Dead Ringers: Captain Arlon Stoddard Adventures, #9

By Sean Monaghan

On his last day alive, Gus Caleb sits alone in a bar. Quiet place. No problems. Until problems show up.

Called to the Colston Ring, an alien artifact thousands of years old and inhabited by generations of human colonists, Captain Arlon Stoddard and his crew find the local authorities in disarray. Attempting to decode the background to a rash of strange disappearances makes the job near impossible.

When the crew begin uncovering the mystery, the things they find might just change everything for the millions of inhabitants of the ring.

More than anyone knows.

A Captain Arlon Stoddard novel that pushes the series into new directions. A must for fans and great place to jump in fresh.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Triple V Publishing
• Release date: Apr 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215638972

Sean Monaghan

Award-winning author, Sean Monaghan has published more than one hundred stories in the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and in New Zealand, where he makes his home. A regular contributor to Asimov’s, his story “Crimson Birds of Small Miracles”, set in the art world of Shilinka Switalla, won both the Sir Julius Vogel Award, and the Asimov’s Readers Poll Award, for best short story. He is a past winner of the Jim Baen Memorial Award, and the Amazing Stories Award. Sean writes from a nook in a corner of his 110 year old home, usually listening to eighties music. Award-winning author, Sean Monaghan has published more than one hundred stories in the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and in New Zealand, where he makes his home. A regular contributor to Asimov’s, his story “Crimson Birds of Small Miracles”, set in the art world of Shilinka Switalla, won both the Sir Julius Vogel Award, and the Asimov’s Readers Poll Award, for best short story. He is a past winner of the Jim Baen Memorial Award, and the Amazing Stories Award. Sean writes from a nook in a corner of his 110 year old home, usually listening to eighties music.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

On his last day alive, Gus Caleb sat alone in a bar working on his whisky. Two thumbs. In a gorgeous spun-quartz glass. One good thing about the dive of a bar was the quality of its glassware. Sparkling and unique. They knew a brandy tumbler from a champagne flute A beer tankard from a shot glass.

Too many places just handed you any old glass. Too often that glass was smeared with the thumbprints and lip residue of the last patron. As if public health hadn’t been a thing for the last couple of thousand years.

The Romans. They’d come up with it. Sewers. Smart they were, those Romans.

Unlike Gus himself.

He took another sip of the whisky. If he went easy, it would last all night. If he timed it right, the numbing effect would sit there nicely. Just enough that he could pretend his world of problems were someone else’s. That those problems didn’t exist at all.

He took another sip. Pushed the glass away. Pulled his hands to his chest.

The bar itself, where he was sitting, was a slab of actual wood. Vat-grown, of course, but it was dense and hard and smelled of a thousand different kinds of beer.

There were score marks and burns in it. The wood, though, held firm. Looked as it would last as long as the Roman Empire. That was a long time all right.

Another sip. Push the glass away. Hands into his pockets now.

Gus was wearing a set of shop overalls. Comfortable, if not exactly appropriate wear for this kind of a bar.

Mostly this was highbrow clientele. The kind of people who made big decisions about other people’s lives. Rents and taxes. Public works and immigrations rules.

Across from Gus, on the bar’s back wall, stood a rack of sweet liquors in a remarkable array of bottle shapes and colors. Deep blues and shifting shimmery reds. Chartrueses and teals, ambers and magnolias. Shapes like dolphins and hourglasses, inverted pyramids and infinity symbols. One like a scarab beetle, black and glossy.

A single glass of one of those might set him back three, four days’ pay. Maybe more.

Even just a whiff of a scent from the cap from one of the bottles would cost more than his current glass of cheap, home fermented whisky.

But it did the job as well as any of those fancy bottles. Eased the nerves and calmed the spirit.

Behind him there were tall tables, through the center of the area, and a row of booths against the front wall. The lights hung on long strands from the high, murky ceiling. Directed down and out, the lights made for a patchy, ill-lit space. Mostly directed at the tables. Pools of light creating some kind of ambience.

Maybe half the tables were occupied. Standing drinkers in executive suits and military uniforms. Dark, well-cut fabric. People seated with their collars open, heads bent forward. Muted conversations.

At the far end were some gaming tables. Slidett and brilliarde. Purple felt with skittering botballs bouncing off each other. Sometimes they cracked and broke, to the cackling delight of the winning player.

Gus took another sip. The whisky was smooth and tart at once. It seemed to play around in his mouth a moment before descending to his gullet.

The barkeeper strode along. Lilly. She had a cloth and wiped absently at spots only she could see. Her roving eye, though, scanned the patrons. Wary, perhaps. Keeping in touch with the mood in her establishment.

It was her name over the door out front. Lilly’s Bar and Grill.

She was barely twenty-five. Clearly very smart, but also very worldly for someone so young. She knew how the ring worked.

Lilly had thick dark hair and a hook nose she would say was all wrong. She’d told Gus on various other occasions that she was studying psychiatry at T-RingU, that she had mustered out from the infantry service on Colston, that she had a child who’d been taken from her when she was nineteen and that she hadn’t seen her since.

Not a word of it was true. It was as if she had a stock of stories ready to go to deflect any amorous, over-imbibed customers.

One thing Gus was sure of, though, was that she carried a blade and would cut anyone to the bone if they needed it.

Lilly gave Gus a smile as she went by. Her eyes flicked to his glass, checking the level, and she continued on.

Someone moved in and sat on the stool right next to him. A whole empty row in front of the bar and this guy decided to crowd in.

Had to be the person he’d come to meet.

Gus didn’t look up. Just stared at his glass. Contemplated another sip.

Gus? the new arrival said. The voice was soft and velvety. Male. About his age.

Yes, Gus said. I’m not sure I can go through with this.

Do you need me to convince you?

Gus took a sip. There was maybe just one more sip left in the glass now.

It didn’t matter.

For a while it had seemed as if he would be willing to do anything to get out of here. Now that Glorianne was gone, now that they were cutting his pay in the shop, as well as cutting back hours. Now that nothing much seemed to matter anymore. It would be good to get out and off and put his feet on actual soil. To stand under an open sky and feel the sun on his back.

Even if for just a single day.

But what they were asking was too much. He wasn’t a crook.

Sure, Gus said. Convince me.

He looked up now, into the guy’s face.

The eyes were very familiar. Hazel. Thick lashes. Thick eyebrows.

In fact, the whole face was familiar.

He saw it every day in the mirror in his pokey bathroom.

What? he said. His brain whirled. It wasn’t equipped to deal with this. Ideas ran crazy.

Identical twin? Clone? Simulacrum?

What is this? Gus said.

It is the end, his facsimile said, and drove something sharp and hot into Gus’s chest.

CHAPTER TWO

The latest refit of the starship Saphindell had left her smelling of rosin and glue and lavender. It was a strange and startling mix, and it didn’t seem to be fading at all.

Captain Arlon Stoddard sat at the adjunct console in the ship’s central bridge and studied the curved display.

A hot bulb of freshly-brewed maralsh sat on his left. Maralsh had become a crew favorite over recent months. Or was it a year. An invigorating chocolatey taste, but with a hint of spices and something like vanilla.

Arlon probably drank a little too much of it.

The display was one of the new ones, just installed. A curved half-bowl that would almost be a tub if it had both halves. A good meter across, from corner to corner. The imagery was crisp and clear. The display tracked his eyes, and, because of the curve, was able to make things appear almost three dimensional. As if they hung in the middle of the volume.

Right now, he was looking at a live image of the planet Colston. A regular Earth-type world, with one point one gravity, a seventy-thirty split of ocean to landmass, white polar caps that stretched out to almost fifty degrees.

Cold huh? Eva said, looking drifting in and looking over his shoulder.

Ever reliable, Eva was Saphindell’s pilot. At the moment she had her hair trimmed short, but with circular sections left long and gelled into spikes, each a different random color.

In her hand she had a Danish, oozing jam. It looked delicious and smelled great.

Arlon picked up his bulb of maralsh and sipped from it. This was a good, thick brew. Strong and hot and invigorating. It was odd how looking at the imagery and data on Colston, a cold world, seemed to automatically make him feel like a hot drink.

Perhaps that could be his excuse for consuming so much.

Those polar caps sure are something, Arlon said. They’d spent time in colder places. There were some colonized ice worlds that had only the barest of thin margins of habitable land through the equator strip. Even then, they were only for the most hardy of frontier people.

Glad we won’t be setting down on it, Eva said. I’m not dressed for that kind of wintery hell.

Arlon smiled. Eva was wearing a light exercise top and leggings. She kept in good shape. They all did. Weeks in zero gravity jaunting between stars did nothing good for the human physiology. They had to work out and undergo a constant regime of testing of endocrine and hormone levels. Nobody wanted to calcify or clot on a trip. Nor step out of the lander and collapse under the onslaught of gravity.

Of course, what she was wearing made no difference. She could change. The ship’s clothing system could loom up anything they needed, from bathing trunks and socks, all the way up to EVA suits.

Winter coats and boots were no problem.

Where’s the ring then? Eva said.

That’s what I was wondering, Arlon said. I thought it would be visible at this magnification.

They weren’t setting down on the planet since the issue the Authority had sent them out to deal with lay on Colston’s unique ring structure.

An artificial structure in orbit–effectively–around the planet. About three hundred thousand kilometers long and almost two hundred kilometers across, it was home to close to a million souls.

Remarkably low population density.

Even with the bodies of water, there was still close to as much land as on many planets they’d visited.

A strange mix of enterprise, farming and a whole enormous cohort of researchers working to determine the origins of the ring.

Simply put, an alien artifact.

Was it Zeytana? The long-vanished aliens who’d left behind little but stone crumbling monuments and hints of functional technology. If so, then it was the most concrete thing of theirs.

Which made for a whole lot of conjecture.

Because if it wasn’t Zeytana, then who had built it? Was there another disappeared alien species, more recent and, possibly, more dangerous?

Zoom in a little, Eva said. If I’m going to land us on it, then I want to see what I’m steering for.

Arlon reached into the display’s volume, grabbed at the apparent planet, gripped–nothing–and drew his hands apart.

The planet expanded.

Still no sign of the ring. The continents showed, as did some truly massive ice flows working their away across the ocean. Country-sized.

No, Eva said. Not like that. This way.

She reached in and pushed the planet to the left.

The thing has a diameter of ninety-six thousand three hundred kilometers across. That’s the equivalent of about eight planetary diameters.

Arlon just nodded. Eva was always better at numbers than he was. Most of the crew were better at most things than he was. That was how it worked.

There it is, Eva said as something came in on the right.

A thin white strip.

The Colston Ring.

What’s the plan then? Eva said. We’re cruising in nicely. I guess land somewhere. Get ourselves to Lilly’s bar. See what the trouble is.

That’s the plan, Arlon said.

Eva smiled. I always like a challenge.

CHAPTER THREE

Yuni Kaitoo sat in the corner of Rossveldt Park, enjoying the sweet scents of the afternoon. The park was well-maintained, with tended mossy banks and trimmed small-leaf maples and stiff-barked firs. Scuttlebots toddled around gathering up dropped leaves and needles, wheels squeaking and lenses glinting.

The bench was a simple curved thing of straight wooden slats in a kind of S-shape, making a seat and back. Cast carbon scrollwork at each end held it together, and provided armrests. A timeless design for parks really.

People strolled along the limed path. Couples in casual shorts and shirts, officials in stiff, straight cut suits, security in crisp glossy black uniforms with darkened visors and weapons at their hips. Some of the uniforms had red or blue piping and trim. All of them had rank insignia on the upper arm.

Rossveldt was the best park her in Pakumel. The town was small, and well serviced by numerous parks, large and small, lakes and small woods for hiking and having moments where you could be surrounded by trees.

Yuni had an old palmdisk. A vaguely circular display that curved neatly in her hand. A gift from her grandfather, bless him.

She’d attended his memorial service.

Three days back.

Two months he’d been missing. Now, presumed drowned, from the patterns of his movements.

The police would continue to search for his body.

She took a breath. Closed her eyes. She missed him, that was for sure. She was twenty-eight now, well and truly an independent adult, but he’d raised her, right here on the Colston Ring. After everything had gone sour for him back on Colston itself. When her parents had been killed

Yuni looked over the message on the palmdisk again.

Rossveldt Park, 3pm, South corner. I have information about your grandfather.

That was it.

No sender. Routed through anonymous servers all around the ring.

No way to respond.

All of which was supposed to give her pause, right? If you got a secret message, you needed to just walk away. Report it to the police.

Even Karl had told her that. One of her few friends, he worked in the communications industry. He knew his way around the ring servers and even he couldn’t figure out where the message had originated.

Walk away, he’d said. They’re just preying on your grief.

She couldn’t, though.

It was 2.58pm.

On an intellectual level, she got that walking away was the smart option, but there was so much mystery to her grandfather that she just couldn’t let this lie. Even though he’d raised her–and raised her well–there had still been gaps in what he did, what he’d done and who he’d been with.

Secrets.

As if he was a spy.

Which was the easy way to think about it.

Any chance to delve a little deeper was a chance. A chance to know.

Even to just learn a little more about his death. He’d been eighty-one. Fit and healthy, but still entering that time of life when death was inevitable.

She wasn’t convinced that his death had been of natural causes. Despite what the post-mortem examination had said.

Aortic dissection.

It was fast and painless, they’d told her.

Yuni remained unconvinced.

2.59pm.

Now Karl was sitting at another park bench, across from her and thirty meters along to her right. His shock of dark curly hair draped around like a curtain as he leaned forward. He appeared to be engrossed in his own palm disk, but she could tell that he was watching her.

She kind wanted to wave. It was good to have the support. But a wave would give them away.

Yuni found herself studying the people strolling by. A guy a little older than her, wide-eyed and lost, apparently. An old woman with her hair tied up and spectacles, looking like a college professor. A pair of young teens running along pushing each other and laughing.

3pm

A woman walking a serval on a leash. A beautiful speckled pelt on the animal. Its cat eyes blinked at Yuni.

Eight kilometer overhead the ring’s enclosing quartz-glass roof glinted in places. Amazing to think that beyond that was just vacuum.

Even though she’d grown up in the ring, it was still quite amazing.

3.01pm

Yuni glanced at Karl. He looked back at her. Shrugged.

More people went by. From the nearby L-train came the hum of a carriage slowing up for the station.

3.02pm

Yuni looked at the disk again.

Rossveldt Park, 3pm, South corner. I have information about your grandfather.

She hadn’t misread the time.

Karl stood. Started over her way.

Stopped.

Stared.

Hello Yuni, a voice said from her left.

Yuni looked up.

Found herself looking at a doppelganger.

A mirror.

The other woman sat next to her.

Yuni felt frozen. Nailed to the bench.

Don’t be frightened, the other Yuni said.

Yuni’s mouth felt dry.

Karl was running at them. Shouting something.

It will be all right, the other Yuni said.

CHAPTER FOUR

The Colston Ring spun around the planet at one revolution every thirteen hundred and six minutes, and sixteen seconds. A shade under twenty-two hours.

It just about matched the rotation of the planet. Colston’s day ran to thirteen hundred and eighty-nine minutes. Twenty-three and a quarter hours.

Standard.

Like most worlds, they used a modified time system that allowed for shorter minutes to bring an even number of hours–twenty-four–in the day.

Which got complicated with the Colston Ring, running eighty-three minutes faster.

Arlon couldn’t quite wrap his head around the complicated math they used to ensure the systems worked.

Kilo got it. The Saphindell’s navigator, Kilo could always get his head around complex numerical systems. He’d tried to explain it to Arlon. Had tried again.

How about this, Arlon had said. You tell me if we’re running late, or early, and I’ll trust you on that?

Works for me, Captain.

It was an hour after Arlon and Eva had looked over the imagery of the planet and the ring, and the whole crew were strapped into their landing seats in the bridge. Save Olivia, who was in the engineering section. There was space for her in the bridge, but she liked to keep an eye on things below.

Especially on this kind of a shakedown cruise, she’d told Arlon. After a refit.

The refit was mostly cosmetic, but there was no sense in arguing the point. She was a great engineer and if she wanted to watch the engines, well that was more than fine.

Three minutes, more or less, until landing.

Arlon kind of wished he could be in one of the upper observation blisters. Looking up at the ring would be remarkable.

A vast structure.

Not a patch on those old postulated ring worlds or Dyson spheres which surrounded a sun, rather than a planet, but it was still pretty impressive.

The ring was moving at over fourteen thousand kilometers per hours. Angular velocity.

Somehow, it stayed still above the planet. In orbit, under tension, somehow not flying apart, nor drifting into the planet.

A whole swathe of technologies left behind and being studied intently by a whole group of very smart researchers. Sometimes, according to the data briefs Arlon had read through on the trip out, those researchers found themselves in conflict with the politicians.

Enough was known about the ring that people had felt confident to inhabit it. They’d been there long enough that the mayors and senators were sometimes concerned that all the scientists poking around in the mechanisms might just wreck the ring and leave it uninhabitable.

What if they switch off the artificial gravity? was one quote.

But the ring’s spin wasn’t enough for centrifugal forces to make artificial gravity, like so many human-constructed stations.

Artificial gravity remained a Holy Grail for science and engineering. Some of the principles were understood, but it was still a long way off.

Even with the studies going on at the Colston Ring.

Flying in took precision. Angular velocity changed the approach.

If they were coming in on a regular space station, they would be orbiting at the same velocity. A little bit of matching, a little burst of maneuvering thrusters here and there and docking was a breeze.

Coming in on the ring which technically was not orbiting, made for a whole different scenario.

The physics and control systems involved had to be pretty extraordinary.

Eva worked on the ship’s controls. Keeping the vector correct. Adjusting the attitude.

Critically, getting the speed right.

Arlon sipped from a water bulb. Fresh and tasty. Just a hint of lime-on. It was refreshing.

Good to have something ordinary to keep himself occupied while the crew were busy with landing the vessel.

Any point on the surface was moving at just a little under fifteen thousand kilometers per hour.

Pretty fast.

A walk in the park for Saphindell. Well within her capacity. After all, she needed to reach escape velocity often enough, to leave a planetary surface.

The thing with setting down on the ring was to match not only the velocity, but also the angle. The ring’s structure did not travel in a straight line, by its very nature. It had to move in a circle. Circles were very straightforward for spinning bodies.

Not so easy for spacecraft. Saphindell was maneuverable, but her best mode was in a straight line.

Newton. An object in motion tends to stay in motion until acted upon by a force. Tends to stay in a straight line.

They have specialist pilots, Eva told the others.

Specialist pilots, Kilo said. He was the navigator and knew his way around star charts the way most people knew their way to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Could do it with their eyes closed.

They fly from the surface to the ring on a daily basis, Eva said. "Special landing tubes. On the outside of the ring. It’s an elegant system. The best way to do it really. Fly in straight. Come in