began circling the tremendous ring of the portal itself. Every few seconds she reached out, using the senses that she alone of the Plenum possessed, locking in a location in space, over and over again, not with any intention to ever teleport an object to any of the spots, but rather so that the set of coordinates taken as a whole defined the physical space they encompassed.

  Once she’d completed that work, she pulled Tiggly around and headed back to the moon. She ran the numbers and sent a message ahead for Master Manager Srin, informing him of the intended time and location of her arrival and expressing her desire to resume negotiations. Then she sat back and returned to her studies of Tiggly’s database.

  Gel set her ship down in almost the exact spot she had the time before. It was mid-afternoon, an autumnal sun still high in the sky, and a scattering of thin clouds floated lazily overhead. While she waited for the Cliveden to arrive, Gel unloaded the Tosh’s excavation and farming machines, carefully confirming their programmed starting coordinates against both her ship’s maps and its current position. She sent them on their way to respective locations where they would lapse into standby mode and await the triggering of their main programming.

  That task completed, she rolled an oval table down the ramp and set it up a short distance from the ship, opening and angling an umbrella to provide shade from the sun. She added a pair of collapsible chairs and finally brought out a tray with two frosted glasses and a pitcher of sweet tea which, based on several anecdotes in the database, might be agreeable to the Cliveden palate. Tiggly’s sensors had detected movement within the nearby forest and she expected her guest would be arriving soon. She took a seat and made herself comfortable, confident she wouldn’t have long to wait.

  Master Manager Srin’s armored crawler emerged from the edge of the forest a few moments later, stopping far short of Tiggly as it had before. The Cliveden emerged from the top of the vehicle and made his way forward, reminding Gel of a similar tableau from a few days before, as the Clarkeson behemoth had met her at the foot of her ship. She rose to her feet and offered him a tight-lipped smile to which he responded with a display of teeth.


  “Angela Colson, I must say, I had come to believe you had given up your ludicrous claim. Truly, I did not expect our paths to cross again. I see you are alone; has your Clarkeson lost interest or simply chosen not to witness your futility?”

  “And good afternoon to you, Master Manager. I promise you I have no more interest in futile endeavors than you do. Rather, I expect to present you with a proposal that will be advantageous to both sides.” Gel gestured to the table and chairs she’d set up. “Please, join me.”

  Srin accepted the invitation, and when they were both seated Gel filled two glasses from the pitcher and waited for him to select one.

  “Thank you for coming to visit this afternoon. I know from my studies that most members of your race find a meeting with aliens extremely distasteful. At our last meeting you mentioned receiving special training to allow you to converse with outsiders. I’ve since learned that this training is quite rigorous, and only the most intelligent and talented Cliveden successfully complete it.”

  “Did you invite me here to flatter me?”

  “Not at all,” said Gel. “Rather, I wanted to establish my awareness of your ability and intellect, because I am confident that when I outline my proposal you will immediately appreciate its merit.”

  “Indeed? Please go on then.” The Master Manager cautiously sipped his beverage. His reptilian features gaped with surprise and he drank more deeply.

  “In the course of my research, I have learned a few things about the Cliveden social hierarchy. The vast majority of your population are restricted to the six planets of your home system, where they enjoy a high standard of living and reside in comfort. But they lack status. In contrast, your upper echelon is composed of starship owners and their extended families, where even the lowest cabin boy has more status than the most eminent planet-bound scholar or technologist.”

  “This is well documented, and though the arrangement may seem odd to lesser races such as yours, it has served my people well for countless millennia.”

  Gel ignored Srin’s commentary and continued. “Less well known but equally prestigious as ship captains and their crew — though far fewer in number — are those Cliveden who, like you, are the hereditary owners of your portals. But unlike the crews of starships, the portal owner’s families do not share his or her status, only a portion of the wealth generated.”

  “Is there a point to this?” asked Srin.

  “There is. Please bear with me. Many millennia ago an entrepreneurial ancestor made the decision to spend generations in an effort to push a portal to this system. This brought tremendous status and, initially, great wealth as a horde of theologians and treasure hunters poured through to study or scavenge what the Bwill had left behind. And as these numbers dwindled over time, they were replaced by corporate clients seeking to mine the resources of those same abandoned worlds. But that was in the past, and in the current generation — the generation which sees you as the sole remaining member of your family and the controlling manager of this portal — your fortunes have dried up and no one besides yourself passes through your portal. You still possess the status of having a portal, but it is insufficient to attract a mate to continue your family line.”

  “And why is this of interest to you?”

  “Maybe because I’m a courier, and the Cliveden have created a very different system for using their portals. I’ve had to do more detailed research. Personal research.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “I know that you have a single distant relative who stands to inherit your portal if you die without an heir. A great-aunt who, as it happens, long ago married into one of the starship families and, as she appeared to have had no claim on your family’s portal, turned her back on your family and focused all of her attention on her new one.”

  “This is of no concern to you,” said Srin, his eyes narrowing to slits with barely repressed anger.

  “You’re absolutely right, it isn’t. But it’s of great concern among the Cliveden. The success of your society requires a balance of its three components: the ordinary and planetbound citizens, the starship families, and the portal owners. If you die without an heir and your great-aunt acquires ownership of your portal, lines will be crossed and the balance of Cliveden society will suffer. What I don’t understand is why that danger isn’t sufficient to lure a prospective mate your way.”

  “It is not so simple as that. Lesser races like yours do not understand.”

  “Then explain it to me,” said Gel.

  Srin scowled. “Traditionally, portal owners take their lifemates from high ranking members of a ship family, often the children of ship captains who are too far down in their family lines — fourth or fifth hatchlings — to stand much chance of obtaining a captaincy of their own. To them, a bonding with a portal owner is usually an increase in status, one which they can flaunt each and every time a vessel of their family line needs to transit through that portal.”

  “But that doesn’t apply to you, because there are no ships using your portal.”

  “There are not.”

  “And thus, no status to be found in becoming your mate.”

  Srin sucked in a deep breath, held it, and then slowly exhaled. “You should be aware that despite my rigorous training, I am finding this conversation dangerously tiresome.”

  “My apologies, I’ll try to wrap this up.”

  “That would be most welcome.”

  “The way I see it, you’re in desperate straits. You’ve latched on to a longshot, that the newly habitable moon of a dead Bwiller system might save you, that by virtue of its novelty you might perhaps stir up some tourism, and the resulting traffic could bring vessels through your portal again. But you have to see that it won’t work. The moon is just another moon. The Bwill never lived there. There’s nothing special about it. And there’s nothing else in this system to make the trip worthwhile. It’s not going to restore your family’s fortunes or boost your status in Cliveden society. At best, it will buy you some time, but even so it won’t bring you a suitable mate to allow you to produce an heir—”

  The Cliveden cut her off. “I will give you some valuable advice, Angela Colson. Should you ever find yourself face to face with one of my people again, you would do well not to lecture them on societal matters.”

  “I understand. It’s fraught with peril, and I truly appreciate your restraint as I broach such a personal topic.”

  “As you should—”

  “But it’s because the topic is so important, that I must. I’m a courier. It is not in my best interest for a Cliveden-owned portal to fall into the hands of a member of one of your starship families. And all because you — through no fault of your own — lack the status to attract some captain’s fifth daughter to you.”

  “This conversation has gone beyond tedious, Angela Colson. You are aware of the value that my people place on status, and yet you abuse your own. Indeed, it is only your inherent position as the daughter of a planet owner that I have tolerated your blathering insults this long.”

  “But I—”

  “Your observations regarding my plans for this moon may indeed be correct, but just because I have no other options open to me does not mean I need to put up with you any longer. We are done.”

  “We’re not. There’s one more question I have to ask you.”

  “Then ask, and be done!”

  “What if I could change your status?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “What if I could arrange so that your portal became the most sought after transition in the galaxy?”

  “That is nonsense.”

  “I’m talking about an unending stream of vessels from all over, queuing up and waiting their turn in line to fly in and out of your portal, each one paying for the privilege of doing so. What would that be worth to you? What if I could cause you to become a legend throughout all of Cliveden space?”

  “I will not engage in fantasy.”

  “Think
of it as speculation. What do you have that you could trade to make that happen?”

  “To move from my current level of status to the heights that you describe… there is nothing I possess that comes near the cost of such a thing.”

  “Then this is your lucky day, Srin, because I have a deal for you.”

  “A deal?”

  “Yep.”

  “What kind of deal?”

  “One that creates an opportunity for you to secure a mate and thus an heir and preserves Cliveden society as it currently is. And along the way both your personal status and wealth will skyrocket.”

  “And what must I do to make this happen?”

  “Almost nothing. Just… go home.”

  “Go home?”

  “Use your portal. Take your ship — I assume you have one tucked away in the forest — and leave this system. But be sure to pack everything you want, because you won’t be returning. Ever.”

  “And what will you be doing?”

  “I’ll be right behind you, following you through. And less than a day later, everything you want will be rushing your way.”

  “Let us assume that you can work this miracle. It is clearly a ploy for you to claim this moon for your own.”

  “You won’t miss it.”

  “Perhaps, perhaps not. What is to stop me from returning and reasserting my claim?”

  Gel smiled. “I’ve learned a thing or two about miracles. Those who can deliver them can also take them away. But I’m not worried. You won’t renege on our arrangement once you see what I can bring.”