The Ancient Girl in the Autopod: Ptolemy Lane Tales, #4

By Cameron Cooper

Serials can't feel emotions as humans do.

Or so Ptolemy Jovan Lane has always insisted.  Yet when he learns that an old friend, Marija, might still be alive, he leaves an unsolved murder behind him in order to dash across the fringes to find her, bringing his human assistant, Ninety-Nine, with him. 

His intention is purely to learn the truth, but his impetuous mission goes swiftly and spectacularly awry, leaving Ninety-Nine and him cut off and at the mercy of an enemy Jovan didn't know he had.

The Ancient Girl in the Autopod is the fourth story and the first full novel in the Ptolemy Lane space opera science fiction series by award-winning SF author Cameron Cooper.

The Ptolemy Lane Tales:
1.0: The Body in the Zero Gee Brothel
2.0: The Captain Who Broke the Rules
3.0: The Maker of Widowmakers' Arm
4.0: The Ancient Girl in the Autopod

Space Opera Science Fiction Novel
__

Praise for the Ptolemy Lane Tales:

Hard-boiled detective meets Mos Eisley cantina

I was pleasantly surprised by the depth of the world building.

A lot of potential for rich, nuanced story telling in this world.

I look forward to seeing more of Ptolemy Lane and others from his world!

I felt like I was in a black and white sci-fi avant-garde movie. Humphrey Bogart is in the background somewhere, smoking a Camel cigarette, or maybe a future Sherlock Holmes.

I have truly enjoyed Cameron's other books, but this one is so very different from all the rest.

Ptolemy Lane is one of the most unique characters I've seen in awhile!

Very interesting, beautifully written, complex story.

Very interesting and imaginative, it's like Cameron has already been there and lived that!

Original and entertaining.

Snappy action with unpredictable characters in a captivating world!

I love this series and can't wait for the next installment

Lane is utterly complex and leaves the reader wanting more.

I actually felt bad for how Ptolemy Lane started his day

This is such a clever story!

A complex world which is presented with mystery , intrigue and entertainment

I find Ninety-Nine a most interesting character
__

Cameron Cooper is the author of the Imperial Hammer series, an Amazon best-selling space opera series. 

Cameron tends to write space opera short stories and novels, but also roams across the science fiction landscape. Cameron was raised on a steady diet of Asimov, Heinlein, Herbert, McCaffrey, and others. Peter F. Hamilton, John Scalzi, Martha Wells and Cory Doctorow are contemporary heroes. An Australian Canadian, Cam lives near the Canadian Rockies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stories Rule Press
• Release date: Aug 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9781774387641

Cameron Cooper

Cameron Cooper is the author of the Imperial Hammer series, an Amazon best-selling space opera series.  Cameron tends to write space opera short stories and novels, but also roams across the science fiction landscape. Cameron was raised on a steady diet of Asimov, Heinlein, Herbert, McCaffrey, and others. Peter F. Hamilton, John Scalzi, Martha Wells and Cory Doctorow are contemporary heroes. An Australian Canadian, Cam lives near the Canadian Rockies.

Book preview

THE ANCIENT GIRL IN THE AUTOPOD

A PTOLEMY LANE TALE

Copyright Information

This is an original publication of Cameron Cooper

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

Copyright © 2022 by Stories Rule Press

Text design by Cask & Sabre Publishing Consultancy

Edited by Mr. Intensity, Mark Posey

Cover design by Dar Albert

http://WickedSmartDesigns.com

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

FIRST EDITION: August 2022

Cooper, Cameron

Fiction, Science Fiction, Space Opera, SF Crime & Mystery, Hardboiled

Special Offer – Free Science Fiction

Space cities have been locked in war for centuries over the resources of an asteroid belt.

Humans pilot swarms of pod fighters to protect their city’s mining operations from other cities, risking everything and suffering multiple deaths and regenerations. Then Landry goes through a regeneration which introduces an error that will destroy the delicate balance of the war.

Resilience is a space opera short story by award-winning SF author Cameron Cooper.

__

Epic science fiction at its finest. Realistic far future worlds. Incredible characters and scenarios. – Amazon reader.

This short story has not been commercially released for sale. It is only available as a gift to readers who subscribe to Cam’s email list.

See details after you have finished The Ancient Girl in the Autopod

Table of Contents

Half Title Page

Copyright Information

Special Offer – Free Science Fiction

About The Ancient Girl in the Autopod

Praise for the Ptolemy Lane Tales

About the Author

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Special Offer – Free Science Fiction

Did you enjoy this book? How to make a big difference!

Other Books by Cameron Cooper

This is a Stories Rule Press title

About The Ancient Girl in the Autopod

Serials can’t feel emotions as humans do.

Or so Ptolemy Jovan Lane has always insisted. Yet when he learns that an old friend, Marija, might still be alive, he leaves an unsolved murder behind him in order to dash across the fringes to find her, bringing his human assistant, Ninety-Nine, with him.

His intention is purely to learn the truth, but his impetuous mission goes swiftly and spectacularly awry, leaving Ninety-Nine and him cut off and at the mercy of an enemy Jovan didn’t know he had.

The Ancient Girl in the Autopod is the fourth story and the first full novel in the Ptolemy Lane space opera science fiction series by award-winning SF author Cameron Cooper.

The Ptolemy Lane Tales:

1.0: The Body in the Zero Gee Brothel

2.0: The Captain Who Broke the Rules

3.0: The Maker of Widowmakers’ Arm

4.0: The Ancient Girl in the Autopod

5.0: The Return of the Peacemaker

Space Opera Science Fiction Novel

Praise for the Ptolemy Lane Tales

Hard-boiled detective meets Mos Eisley cantina

I was pleasantly surprised by the depth of the world building.

A lot of potential for rich, nuanced story telling in this world.

I look forward to seeing more of Ptolemy Lane and others from his world!

I felt like I was in a black and white sci-fi avant-garde movie. Humphrey Bogart is in the background somewhere, smoking a Camel cigarette, or maybe a future Sherlock Holmes.

I have truly enjoyed Cameron's other books, but this one is so very different from all the rest.

Ptolemy Lane is one of the most unique characters I've seen in a while!

Very interesting, beautifully written, complex story.

Very interesting and imaginative, it's like Cameron has already been there and lived that!

Original and entertaining.

Snappy action with unpredictable characters in a captivating world!

I love this series and can’t wait for the next installment

Lane is utterly complex and leaves the reader wanting more.

I actually felt bad for how Ptolemy Lane started his day

This is such a clever story!

A complex world which is presented with mystery , intrigue and entertainment

I find Ninety-Nine a most interesting character

About the Author

Cameron Cooper is the author of the Imperial Hammer space opera series, among others, and is the pen name used by best selling author Tracy Cooper-Posey. As Cameron Cooper, she writes science fiction short stories and novels, including space opera. As Tracy Cooper-Posey, she writes romantic suspense, historical, paranormal, fantasy and science fiction romance, plus women’s fiction. She also writes contemporary, epic and urban fantasy stories and novels as Taylen Carver.

She has published over 180 titles under all pen names since 1999, been nominated for five CAPAs including Favourite Author, and won the Emma Darcy Award. She turned to indie publishing in 2011. Her indie titles have been nominated four times for Book of The Year. Tracy won the award in 2012, a SFR Galaxy Award in 2016 and came fourth in Hugh Howey’s SPSFC#2 in 2023. She has been a national magazine editor and for a decade she taught romance writing at MacEwan University.

She is addicted to Irish Breakfast tea and chocolate, sometimes taken together. In her spare time she enjoys history, Sherlock Holmes, science fiction and fantasy and ignoring her treadmill. An Australian Canadian, she lives in Edmonton, Canada with her husband, a former professional wrestler, where she moved in 1996 after meeting him on-line.

THE ANCIENT GIRL IN THE AUTOPOD

A PTOLEMY LANE TALE

by

CAMERON COOPER

Stories Rule Press

Chapter One

At first, I figured taking the kid to meet Georgina was what started the flaming ball rolling. Doc Lowry, who came into it with the autopod thing, would say it was then. That’s because, like humans, our sense of place in history is subjective and very short term—even mine, and I’m supposed to know better.

Georgina was entertaining a potential client, the official representative of a business contemplating setting up in Georgina’s Town. Most of the time I skip the political fawning, which suited Georgina just fine, even though she keeps inviting me.

Must have shocked the hell out of her when I accepted this invitation, although she didn’t try to cross-examine me and find out why. Maybe she should have.

I took Ninety-Nine with me, because he’d been my assistant longer than all but one of the ninety-eight who’d gone before him and was still showing up for work. Plus, he was a painfully ignorant human. And he’d never met Georgina despite living in her town for two years.

Ninety-Nine showed up with his copper features glowing with cleanliness, his jacket formal, his dark golden hair standing up in serried spikes, like he was going on a date.

It’s just dinner, I growled as we headed for Georgina’s building.

"With Georgina Ashby." Ninety-Nine actually skipped a couple of steps.

I rolled my eyes, but shut up. He’d get over it quick enough.

Georgina’s building was close to Guisy Oakmint’s casino, but the proximity was purely one of distance. Stepping into Georgina’s building was to step into history.

Make that a distorted representation of history, because history had never been as tranquil and relaxing as Georgina’s home.

She’d researched styles of housing through human history and come up with an eclectic group of design ideas, then spent a year haranguing builders into constructing it. She’d picked prime land under the dome, with a view of the spaceport outside the dome. Every day, she could watch Abbatangelo’s blue sun rise over the spaceport, and at night, watch ships and shuttles draw glowing curves in the dark sky.

Not that she watched the view all that often. She had a widow’s walk on the front roof that she could use if she was in the mood to watch the world go by, but mostly, she was too damn busy.

After nearly five hundred years, Georgina Ashby knew how to keep herself occupied.

Ninety-Nine’s eyes widened as we stepped into the front courtyard, which was the smallest of the three courtyards that made up the interior of the building. There was only a small bubbling fountain here, the pool filled with goldfish and lotus plants.

The fountain masks sounds from the street, I told Ninety-Nine.

We moved under the arch into the second courtyard. A waist-high firepit burned with low flames. The walls of the courtyard were hung with plants, turning the walls into verdant barriers. Standing at ninety degrees to the first arch was the second, this one more elaborate and vine draped. The arch led through the front of the house into the third and largest courtyard beyond. Georgina herself stood at the top of the two steps up into the house.

The archives say a servant was supposed to stand by the fire and greet guests and take their muddy shoes, Georgina had explained to me when I’d first arrived on Abbatangelo. But I’ll be damned if I’ll have someone doing something I can do myself. Besides, it never rains in my town.

Ninety-Nine gulped when he spotted Georgina, which was a common reaction, and one that puzzles me. Georgina was ordinary to look at. She was tall for a woman, which just meant her designers had a thing for tall women. She had short hair cut in a blunt bob that might once have been golden but was now silver-white. Her face was almost completely unlined, though.

She tended to view the world through narrowed green eyes. She was doing it with Ninety-Nine right now. This is the nodoc you told me about, Jovan? Her voice was a low, pleasant contralto, with a burr in it. She held out her arms as I stepped up into the house.

I bent and kissed both her cheeks. Ninety-Nine, I supplied.

Hyland Sinagra, ma’am, Ninety-Nine added, still standing on the stones of the courtyard.

Georgina almost laughed. Her brow lifted. My, how polite of you.

Ninety-Nine blushed. S…sorry.

She waved it away. Politeness is social grease. Too many folks don’t use near enough of it, which makes socializing painful…and why I built these damn walls. You gonna step inside, Ninety-Nine Hyland Sinagra?

His blush deepened. He stepped up into the house, although this section had no walls to speak of. Just a roof over a well-polished floor, which held up rugs and easy chairs and small tables.

The silence was almost complete.

The other side of the house was open to the primary courtyard, which was stuffed full of plants. It was here that Georgina spent a great deal of her spare time. The garden never looked the same as it did on previous visits. She liked to grow Earth-original plants and the light from the blue sun was supplemented with yellow sun spectrum lights bathing the courtyard, making the greens really green. None of what she grew was for eating, but purely for its beauty and the challenge of making it grow this far away from Earth. Blooms of all colors and shapes were the theme of the garden, but despite the range, the garden wasn’t a hodgepodge.

I parked Carman in the sitting room with the good scotch, Georgina told us over her shoulder as she stepped down into the courtyard and picked a path through the garden that would take us to the other side of the four-sided house.

Ninety-Nine’s head swiveled as we traversed the garden. He leaned toward me. There are no walls!

Which was true. The whole house faced the courtyard and had no walls hiding the view. Which meant we could see the inside of bedrooms, bathrooms, even the fully functional kitchen, Georgina’s office, the library, and the dining room. Georgina always seated everyone on the far side of the long table, so they could gaze upon the garden while they ate. She said the view enhanced digestion. I couldn’t argue with her on that.

The little sitting room beside the dining room held precisely one guest. She turned to us as we all stepped up into the sitting room, a polite smile on her face. She was nearly as tall as me, with high cheek bones, red lips, and a simple black dress that outlined everything in a very agreeable way. Her hair was black, and curled into near ringlets beneath her ears, which was an adorable note amongst the I-mean-business attire. The dress showed off her legs from high up the thigh down to her toes. They were quite likely the best legs I’d ever seen.

Ninety-Nine flushed a deep red when she looked at him and cleared his throat.

I knew what he meant. I had to remind myself she was the official representative of…and I couldn’t remember the name.

Keran Carman, Georgina said. This is Ptolemy Lane, the town’s peacekeeper, and Hyland Sinagra, his assistant. She turned to me and Ninety-Nine. Keran works with Memsoul and is exploring the possibilities of expanding the outlet here in town.

Which was why I was here.

Keran Carman smiled at both of us and asked polite questions while Georgina arranged drinks for us. Ninety-Nine took apple juice. I never passed up an opportunity to drink Georgina’s scotch because it was the real thing—direct from Scotland on Earth. She said she only had a dozen barrels left of the one hundred she’d managed to export. One day, I’d get that story out of her. As no one else in the fringes could serve the real thing, the story would be worth hearing.

Georgina handed us our glasses and said to Ninety-Nine; The granddaughter of Kamara Quixada married a Sinagra.

Ninety-Nine looked pleased, as if Georgina had remembered her manners. My great-grandmother.

Both Keran and I stared at Ninety-Nine in surprise. Even out here in the fringes, we’d heard of the Quixada dynasty, founded by Kamara Quixada with a fortune that rivalled the economies of the few still-independent countries on Earth. The Quixadas had managed to overcome their meekness and dominate the last capitalist enclaves of the twenty-third century. All of them.

Georgina didn’t look surprised. She just nodded. Dinner is ready. Come along.

●

Keran Carman directed conversation over dinner. She neatly avoided business, which suited me for the moment. I’d caught her quick sideways glances at me, and plied myself to being charming. I had no objections to a playmate for whatever nights she was in Georgina’s Town. My bed had been empty for too long.

Over dessert, though, Georgina got down to business and Keran didn’t object, which reminded me of why I was there. That took some of the shine off the evening.

Ninety-Nine had stammered a few answers to Keran’s polite questions over dinner. I expected him to shut up