A Fool For A Client

By Shawn Thompson

In A Fool For A Client, Hobie Burrows returns to San Francisco after the conclusion of A Dream Is A Pinhole In Time. Not only does he have to face a future without Keiko, Lott & Pembroke (his old law firm) undermines his plans to practice law as a solo practitioner in San Francisco. Can Tiranoan technology and a wealthy client help him succeed on either account?

A Fool For A Client is a story in The Encircling Belts of Tirano Saga. Planet Tirano creates a unique milieu for the series The Encircling Belts of Tirano Saga. Its aristocracy consists only of pureblooded descendants of the leaders of the mother ship that landed two millennia ago. Genetically engineered women, conceived in vitro, control Tirano’s computer network and hyperspace portals. Vhirko, clones of women who died valiantly in battle, guard Tirano’s monarch. Tirano has been at war for decades with a savage alien species that becomes sentient only if mentally linked in groups of four or more.

Tirano’s King Mhikhel unleashes fundamental, and uncontrollable, changes to this milieu when he acknowledges as his child an illegitimate son of a commoner and raises the child (Tarnlot) as a prince. Despite the aristocracy’s antagonism, Mhikhel grooms Tarnlot to serve as the Lord Chancellor (the highest governmental post, which is normally held by a member of the aristocracy) when Mhikhel’s heir (Prince Zhun’Mar) assumes the throne.

In A Bastard’s Oath Tarnlot must rescue the throne for Zhun’Mar’s by foiling both an aristocrat’s coup d’etat and the aliens’ coup de main. In the series’ second installment, A Dream Is A Pinhole In Time, Tarnlot and Zhun’Mar escape an ambush in deep space by entering a hyperspace fissure that strands them on a planet in an unknown galaxy: present day Earth. The third installment, Outliers of Tirano, begins the stories of Siniastra, Zhun’Mar's daughter. Sibyl of Doom continues the story of Siniastra's quest to serve as Queen of Tirano despite the efforts of Tirano's aristocrats to remove her from the throne.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shawn Thompson
• Release date: Sep 11, 2013

Book preview

HOBART L. BURROWS, III, A LAW CORPORATION

REDUX

A Tale In The Encircling Belts Of Tirano Saga

by Shawn B. Thompson

Copyright 2013 Shawn B. Thompson

Smashwords Edition

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I boarded the plane in Paris relieved that I wouldn't spend the rest of my life in a French prison. But when I stepped off the plane in San Francisco, I found a worse punishment waiting: Never again when I emerge from the concourse would Keiko be standing on her tiptoes looking for me. Never again would I be able to embrace her and kiss her lips. Instead, I would spend the remainder of my life in one universe and she in another, and my son with her. A son I would never see.

By the time the car service dropped me off at my home in Mill Valley, the sun was setting behind the green pinnacle of Mt. Tamalpais. When I was a child the orange glow of the sunset over the mountains always made me happy; it meant Santa's elves were baking cookies. I no longer believed in Santa and his elves, nor could I believe I'd ever be happy again. In the last three weeks I had lost the two things that had defined my existence: my partnership in Lott & Pembroke and the only woman I'd ever loved, Keiko. It only deepened my misery that the night before she left, Keiko told me she was pregnant with our son.

Of those three weeks, I'd spent the last two locked up in a cold cubicle in a French jail. Except for a few catnaps, I couldn't sleep. Who could have in my place? The French cops had accused me of killing six people.

I didn't want to think about any of that misery. I wanted to go to bed and sleep without remembering the nightmare of the last few weeks, so I took two sleeping pills. The little pills worked. Within minutes after I trudged into my house, I collapsed onto my bed's soft duvet.

I slept like a baby until she appeared. Keiko's image hovered like a human-sized Tinker Bell against the background of the blackness of sleep. She wore the vermilion trumpet gown of Tirano's High Sibyl. She was as beautiful as ever with her almond-shaped hazel eyes, enchanting smile on glistening pink lips, and silky black hair with a loose strand curling around one ear. I could even smell the musky perfume she always wore.

Hobie, do you remember the moment before the shuttle left for Tirano when I lifted my pendant to your implant, she said in her lilting accent that emphasized the last syllable of most words.

I remembered the pleasant tingle when she'd touched my implant. She'd promised that we'd be together again someday. My heart beat faster and chased away my three-week long gloom. My wish had somehow been granted. She'd returned.

Her fingers rubbed the fire opal pendant on her trine necklace. I promised you some of Vision's Archives so you could understand why Caykondra the High Sibyl returned to Tirano when Keiko Nidara would never have.

A black void swallowed my joy. You're not back, are you? You're only memories downloaded to my implant. It'll be just like it was with Quincy's implant of his Tarnlot memories. The only time I'll be able to see you is when I'm asleep. I'll only have virtual reality dreams of things from the past.

She gave me a tentative smile. It will be better. My download is interactive. We can discuss anything we want. Like why it's taken you so long to return?

What do you mean?

I set my program to activate when you returned to Mill Valley, but my chronometer shows it's been more than two weeks since I left for Tirano. Where have you been? What happened?

I took a deep breath. It's so complicated I don't know where to start, or if I even want to talk about it right now.

She gave me that half smile that always melted my heart. Please. For me.

You know I can never refuse you when you look at me like that.

She held her smile.

After you left, I turned myself in to the Avignon police.

Her smile faded. Why?

Because of the report Brad and Morgado filed with the police that we'd assaulted them and killed Quant. I knew I'd never get out of France otherwise. And even if I did, the police would track me down in Mill Valley. Since Brad and Morgado weren't around to follow-up and Quant's body would never be found, I figured Zhun'Mar had been correct; that the police would think their report was a hoax and I'd be released in a few hours. I have never been more wrong.

Oh, Hobie. What did they do?

I couldn't believe it at first. They locked me up and accused me not only of killing Quant, but also you, Brad, Morgado, Zhun'Mar, and Mirae. I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life in a French jail.

But you're here now. How did you get out?

I decided my only chance was to tell the truth about what had happened, and they-

Keiko cut me off. The whole truth?

Yeah.

Her eyes widened. You told them that we were aliens?

I nodded.

Whatever possessed you to do that? Keiko's finger wrapped a strand of her hair around her ear. Surely, you had to realize they would never believe you.

"I couldn't think of anything else. One of the first things they asked me was what happened to you and Monsieur and Madame Courtois. I knew that if lied and made up a story that I'd have to pile falsehood on falsehood. Sooner or later I'd stumble and tell some inconsistency they'd exploit to show I wasn't telling the truth. It'd only make it look like I had in fact killed all of you."

I took a deep breath. I've always told my clients to tell the absolute truth when they testify. I decided to follow my own advice and tell the truth no matter how outrageous it seemed.

Keiko shook her head. Oh, Hobie. Sometimes it doesn't hurt to hide the truth. If I had told you a month ago that I was an alien, you wouldn't have believed me. How could you expect them to believe you?

I shrugged my shoulders. "Somehow telling the truth worked. When the gendarmes finished questioning me, they called in three shrinks to interview me. I thought the shrinks were trying to decide if I was insane or a cold-blooded murderer. Even they must have believed me because it turned out the third one, Dr. Michel Avril, was really a cosmologist in the French government. He believed my story that Tarnlot showed me star maps of the fissure's cycle and that you, Zhun'Mar,