Alien Assassin: Assassin Series, #2

By T. Jackson King

Al Lancaster discovers that defeating the Messiah plasma Alien did not end his troubles in Markan star system as the only Human fighting to survive among thousands of Aliens. He narrowly escapes death by laser at the opening of a memory crystal library on Thixen only to discover that a greedy Alien has unleashed a ‘mind virus’ that turns people who use memcrystals into violent psychotics! Then his lifemate Delo and their Dino babies are nearly killed by the mind virus crime syndicate. Al vows an Honor Fight to eliminate the Alien who threatens the lives of everyone in Markan, but finds his own Guild of Assassins unwilling to help him. Al soon faces an ultimate battle against the praying mantis-like Ketchetkeel Aliens who are somehow linked to the mind virus. He may die. Delo may die. But the mind virus must be killed before the A.I. algors in Markan eliminate every lifeform as a means of protecting themselves from insanity infection!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wilder Publications Inc.
• Release date: Aug 18, 2014
• ISBN: 9781617206542

T. Jackson King

T. Jackson King (Tom) is a professional archaeologist and journalist. He writes hard science fiction, anthropological scifi, dark fantasy/horror and contemporary fantasy/magic realism--but that didn't begin until he was 38. Before then, college years spent in Paris and in Tokyo led Tom into antiwar activism, hanging out with some Japanese hippies and learning how often governments lie to their citizens. The latter lesson led him and a college buddy to publish the Shinjuku Sutra English language underground tabloid in Japan in 1967. That was followed by helping shut down the UT Knoxville campus in 1968 and a bus trip to Washington D.C. for the Second March on Washington where thousands demanded an end to the Vietnam War. Temporary sanity returned when Tom worked in a radiocarbon lab at UC Riverside and earned an MA degree in archaeology from UCLA. His interests in ancient history, ancient cultures and journalism got him several government agency jobs that paid the bills, led him to roam the raw landscape of the Western United States, and helped him raise three kids. A funny thing happened on the way to normality. By the time he was 38 and doing federal arky work in Colorado, Tom's first novel STAR TRADERS was a stage play in his head that wouldn't go away. So he wrote it down. It got rejected. His next novel was published as RETREAD SHOP (Warner Books, 1988). It was off to the writing races and Tom's many voyages of imaginative discovery have led to 23 published novels, a book of poetry, and a conviction that when humans reach the stars, we will find them crowded with space-going aliens. We will be the New Kids On The Block. This theme appears in much of Tom's short fiction and novel writing. Tom lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. His other writings can be viewed at http://www.tjacksonking.com.

Book preview

By T. Jackson King

Other King Novels

Human Assassin (forthcoming), Alien Vigilante (forthcoming), Touch Team (forthcoming), The Memory Singer (2014), Anarchate Vigilante (2014), Galactic Vigilante (2013), Nebula Vigilante (2013), Speaker To Aliens (2013), Galactic Avatar (2013), Stellar Assassin (2013), Retread Shop (2012, 1988), Star Vigilante (2012), The Gaean Enchantment (2012), Little Brother’s World (2010), Judgment Day And Other Dreams (2009), Ancestor’s World (1996).

Dedication

To my special friend, Susan Kinkead, whose bright glow-smile illuminates my life and my spirit.

Acknowledgments

First thanks go to Linell Jeppsen and Alicia Solomon who served as First Readers. Second thanks go to military SF authors David Drake, William Dietz and John Brunner who showed me that exploring social themes in the combat milieu was possible. Finally, the novels of Northern Ireland author James White, with his focus on Alien species in his Sector General novels, were the inspiration for many of the Aliens explored here.

ALIEN ASSASSIN

© 2014 T. Jackson King

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except for brief quotations for review purposes only.

Cover image by Luca Oleastri, licensed by Dreamstime.com; back image of Carina Nebula, courtesy of Hubble Space Telescope; cover design by T. Jackson King.

Published by T. Jackson King

Los Alamos, NM 87544

http://www.tjacksonking.com

ISBN 10:  978-1-61720-654-2

ISBN 13:  1-61720-654-7

Printed in the United States of America

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Alastair MacDougal Lancaster—omnivore, predator, Human species, Family sociotype, Xenosapientologist-Archaeologist on The Great Khan starship. Born in County Donegal, northern Ireland, resident of a Catholic ghetto in Belfast, cross-trained in nursing and military science, Technological culture.

Delo Quar Anken—carnivore, predator, Norge species, Clan sociotype, Courier Second Class to Ketchetkeel aliens, red-furred humanoid female with clawnails and toeclaws, yellow eyes, vision into infrared range, non-Technological culture.

Dino babies—offspring of Seranaum, an omnivore predator of the Sok-Ah species, Matriarchy sociotype, facilitator-absorber culture. Like their mother, each dino is a two-legged, dinosaur-like reptile with forearms and whiptail, red tendril-eyes clustered about the mouth, with red and blue colored scales. They are fast, deadly and part of Al Lancaster’s ‘family’.

Hik Sal-manken—omnivore, predator, Chu-Sen species, Brood sociotype, Master Assassin, ten-legged lobster-crab with five blue eye-stalks and three pairs of manipulator antennae, air and water-breathing amphibian, Technological culture.

Elinay—carnivore, predator, Tellen species, Territorial sociotype, educator, telepathic across species, bear-like alien with white patches on black fur, facilitator-absorber, non-Technological culture.

Chin Ling—photovore, non-predator, Dekan species, Bud-Off sociotype, informant, purple-leaved mobile bush with grey branches and trunk, empathic with EM field perception, Non-Technological culture.

Clorel—omnivore, predator, Dorsellien species, Herd sociotype, Proficient Assassin, cloud-dwelling manta ray with grey skin, two black eyes, barbed whiptail, telekinetic mind abilities, Mentic culture.

PROLOGUE

Al Lancaster is a shipwrecked tech scavenger who wakes up from Suspense on the auction block of Hercules Station in the alien-run Markan star system, light years distant from Earth. The only human in a star-traveling galactic culture where ancient Guilds of Trade, Assassins and Spies train people to serve alien masters, Al finds that survival depends on his human predatory instincts. He becomes an industrial thief, bounty hunter and sometimes hit man for alien merchants, a job that deeply troubles him as a Zen Buddhist. Hope flares briefly when he falls in love with the alien cat-woman Delo Quar Anken. But then Markan system is attacked by the Messiah of Death, a plasma cloud alien that literally cannot be killed. Al manages to defeat the Messiah, and a separate conspiracy led by Mok slimesnakes, Gordin starfish and Jaksen insect aliens to supplant the rule of Markan by the praying mantis-like Ketchetkeel aliens. But defeating the two conspiracies makes Al the heir to further problems among the 42 alien species which inhabit Markan star system, a place located 85 light years from Earth. As the only Human in Markan, Al finds he must ‘adapt or die’ in the most basic way possible. He does this by studying Memory Crystals in the alien version of a library. The memcrystals contain the memories of alien experts in all fields. They are the only thing that is ‘free’ in a galactic Trade culture focused on ‘paying for what you get’. But alien memories are weird, even if some of them act as an aphrodisiac for mobile bush aliens like Al’s buddy Chin Ling. Other aliens use memcrystals as a barter currency that is used in Trade to obtain goods and services. And to pay workers in industries where robots cannot do all that is required. Markan system is a strange, exotic and alien-run star culture where beings compete for status, power, riches and control. And with the Messiah alien now gone, Al finds the ‘normal society’ of Markan to be nearly as deadly as that plasma being.

CHAPTER ONE

The red laser beam missed Al’s head by sheer millimeters.

On instinct he threw knives at the distant form of a Tet biped whose orange skin quickly sprouted two glass knives, two bronze knives from his lifemate Delo and a metal dart. The dart had been telekinetically thrown by Clorel the cloud-dweller manta ray, a fellow Assassin who floated above the dozens of aliens gathered inside the Library Repository.

Death to you alllll! cried the Tet alien as it toppled backward onto its thick tail as ultrasonic disruptor blasts vaporized its two arms and two legs, thanks to fellow members of Al’s Guild of Assassins who defended their leader. The Tet’s head showed the blue mesh of a memorynet machine.

His translator bracelet stuttered as dozens of aliens began talking, projecting radar emissions and changing skin color. Then it went straight to a high toned whistle as its basic molecular memory circuits were overloaded.

With a deep breath he jumped up onto the half circle of memorynet cubicle readouts and control panels behind which stood the new Librarian, a Mycron herbivore who resembled a giraffe with twelve legs. Al leveled his disruptor tribarrel at the distant clusters of memorynet cubicles and shouted.

"Everyone in the cubicles! Detach your neurolink and exit your cubicle! You have one niam before your cubicle is destroyed."

Al’s translated words bounced off the glass walls of the Library Repository that stood next to the central Administrator tower of Thixen Port, on the moon Thixen in star system Markan, 85 light years from long lost Earth.

Aliens of all shapes and forms scurried, flopped, flew and hopped out of the memorynet cubicles, the one place where every lifeform could get something for free—education. The former Librarian had died during an attack on the Repository by Mok slimesnakes and Gordin starfishes during the effort by them and the Jaksen insectoids to take control of Markan system from the Ketchetkeel overlords who controlled fuel and stardrive engine repairs. Al had a thought he had not had in a long time—who was trying to kill him?

Alastair, snarled Delo as his red-furred cat-woman crouched below him, her attention focused on the fallen Tet who resembled a walking salamander. Any sign of other attackers?

Al heard nothing over his tachpulse signaler or his helmet comlink, though the several hundred alien lifeforms who had gathered to celebrate the reopening of the memory crystal Repository were looking around frantically for a way to leave a suddenly dangerous location. He tapped his chest to activate the laser reflective sapphire crystal coating that covered his body armor.

No other attackers, he said to Delo, then used lyol fingertalk to tell his fellow Assassins to move to Alert status from Attack mode. Clorel, he called to the airborne manta ray whose telekinetic abilities made a supersonic dart strike by Clorel a guaranteed hit. Please join with Eight Hive Blue in maintaining aerial surveillance of this chamber. He gave an alpha wave pulse to the neurolink patch on his left temple, switching on the gravbelt that now lifted him into the air as he flew toward the fallen Tet creature. With his disruptor on his back, a knife in his left hand and a laser wand in his right, he took control of the disturbed crowd. All lifeforms! Remain in place until the fallen attacker is removed. Then the celebration will continue! With free drink and food available to all lifeforms who sign up as Repository users!

Behind him moved other members of his Assassins cohort while Delo scrambled over the Librarian’s control panels and readout blocks, her clawnails and toeclaws flashing through the air to motivate Repository patrons to move out of her way. He grinned. Her Norge heritage that required her to engage in an Honor Fight was something he’d long loved. Along with her choice to call him her ‘nest-love’, even as their lives became complicated by five newborn dino babies who had hatched from the eggs of Seranaum, the whiptailed alien dino who had fought with him, Delo and their allies during the recent battle for control of Markan system. 

Why . . . what— gurgled the harsh voice of the Tet alien as it lay on the Library’s stone floor, its severed limbs gushing yellow blood.

Al flared his laser wand’s beam over the two arm and two leg stumps, hoping the Tet would survive long enough for him to question it. But the metal dart embedded in its upper chest had collapsed one of its two lungs, while his and Delo’s knives studded its abdomen and right neck. It bled from every wound. Its orange eyes with yellow pupils blinked almost like a human, as if in shock from more than pain.

Why did you try to kill me! Al said in Trade-talk.

Kill you? gurgled the Tet as yellow blood flowed from its sharp-toothed mouth. Its eyes blinked again, but slower, as if it were losing consciousness. Was . . . just perceiving . . . a memcrystal on Trade history of Orion . . . Arm, it said in a staccato language quickly converted to English by his translator bracelet.

Al pointed his glass knife at the laser wand lying a meter away. Lying nearby were the remnants of the alien hand that had held it. Liar!

The chiming of leaves sounded from nearby. "Assassin Lancaster, it feels like the Tet speaks truly."

Al straightened up from his crouch over the shivering form of the Tet salamander and saw that his old ally Chin Ling the photovore bush was part of the celebration crowd. Explain! he said as Clorel hovered above them, joined by the dragonfly-like form of Eight Hive Blue. To his right stood Delo, dressed in a green tunic that left her arms and legs bare. Her right hand held a laser wand pointed at the dying Tet, while the short red fur on her neck stood stiff in predatory alertness.

The purple leaves of Chin Ling chimed as the grey limbed bush floated on a maglev disk. Its prehensile branches fluttered as it talked. "Recall I am an empath? I feel its feelings. There is no deception within its mind. No sign of anger. Only confusion at why it is lying here, dying from wounds it does not recall receiving."

Al stood back from the shivering body of the Tet, aware that his other Assassin allies had quieted the gathered crowd and were herding them toward floater tables laden with drink, dead food, even living food for those carnivores that insisted on live capture of their food. The herbivore Librarian had recovered from the violence of the attack on Al and his counter response. Its band of red eyes that spiraled along its tall neck were focused on aliens from the many Trade houses, Guilds and private contractors who lived and worked at Thixen Port. He struggled with what to do next. Finish killing the Tet? Interrogate it further here? Put it in a Suspense tube to keep it from dying? The options—

Can I assist? rumbled a deep throaty voice from behind Al.

He almost went into the unknowing stance that made him such a deadly Assassin, but held back as he saw a Tellen biped standing quietly, its two clawed hands clasped over the belly of an alien who resembled a giant Kodiak bear from ancient Earth. Only this alien’s black fur sported white patches, while amiable intelligence shone from its four hazel eyes. Eyes that greatly resembled those of Al and Delo. While its sharp-toothed muzzle looked fearsome, the mood of the alien was peaceful. Even Delo, who turned swiftly to face the alien, seemed to recognize its peaceful nature. He nodded at the Tellen, recalling that its species shared that body language ‘greeting’ habit with humans.

Hello. I am Al Lancaster, omnivore, predator, Human species and D-L foodchain, he said, offering the standard ID common within the 47th Florescence galactic culture that set the rules for how spacegoing species related to one another. Also, a Master Assassin of the Guild of Assassins. How can you help?

The Tellen, who overtopped Delo by nearly a meter, looked down at the Tet salamander. The shivering and autonomic movement of the alien had slowed. Your assailant is dying. But the statement of the Dekan plant person is accurate. I perceive only confusion within the mind of this Tet biped. It does not recall the attack on you that I and others saw it perform.

Al blinked. You are telepathic? That is rare in the Florescence.

I am, the Tellen bear said. My name-sigil is Elinay, carnivore predator of the Tellen species and also D-L foodchain. Our culture is facilitator-absorber. And until we were contacted long cycles ago by a Florescence Touch Ship, we thought ourselves alone in the galaxy. But we Tellen knew each other by way of mindtouch from our early years. Something that is as normal to us as acoustic speech is to you and your Norge ally.

Thank you, Elinay. Al looked down at the Tet. Its orange eyes had closed and its breathing seemed labored. Should we call a Suspense capsule tech to preserve its life?

Noooo, said Elinay in a low rumble. Its lifeforce is fading quickly. But my survey of its surface thoughts shows it entered this memorynet cubicle just moments ago, perched on the stool that supports bipeds, put on the memorynet cranial mesh and entered mindtouch with the yellow memory crystal that is still locked into the machine. The Tellen bear blinked, gave a sharp gasp, then stepped back as its fingerclaws extruded themselves.

What! said Al, looking down at the Tet.

Its mind! barked Elinay. It carries a . . . a virus string similar to that which can infect simple computation machines. That virus caused its violent action! The virus is simple. It tells the brain to be violent toward anyone nearby. The Tellen’s fingerclaws receded. But the virus requires a living host. And it is . . .  now gone.

Al saw the Tet’s body go still. It breathed not. Its eyelids moved not. The knife wounds bled less. His vision upgrade that allowed him to see infrared, ultraviolet and microwave emissions told him that the body heat of the alien was fading. The Tet who had attacked him was now dead. He turned toward the Librarian. One of the Mycron herbivore’s eye-bands caught his look. The giraffe-like alien turned on its six pairs of legs and headed toward him.

Librarian! he called as he strode toward it. The Tet alien who attacked me is dead. But a nearby telepath says its mind was infected by some kind of virus. Something that overrode its mind and made it attack me. Were your memorynet machines subject to control by unknown persons during the recent war?

The Mycron giraffe fluttered its neck tendrils in a sign of departure to local officials and moved toward Al, its hooves clattering on the stone of the Repository floor. The red eye-bands that adorned its neck fixed on him, on Delo, on the flying forms of Clorel and Eight Hive Blue, and on the two Ketchetkeel Acolyte Assassins who belonged to his School of No Difference philosophy. Its horse-like mouth opened.

Every public facility was subject to Mok or Gordin influence when they displaced the Ketchetkeel administrators of Thixen Port, it said in a whistle speech translated by his bracelet. You know that. You and your Assassin cohort defeated their effort to occupy this Repository. My ancestor died while defending the Herd of library users present during the attack.

Al ignored Delo’s ear-tip query that alerted him to the imminent arrival of Thixen civil police. Of course I recall that episode, Al said testily, not eager at the likely demand for an interrogation of him by Thixen civil authorities. The Tet caught a mind virus while using the memorynet cubicle. Either the memcrystal itself, or the memorynet machine, is infected with this mind virus.

A memcrystal mind virus! hooted the Librarian in alarm, its blue scaled skin growing pale from its emotions.

Or a machine virus, Al cautioned, feeling disgust at any alien who would damage the key means by which one alien could understand another alien. Memory crystals and memorynet machines were vital to interstellar Trade, to diplomacy and to the employment of diverse aliens within a mercantile business.

All twelve eyes of the Mycron blinked in shock. What? How? But such mind viruses have never existed within Markan system, or anywhere within the Ketchetkeel Sector. How did one come to be here, on Thixen?

A good question, Al said. Perhaps the Guild of Spies can find an answer. Until then, I urge you to shut down every memorynet machine in the library until each machine can be inspected for software mind viruses that can jump into the minds of memcrystal readers.

Shut down the Library!

Al winced at the shrillness of the herbivore’s whistle speech. Already  a dozen nearby aliens looked their way.  Expressions of concern were visible on those aliens with faces that could express emotion.He waved at the Tellen alien to follow him, Chin Ling and Delo as they headed for the tubeway that led outside to the landing pad and their air skimmer.

Only until each machine is checked by a neurotech, Al yelled back to the Mycron. And make prayers to whatever deity you honor that other memcrystal libraries in Markan system are not similarly infected!

Turning away from the twelve-legged herbivore he headed for the elevated tubeway that gave access to the Library Repository. At the tubeway exit lay the landing pad where his air skimmer awaited him, Delo and his Team of eleven assassins. His helmet’s Heads-Up display showed Delo covering the rear of their line, her predator alertness a delight to see. While her Norge body form suggested a cat-like heritage, Delo’s sharing of their culture history had taught him to appreciate the Clan-based matriarchy that was how her people related to life and the future. A future that included a hoped-for colony world in Sagittarius-Carina Arm once their single colony ship arrived there after decades of transit from Perseus Arm.

She was different from his dead lover Bismillah, but just as strong, just as smart and just as loyal as his former ship captain. And Delo loved to sit on the rocks beside Porlettle Bay and watch Darklight sweep in as the planet Sorel moved between the star Markan and the moon Thixen, cutting off daylight for a third of a day. It was an experience almost as unique as his memory of the redwood trees near Sausalito on old Earth, or the Giant’s Causeway on the northeast coast of ancient Ireland. His former home. Now lost to the years spent traveling sublight from Earth outward to stars occupied by the aliens of the 47th Florescence galactic culture. No other humans lived in Markan system or were nearby. Just Al. Whose family consisted of a red-furred cat-woman and five tiny dino babies who loved to wreck their habitat at the Guild outstation. He smiled to himself as he entered the mid-body hatch of the skimmer and headed for the pilot globe. He had a wife and kids and a life worth protecting from alien pirates who sought power and riches by endangering the one thing free to all lifeforms. He made an inner vow to defeat this threat no matter the cost!

––––––––

Delo followed after Al and the other members of his Assassins cohort, her ears alert for the swish of silent assailants who might take advantage of the very public reopening of the Library Repository. She’d recovered her bronze knives from the Tet’s body, as Al recovered his own glass knives, but she kept scanning the tubeway they walked through as if an enemy might suddenly materialize.

It had been a difficult year since the defeat of the Mok-Gordin-Jaksen combine. Despite the efforts of their Master Spy ally Nitso Hank, the Guild of Spies on Disen moon had pulled back from cooperation with Al’s Guild of Assassins on Thixen. The Ketchetkeel arthropods who had built Hercules Station in the dark space beyond Markan system’s outermost planet were stubbornly resisting the station’s takeover by the Mokelian devil-bats, the aliens native to this system who lived on a sulphur-atmosphered planet they called Cloudhome. The undercaste workers on Shishkak moon and on Hercules Station had staged several work stoppages to secure better barter wages and fewer work hours. And the surviving Mok slimesnakes and Gordin methane breathers were resuming their traditional roles in mercenary work and food supplies, albeit under the monitoring of the Guild of Assassins. She sighed, eyes blinking as their group came out of the tubeway into the white light of Markan’s F2 main sequence star.

Mistress, chimed the purple leaves of Chin Ling. May I reside with you in the bubble of the pilot cabin? For the light?

She stuck her tongue out and flattened her pointed ears in amusement, then recalled the Dekan might not understand how Norge showed humor. You may occupy the space behind my co-pilot seat. But say nothing as we return to our home at the Guild outstation on Porlettle Bay. Understood!

Understood! it chimed back. Uh, do you think this mind virus has affected the Parlors?

She gestured for the bush to enter the mid-body entry of their suborbital air skimmer, turning her back to the skimmer’s entry ramp as she scanned the nearby Administrator skyrise. Not likely, or I’m sure you would have heard about it from one of your fellow Dekans!

The bush floated up the metal entry ramp on its maglev disk, silent for once. She felt bemusement at how its species was willing to pay barter money for the experience of reading alien memories as a form of erotic stimulation. Access to memory crystals had always been free in the Forty-Seventh Florescence galactic culture that ruled Trade and interstellar colonization among the stars. But some alien cultures saw that as ‘sinful’, a word she had not understood until her nest-love Alastair had explained organized religion to her.

Delo backed slowly up the entry ramp, her laser wand sweeping the air ahead, acting as her Norge ancestors had always behaved on their planet Truehome—before their star Huntlight went nova and destroyed most Norge. Now their single colony ship moved inward toward Sagittarius-Carina Arm. But several Norge Clans had joined her in visiting Markan system. They all sought a way to build barter credits for the future benefit of their people when a colony world was found and claimed. Until then, they served others. Just as she served as a Courier Second Class for the Ketchetkeel arthropods.

The hull portal closed before her and Delo walked swiftly to the forward pilot globe, seating herself to the right of Alastair. Her Human lover. Her battle ally. And the male who might become the father of her future children. If she could gain the approval of her Clan Mothers. He looked at her, his ringlets of red hair a nice imitation of the smooth red fur every Norge was born with. His lips quirked up in the half-smile that seemed to be a Human’s way of showing sardonic bemusement.

Never a dull day, my love?

She smiled back at him Human style. Who would wish for a dull life? And remember, when we arrive home at the outstation, it is your turn to feed our dino babies.

Her nest-love grimaced, then turned to focus on the open sky as the skimmer’s autopilot lifted them high into the air. An Assassin’s work is never done.

She barked Norge style, then chuckled in the Human manner. It could be worse. At their age your Human babies need to have refuse pads changed. Our dino babies automatically use our habitat’s refuse pit.

True, he grunted as his pink fingers took control of the suborbital skimmer from the highly capable Navbrain. Very true. I just had not realized how much of a challenge it would be when I promised Seranaum that I would ‘protect’ her eggs until another Sok-Ah female visited Markan system. They hatched too soon!

Soon enough for me, she said in simple Norge. Norge culture is matriarchal, as you learned when you met Clan Megul last year. She paused, feeling sudden sadness at the fighting deaths of those Norge who had responded to a cry for help from the native Mokelians.

Hey, Alastair said, touching her chin with one hand. Cheer up. We have a home together, a family to raise and plenty of industrial spy work for me!

True. But this mind virus insanity threat could take over Markan system, she said, reliving the depth of the threat she and her lifemate had just experienced.

Too true. Which is why I will seek its source and destroy it!

You will have my help. And likely the help of our recent allies, she said, then looked around, needing a distraction from this new disaster.

Delo ignored the talkative chiming of Chin Ling behind her, and fixed her gaze on the Blackened Hills that rose above the central Administrator complex of Thixen Port. The skyrises and elevated transit tubes seemed terribly boastful. But there was beauty in the interlacing transit tubes, in the half-domes bulging from the sides of some buildings, in the black lava rock used to sheath the sides of many buildings, and in the brown-tinted glass curtain walls that soared up the sides of many buildings for fifty, sixty or seventy levels. Through the midst of this urbus they flew. Then her Alastair moved the Guild skimmer into a sub-orbital arc as they made for their home one-third of the way around the giant moon that orbited the gas giant Sorel, number eleven in Markan’s system of twelve planets, three asteroid belts and dozens of moons. She had spent most of her life on the moon Disen, which orbited the nearby planet ten. Now, this Thixen moon was the place of her future. A future that included her nest-love’s allies. She flattened her ears in bemusement at how she’d come to be involved with a being who counted among his acquaintances a sarcastic algor computer named Gorlanien, a purple-leaved sex-fiend bush who rested behind her, a deadly crustacean Master Assassin, and who knew what else? Only in Markan system!

––––––––

He ground his sharp teeth at the tachpulse news from Thixen that its central memory crystal Repository had closed suddenly for technical repairs. The news commentator spoke in the Belizel trade tongue and with lyol fingertalk for those viewers who did not understand acoustic language.

Yes! His strike against the Guilds and Trade houses that had supported the Ketchetkeel during the recent civil war had now begun. The greedy merchants who relied on memory crystals as barter exchange currency would soon be undermined as public suspicion over the safety of memcrystals spread. And the cursed Human biped who had defied his control of Hercules Station had almost been killed by the first alien to succumb to the mind virus which his agents had implanted in the Repository memorynet machine. Sad that the Human still lived. But he knew its curiosity would take it on a hunt for the answer to the appearance of the mind virus. A hunt he planned to make very deadly for the Lancaster being.

Inspecting his form before a reflective panel, he considered