Erin's Sword: Book One: Purgatory

By Chris Blake

A sci-fi murder mystery in the 31st century.
In the future humanity has spread throughout the universe in a Golden Age technology, exploration and co-operation between the various forms of consciousness. In an era of benign diversity and tolerance a way has been found for artificial intelligences, androids, mechanised sentients (mekanoids), genetically engineered humanoids and natural humans to co-exist together, but there are inevitable tensions because the Right to Life Party has insisted on an intrinsic bias towards natural evolution from the outset.
At the tail end of a devastating war an acolyte has been sent to a redundant prison planet. As part of his novitiate he has been apprenticed to Commander-General Erinei du B'lanche, erstwhile military leader and First Sword of the Confederation of United Intelligences, but now at the end of hostilities reduced to a token supervisor of the prison. The planet is in caretaker mode, in virtual shutdown, with only a skeleton staff to oversee basic maintenance. A series of killings shocks the remaining personnel. These officers are a complement of genetically engineered humanoids (Jenes), and their society is rigidly controlled by gene editing and a law code known as the Principles. Selected genes dedicated to aggression have been eradicated, and strict behavioural conditioning is mandated through compulsory social childcare. Murder is regarded as impossible in their culture. Yet it appears to have happened, and the acolyte is caught up in the investigation. He joins a team led by du B'lanche, which has to cross a planet in lockdown to try to identify and neutralise the culprit. But the way is fraught with danger, both from the past and the present, and the acolyte is forced to confront the legitimacy of his culture and his own version of ethics and history. Nothing is as it seems, but the truth might set him free, if he can trust himself to follow one of the greatest military strategists of all time.
The start of an odyssey into the future of consciousness, and responsibility, where molecular computers can turn the virtual into reality, and holographs into action.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chris Blake
• Release date: Jun 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463321188

Chris Blake

Chris Blake lives in the South West, not far from Tintagel Castle, rumoured to be the home of King Arthur. Ever since he was a little boy Chris has always dreamed about travelling through time. He likes watching Doctor Who and looks forward to the day that time-travel is possible as he’d love to visit all the places in his books. In the meantime Chris will keep writing his own adventures. Chris has an old black cat called Merlin.

Book preview

Erin’s Sword

BOOK ONE:

Purgatory:

Prison Planet of the

Confederation of United Intelligences

Published by Chris Blake at Smashwords

Text Copyright 2019 Chris Blake

All rights reserved.

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Table of Contents

Book One: Purgatory - Prison Planet of the Confederation

Prologue

Chapter 1. The First Principle

Chapter 2. The Second Principle

Chapter 3. The Third Principle

Chapter 4. The Fourth Principle

Chapter 5. The Fifth Principle

Chapter 6. The Codicil

Chapter 7. The Forfeit

Chapter 8. The Amendments

Chapter 9. The Confessional

Chapter 10. Soaring for the heights

Chapter 11. The override

Chapter 12. The road to Terminus

Chapter 13. Preparations for the overland

Chapter 14. The journey begins

Chapter 15. Ever onward

Chapter 16. On the shores of the volcano

Chapter 17. Across the lake

Chapter 18. Into the catacombs

Chapter 19. A dearth of water

Chapter 20. Toadstools or mushrooms?

Chapter 21. Jed's journey

Chapter 22. The transporter

Chapter 23. Terminus

Chapter 24. The Medical Examiner's mission

Chapter 25. A ship awaits

Chapter 26. The Medical Examiner's charge

Free sample chapters of the sequel

Book Two: Destiny

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Prologue

This is the introduction to a mystery, set in the future.

It is said that in the Third Millennium of the Old Calendar, our ancestors left their birth system forever, to voyage into New Space. We know not whence they came, nor indeed why. The science of their epic journeys is lost, along with many marvels of their greatness. All that remains are their broken artefacts throughout our galaxy, and of course ourselves, their offspring. They have left us constructs of their constellations, celestial maps of their stars, but no co-ordinates from our galaxy back to theirs. One of many of our myths is that they fractured the boundaries of Time and Space, to come here to Home Galaxy, Haven as we call it, our quadrant in the known universe. Although we cannot know their motives, we cannot doubt their courage, for they must have known they had no way back. We can only imagine the reasons that encouraged them to take such risks. We do know that here they created a Golden Age of technology, exploration and co-operation between the various forms of consciousness, and in an era of benign diversity and tolerance managed to legislate a way for all to co-exist together in harmony. But their attempt at paradise broke down into a centuries long conflict, and now the ruins of their civilisation litter the space ways to haunt our waking dreams and ask the abiding question: do we carry the seeds of our own destruction?

With the dawn of the Second Millennium of the New Calendar, came the official end to the Dark Ages of the Rifer Interregnum, and once again hope of everlasting peace. Some of the greatest sagas of this time are from the chronicles of the Confederation of United Intelligences. This was an amorphous group of artificial intelligences, mekanoids and of course the Jene Alliance, the union of various types of genetically engineered humans. They were all signatories to the Gene Convention, which encoded the Principles as the basis of a judicial programme for just and equitable social conditioning. High Summoner Erinei du B’lanche was their Commander and First Sword, and architect of their final victory in their enduring struggle against injustice. Following the destruction of Sanctuary, it is said that she requested respite from all the long years of attrition. Here that follows is the second part of her story, commonly known as ‘Erin’s Sword’.

It is the story of a murder. It is not for the faint-hearted.

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Chapter 1. The First Principle

The earliest recorded examples of the Principles are found in surviving fragments of the Law Code of the Creators. Thou shalt not kill is the oldest.

This is presumed to have evolved into the First Principle:

1. No artificial life-form or genetically altered human shall take human life.

The Acolyte watched her closely, his photographic memory recording meticulously every detail and minutiae of her behaviour. Selected for this genetic predisposition, his training and accreditation gave his observations legal status. Her white windswept hair whispered in the breeze, cloaking her pale face in subtle movement. He could not see her expression behind her respirator, but he presumed she’d be concerned. They all were. The tension had been building steadily, until it was almost bordering on panic. There had been three unexplained disappearances in as many months, but this was the first body that had surfaced. In a way that gave some sense of relief, for at least now there was something tangible to focus on, something that might at last give them some clues about what was happening to them. At her feet the corpse seemed shrunken somehow in its uniform, the loose folds of clothing beginning to ripple in the wind. The Investigating Officer beside the Acolyte was growing extremely agitated. Then the senior vestal nearest to her leaned across her, muttering urgently, The wind is rising First Sword, a storm is coming, we must take shelter.

Don’t call me that, she spoke softly, my rank is Commander, and my nomen B’lanche. We do not stand on formality; the war is over.

But it was pointless, the Acolyte thought, they all worshipped her, even he, who was sent only to spy and report. Endless reports, a continuous stream of trivia about her every movement, every nuance of her behaviour that technology might overlook or misinterpret, transmitted every night back to the headquarters of the Institute. Technically he had been assigned to her as a novice, as one of the many steps in his long apprenticeship, but his orders were clearly to watch her, Commander-General Erinei du B’lanche, of the High Summoners of the Institute, hero of the Last Battle of the Quincentennial Wars, and the architect of the final destruction of Sanctuary. She was an albino, a rare almost unique throwback in this culture of advanced genetic design. She was classically beautiful, still quite striking, despite her age. In a time of genetic perfection her colouration made her outstanding. Her pale features contrasted starkly with the subtlety of the uniform of her office. The clothing was chameleonic, the base colour an indiscriminate blue or a dull grey that blended into the background of shadow where her profession chose to operate. When she came into the light the chromotropic weave shifted to mimic the spectrum of brightness that now enveloped her. The weave was a lost secret, its origins and formula vanished eons ago with the cataclysmic collapse of the Old Civilisation. It was said that there was a supply stored in the deep cellars under the Summoning Seminary on Citadel, but the quantity of it was hidden from the public domain, its extent unpublished. However, Summoners were long-lived and few, so it was assumed that the stores would last till they were no longer needed. The intent of the uniform was of course compromised by her albinism, which inevitably concentrated the gaze on her ruby eyes set in the graveyard pallor of a disembodied head framed by a halo of white hair. She was not one who could sit unnoticed and unremarked in the background. The uniform’s only adornments were the death’s-head insignias on the lapels, and the ceremonial blade sheathed at her side. The blade itself was small, in the style of a simple dagger from the old history, though of course such primitive weaponry was long obsolete. The Acolyte did not know much about its significance, except that all Summoners carried one. By the lines of its simple cross-hilts it conveyed the shape of a crucifix. It was a topic that had been censored and questions were not encouraged, but he had heard rumours that the blade was so sharp that it could easily be pushed into any surface. Thus, a Summoner could always set up a simple altar if exigencies constrained them; not that many now appeared to honour the old ways and resort to prayer. Certainly, he had never seen B’lanche indulge herself in any public devotions, and he doubted that she felt the need in private. She seemed evidently too self-sufficient, apparently immune to the need for approbation of the public or her peers, and she demonstrated none of the trappings of ambition, although she was hailed by the popular media as the people’s hero, because she had finished the centuries long war and finally given them peace.

The Acolyte could not understand what she was doing here, on this isolated prison planet at the edge of nowhere. Purgatory was a hell-hole, a terraformed planet only barely habitable. It was a drab grey wasteland, continually swept by endless storms of corrosive rain. There were hardly any ranges, let alone hills. The relentless erosion over the centuries had rendered the surface almost uniformly featureless and bleak. The surface itself was being eaten away by the unremitting weather. The run-off from the rain washed into steep gullies that fed into poisonous lifeless seas. No vegetation could survive on the surface. The only known organic life lived actually deep inside the rock of the outer core. The humanoids themselves lived in underground shelters carved even deeper in the rock, a labyrinth of cells and galleries linked by a maze of tunnels. The surface buildings at the various Entry & Exit points, and the Space Ports, had to be repaired continuously, because of the insidious destruction of the corroding rain. The Mekanoid Federation had always sent specialised drones built to the toughest specifications as their contribution to the maintenance of Purgatory, but even these wore down and out, albeit slowly in the vicious weather. It was fatal for organic life to go out in the rain. Even in the rare interludes between the storms, humanoids had to wear respirators to prevent internal tissue damage caused by breathing in the acid-laden air. At the height of its use, Purgatory had housed Rifer prisoners in their millions, occupying subterranean cells that spread all under the planet, sometimes in multi-layers and levels. That was in the days when the Confederation still held rigidly to the Principles. B’lanche herself had changed all that. There were no prisoners now. The Rifers were said to be gone from the known universe. Now the prison planet only housed a skeleton staff to maintain the planet’s functioning, with B’lanche as its nominal commander. They were based at Smallport, which had been the entry point for Rifer hierarchs, who were kept in isolation from the general population. The staff jokingly referred to it as the VIP lounge.

For the umpteenth time the Acolyte wondered why they had sent her here, their greatest general. The media had sold it to the populace as Retreat, the ancient ritual of isolation to purge the soul of demons. Their hero was in a voluntary meditation, cleansing her spirit, although no-one had publicly proscribed her. But he had watched her relentlessly now, day in, day out, for months. There was none of the conventional signs of the process of Retreat. No prayers, no devotions, no exercises outside of the regular rigorous programme of the combat training rituals, and most of all no long periods of isolation (though admittedly that would be difficult considering his orders). When she was not exercising, the Commander spent most of her time editing her journals and researching and writing her endless history. The minimal socialisation and relaxation that she allowed herself, was mainly restricted to games of chess with the few on station that could pretend to challenge her. Even with the mounting tension among the staff over the mysterious disappearances, she seemed content. Nothing seemed to distract her from her project. Her only voiced complaint was that of the lack access to genuine research materials. The huge disruptions of the centuries-long Rifer Wars had fragmented or destroyed records and whole bureaucracies. The shared knowledge technologies had largely been corrupted or deleted. The past in many cases seemed irretrievably lost. She had admitted to the Acolyte that there were enormous gaps in her search, information that she needed as background to her history. But this was the only thorn that she seemed to carry. None of the other planetary personnel could understand her patience, her aura of peace. The prevalent theory amongst the staff was that she had been exiled there for political reasons. Someone or perhaps all members of the High Council of the Confederation regarded her as a political threat. With her huge public following, which perversely seemed to be enhanced by her seclusion, she could be elected to probably any position if she should choose to stand, President even. The fact that the Institute was exempt from public office did not seem to matter to these speculators; they were convinced of a conspiracy to exclude her from the mainstream of public life.

The Acolyte watched intently as she knelt beside the body, her concentration seeming to match his own. She had checked over the uniform meticulously, particularly the fasteners. Now she seemed to be focussing on the face, the only exposed area of skin. There was no respirator. The remainder of the corpse was clothed, even the hands, encased in gloves. Nothing made sense. The senior vestal muttered again, more agitated this time. It is all recorded, Milady. We must go. The rain is coming! Minutes now!

I know, she replied calmly, and when it comes, this entire crime scene will be destroyed. Vital evidence irredeemably lost. See how shrunken he is. It is as though the life-force has been sucked out of him. Do you think the techs can record that sort of impression? Can you sense the fear in his face? She stood up and back, and waved the waiting techs over to remove the body, to take it to shelter. She stared vacantly in their direction, her red eyes above the respirator expressionless as always. The wind at her back was building in intensity.

What does she think she is? whispered the Investigating Officer, an Empath?

Who knows truly what she is capable of? muttered the Acolyte, surprising himself. Normally he never commented on anything. His role was to remain in the shadows, never drawing attention to himself. But his observation seemed to reflect the concerns of his masters; perhaps that was why he uttered it.

I don’t even know why she’s here! the Investigator growled even louder through his respirator, it’s not as though it’s even her job.

Shush! hissed the Acolyte, ever the diplomat, trying to silence his companion.

She can’t hear in this wind, said the Investigator.

I would have thought my interest would be obvious, she said focussing on them, her red eyes now pinning them, considering what has gone before. And it is my jurisdiction. I do happen to be responsible.

The Acolyte nodded surreptitiously to himself; he wondered how she did that? He realised that lip-reading was one of her many skills, but that would have been difficult with the barrier of the respirators. It was almost as though she could read minds, but as far as he knew, that was impossible. She came over to join them, humming softly, the senior vestal falling in behind her.

Be my escort back to the Underground, she linked her arm through the Investigator’s, soothing him, working her charm, and walk with me to the Mortuary, and share your thoughts.

The Acolyte noted that despite the bonding of her body language, her eyes remained neutral, seemingly void of feeling.

The Investigator stammered for a moment, and then regained his composure. It is clearly fortuitous, Commander, he said, that we even found the body in this break in the weather. The rain will destroy everything in minutes.

Precisely, she mused, a very interesting point. What do you think it means?

The Investigator seemed to hesitate for a moment. I would like to ascertain cause of death before I speculate, milady, he lapsed. This is the first victim that we have recovered. We can now at least conduct a thorough autopsy. That should in itself dispel some of the rumours. There are no Rifers now on Purgatory. All of our staff is subject to the highest level of Conditioning. The Principles live within us. This death can only be misadventure. It must be accidental. I am positive that the autopsy results will confirm that.

Excuse my intrusion, said the accompanying senior vestal, but I have seen this before, after combat. His soul has been taken.

The Acolyte watched the Investigator shiver. No right mind believed in souls in the Confederation of United Intelligences, the Confeduntel for short. Nor had they for millennia. How could they when their greatest allies were mekans and androids. But the archaic utterances of the heretics still managed to stir superstitions in the deep recesses of humanoid minds.

You are a veteran? the Investigator asked of the guard respectfully.

Yes Sir, saluted the vestal, "I was present with Milady at the Blockade of Sanctuary. I saw the Seraphim