Ladder To The Sun E-Book

Conor H. Carton

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

When a claimant to the Emperor's throne is announced, Shakbout knows that the past has trapped him again. He is the only person who can stop the process without risking a return to a devastating war in the Inhabited Systems.

The problem is that there are a lot of lifeforms who are ready to stop any attempt to do so. Shakbout, Asher, Lincoln and Hiral will have to fight every inch of the way to have any chance of success.

Soon, Shakbout finds himself travelling back to his past... and into the heart of a conspiracy that holds the horrifying truth about the spoils of war.

Leseprobe

LADDER TO THE SUN

SPOILS OF WAR BOOK 3

CONOR H. CARTON

CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

About the Author

Copyright (C) 2022 Conor H. Carton

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2022 by Next Chapter

Published 2022 by Next Chapter

Edited by Terry Hughes

Cover art by CoverMint

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author’s permission.

For Helene and Hannah

PREFACE

Every plan will finish, every war come to an end. A plan that has been carried across thousands of years is reaching a conclusion. A war that was not won or lost, just stopped, is finally going to end. The emergence of the bottle-born as independent lifeforms has started and will not be stopped. The spoils of war have waited silently to be claimed and the time has come to do so. The coils of the past tighten against the present and the friction is ready to create a spark that will finally reveal what has been happening in the shadows.

Everyone will be touched by the flame – no one knows who will survive.

1

I woke up with my head on fire. Beside me Asher moved slightly in her sleep without waking. Since becoming pregnant, Asher had become slightly restless in her sleep – previously she had been a very peaceful sleeper. I slipped out of the bed and the room and walked down the corridor to Petra’s room and pushed open the door. Petra was curled up under the cover with only her head visible, pretending to be asleep. I knew she was pretending because my head was shrouded in dancing blue flames that did not burn me or the pillow I had slept on. Also, she always threw the covers off her in her sleep.

“Petra,” I said in a level tone, designed to let her know that I would not go away. She wriggled a bit and stretching turned over and looked at me before focusing and registering the state of my head. All very well done; Petra was a capable actress.

“Dad, have you seen your head? What have you been doing?”

“Petra,” I repeated. This time my tone was a little sharper.

“It does suit you, a fiery firedrake. A statement. I like it.”

“Petra!” I said. This was the final time, and she knew it. The flames vanished.

I smiled at her and headed down to make breakfast. Petra was still coming to terms with Asher’s pregnancy; she was excited and a little fearful. We had not all been together for long enough for her to be completely sure about how it could play out. She had started to set my head on fire two weeks previously and, as far as I knew, she was doing it her sleep. I hoped she was doing it in her sleep.

I made breakfast for all of us, left Petra’s on the table and brought Asher’s up to her. She was awake now and sitting up. She was five months pregnant, not showing much but there had been changes. Asher located and recovered violent lifeforms for a living and now she had started to chase down the hidden ones. Very well-connected, well-funded and highly determined fugitives who were actively planning to remain free. They were quite willing to destroy a building to burn a document and Asher had become as much a target for them as they were for her.

I pointed this out to Asher during the worst fight we ever had. I said she was putting Petra and me directly in danger by her actions. Asher told me Petra and I were more than capable of defending ourselves as anyone stupid enough to try would quickly find out. The baby, on the other hand, needed protecting and the existence of the hidden ones was a threat to its safety that she could not and would not ignore. She was going to do whatever it took to protect the unborn child and I had better make the choice as well. The silence that followed lasted for two days while Petra pretended not to notice. I finally admitted to myself that the choice had been made a long time before and I would just have to take the consequences.

“Thank you, love,” Asher said as I entered the bedroom with the breakfast tray. She was sitting up in bed and looking beautiful, healthy, and happy. I smiled at her and placed the tray on her lap and kissed her.

“What do you have planned for today?” I asked.

“Staying here – I have some planning to do,” Asher replied.

“You know that Petra will be here as well? This is a project day, and she has invited her team here to get it completed.”

“Yes, she told me. That is part of the reason I am staying.”

“I could stay,” I offered.

“No,” said Asher firmly. “You are going to have your performance review with Lincoln and there is no evading it. Take it on the chin and don’t let her get to you.”

“Lanken’s tears, you don’t know what it’s like. I must complete a personal review assessing myself against stupid and meaningless items. After that, Lincoln gets to lord it over me even more than usual. Then, to wrap it all up, I get a final sign-off review with the Overseer. I am soooo privileged, I am the only staff member from my grade to be blessed with the direct attention of the Overseer. Everyone already resents me being in the agency but this just rocket-charges it. All for what? I will never get a promotion or a pay rise. It is just a show for the amusement of others.”

Asher looked sympathetic and pulled me down my head to rest on her breasts. That did make everything much better. I finally dragged myself away and headed downstairs. Petra was sitting at the table and was eating the third section of her breakfast. She could eat and enjoy a lot of food without adding any excess weight. I hated her for that.

“Dad,” Petra started, “I need to get our project finished today. It is about the Maklin Recovery Project, and I was wondering if you would have any information?”

“The Maklin Recovery Project? Why are you doing a project on the Maklin Recovery Project? I am going to contact your assessors – that is not a suitable subject for a project for you and your friends,” I objected.

The Macklin Recovery Project was an exploration and development story that had been one of the major successes of 30 years ago. Technology had been developed to allow the recovery of some areas devastated by the war; it was a way finally to stitch up the open wounds that had remained. It was launched in a golden glow of optimism and was proceeding with great success, an achievement of hard work and ingenuity that was celebrated across the systems. Until it was revealed that the technology was a fraud, the recovery process was a thin cover for a slave-labour scheme that was mining the remains for the scrap and other resources. It emerged that there was a widespread web of corruption that had supported and implemented this project to deliver gargantuan profits to those involved. The collapse in public trust threatened the stability and internal cooperation across the systems. Hundreds of millions of innocent lifeforms lost their jobs and prospects in the purge. They paid the price, and it took years for most of them even to be partially compensated. No one could examine the destruction without being battered by it and I did not want that for Petra.

“No, Dad, we chose it ourselves,” Petra protested. “Frache says that her family will not talk about it – they just get angry. She wants to know why. So, we chose it as our family investigation project. If you’re worried, we could investigate you and Mum.”

Patra was very good at this; I blame her mother. I retreated in the face of overwhelming force.

“Well, just be careful, then. No, I do not have any useful information. Mum will be here today so be nice to her.”

Petra smiled and nodded. She gave me my leaving-for-work hug and kiss, and I headed off to survive the day. My commute was ruined by the looming prospect of the review so I could not concentrate on the floor plan for my house now perched on a ledge overlooking the Tamwal terraces below. I was already off balance by the time I arrived at my office space, and I blame that for why I was caught so unaware.

“Screw-Top, who was the last Emperor?” Lincoln called the question to me from inside her enclosed office. I walked over to the door and, leaning against the frame, replied to her without the slightest concern.

“Ingea’s grandfather Kea was the last Emperor. The poor fucker was fed to Badgerlocks by his wife, for some reason.”

“Badgerlocks?” asked Lincoln.

“A rather unpleasant shellfish-style life form that inhabit Hadweel, a ball of water right on the border with deep space.”

Finally, way too late, it dawned on me to check why Lincoln, who carefully never asked me questions like that, was doing so now. I had simply answered without a thought and now the implications of what I had done were griping my guts with icy spikes.

“Why the interest?” I asked. Lincoln had never been interested in empire history and that question was one that rarely came up even among those who were interested. Empire meant Ingea to most.

“Do you watch the news?” Lincoln asked me. Since she became pregnant, Lincoln had developed an intense interest in the news and had a stream open on one of the projectors in her office all the time. For myself, I carefully avoided the news, I found that bad news would find me without any action on my part and good news never made it to the lines anyway.

“I get all the news I need from the weather report,” I told her with a smile. Lincoln did not smile back at me. Instead, she waved at the screen on the opposite wall, and I stepped into her space so I could see it. It was a news report broadcasting live from a large hall full of spectators who were surrounding a platform in the middle of the area. On the platform were two members of the Standing Committee who were hardcore HR supporters and had been very vocal in their outrage at the arrival of the UPCR on the standing committee.

They were not the focus of the crowd nor the broadcast. That was taken by a natural lifeform who was sitting on a throne, a replica of the one in the picture in the Mengchi Centre for the Promotion of Historical Knowledge, Ingea’s throne. He was sitting upright and one of the Standing Committee members was asking him if he would accept the burden of the office that he was being offered. The man did not reply, he simply smiled and nodded. The second standing-committee member stepped forward and put a ring on his left hand and stepped back. The crowd was going hysterical; fireworks were being shot off and banners proclaiming, “All Hail the Emperor,” being waved. We had just witnessed the official nomination of the Emperor of a ghost empire that that tried to destroy the systems.

I did not register the details or the intent of what I was seeing at first, I was too busy seeing the lifeform on the throne. I knew he was over two metres tall, had blond hair and beautiful blue eyes. His skin was a pale-yellow, some would say golden, colour. He was very well proportioned and exuded an air of physical grace and power that was an invitation to adoration. I had last seen him in a kitchen where he had hit me with a metal bar, intending to kill me, before stepping through a portal. I was now being reminded, again, that no matter how hard or fast you ran from the past it is always ahead and waiting for you to catch up with it.

“I have done a quick check, to be installed as Emperor you must have the permission of the previous one. It seems that Quiklen has provided that, at least to the satisfaction of those two pieces of Stonebeater snot there. It was enough for them as members of the Standing Committee to have the authority to do. We now have an Emperor, legally nominated and waiting to be installed and ready to create a lot of problems for us. We need to be prepared.” Lincoln spoke to me while continuing to stare hard at the screen.

In the aftermath of the war, the position of Emperor had not been removed or abolished, everyone was just too busy and exhausted to do that. There were no heirs to cause trouble and letting it slide into oblivion was the easiest option. Now that decision was blowing up in our faces; someone with a legitimate claim had appeared and had been legally nominated and the status quo that had existed was now being broken. All the forces that had been held down would now burst out, demanding their rights to power. War was not inevitable but widespread conflict and bloodshed was.

The problem was with the legitimate claim part, I knew that Quiklen could not have the permission from the last Emperor. The trap from which I thought I had painstakingly escaped still held me and I had no idea what to do about it. The crowd got ever more worked up as Quiklen stood and, raising his arms, walked around the edge of the platform taking a victory lap. Rosby touched my shoulder to attract my attention and spoke quietly to me: “You have a visitor waiting for you in reception. Gave the name Streeger and asked specifically for you.”

“Right, thanks. I’ll go right down.” I turned to speak to Lincoln. “Have to go, there’s someone looking for me. I’ll be as quick as I can.”

Lincoln did not reply, just looked at me and nodded. I went down to reception. Visitors coming to the PR Agency and asking for me was not unusual, I normally had at least one a day, all were bottle-born lifeforms who had found out about me and hoped I could help them. Mostly I couldn’t, other than giving them information about how to navigate the law-enforcement process with the least amount of bruising. When I reached reception, I was pointed to one of the visitors’ offices along the wall and walked over to it, opened it, and realised that the worst-case scenario had arrived.

“Hello Shakbout, you are looking very well, I am happy to say.” The lifeform sitting at the small round table in the visitor’s room was male, short at one and a half metres and had pale skin with a copper tint, shoulder-length red hair and green eyes set in an unremarkable face. Anyone who did not know better would see a natural born human who probably held some middle-management position in an industrial complex. Unfortunately, I did know better, and I greeted the bottle-born group director of the Red Halls. One of the great public unknowns is that the Red Halls are staffed entirely by bottle-born, brewed by the Red Halls in their private bottle farm. In theory, the Red Halls were the regulator for bottle farms for Thiegler and therefore effectively everywhere in the systems. That was true, as far as it went, which was not very far. The Red Halls had a much wider range of activities that they liked to keep out of public view. They had been set up under the direct control of Ingea and that was another item that had never been updated. If Quiklen’s claim was validated, he would take control of the Red Halls.

“I am sure you have seen the nomination. It is only the start, but momentum is growing, and fast. It must be decisively and effectively derailed without the possibility that it looks like sabotage. Naturally I thought of you.” Streeger had the voice to go with his cover, confident and not demanding. Engaging your cooperation in the project that he could compel you to complete. I sat down opposite Streeger and decided I was not rolling over on this one.

“Thanks, and nice to see you looking so well, too. I take it that I will have the full weight and public cooperation of the Red Halls in this. After all, as a private citizen, I can hardly be expected to go head-to-head with the Emperor-to-be. To be a bit more precise, as a bottle-born private citizen, I can hardly be expected to derail the process for confirming the legally nominated Emperor of the natural-born population without the backing of the Red Halls.” I spoke without raising my voice, keeping my tone calm and easy.

Streeger leaned forward towards me, his hands open and his expression showing concern that I should understand exactly what was going on. “You are completely on your own – there is no official or unofficial cover for this. The Red Halls cannot afford to be involved in any way. If we are directed to oppose you, we will fully do so, within the limits of the directive. The assembly will open in three days so you will need to be ready to act.”

Streeger was giving me all the assurance that he could. While he would be bound by any directive, he would also ensure that the wording of the directive was as restrictive as possible to give me the space to operate. I sat looking at Streeger in silence while the Circlet made it clear that it would not allow an Emperor to be installed. The Circlet had become more distinct in its communications over the past month. It did not exactly have a voice, though I still got clear information. This was a straight warning; I could act, or it would.

“I suppose a simple assassination is out of the question?” I asked Streeger.

“Having him installed would be less destructive than any attempt, successful or otherwise, on his life. Since he has been nominated, there has been a systems-wide realignment and an escalation in war preparations. The only way to defuse the situation is for Thiegler to solve the problem without blood. It must be stopped in the most publicly transparent way, Quiklen must be shown to have a fraudulent claim and you are the only lifeform that can definitively show that. Quiklen knows that, too, so he will be mobilising to stop you. Nothing you haven’t solved before.”

Streeger stood and left me sitting in the office wondering when exactly I had solved this before. I heard the chime of an incoming call from Rosby which I was tempted to cut off before I gave in and accepted it. “Investigator Mansard, Inspector Bluefin has requested that you come to her space so that your scheduled performance review can be completed within the agreed timeline.”

“Thank you, Rosby, I will comply.” Why did Lanken hate me so much?

I had built up the review process so much that the actual event was an anti-climax. Lincoln checked the forms, agreed with everything, and filed it. I left her space not entirely sure if I was satisfied or not. Rosby gestured at me and pointed up at the ceiling. I got the message – time to go up to the Overseer. I was confident that this would not be an anti-climax.

“Investigator Mansard, good to see you looking so well. I see you have fully recovered from recent events of all sorts and are ready for action.”

The Overseer had changed her office and her uniform but everything else was the same. She had a plan, and I would execute it. I finally caught the “all sorts” and realised that she understood Asher, Lincoln and Reyan were all pregnant and that I was the father. I deeply hoped that was all she knew. I sat down in a chair in front of her desk, a glowing example of vastly expensive simplicity. It was made from wood, just a tabletop and four legs at the corners. The wood was space drift of unknown origin, pieces that were found close to the border with deep space. It was massively inert and resistant to any process. Shaping it into a desk would have taken years of concentrated, monumental expenditure of energy and the lives of many talented artists who used their blood to shape the wood into the table. Most importantly it looked like an ordinary table, the few who saw it for what it was would be the ones who needed to get the message it conveyed. I stuck to my rule of never speaking unless I was asked a question that required an answer.

“I have a small task for you. We have been sent a request for assistance from the Kozay system, specifically from the Office of Judicial Enforcement, regarding an incident that occurred yesterday. They are requesting specialist assistance with the matter. You are to go there right away. The chain has been organised and leaves from Basement Seven. I will not share any details as I wish you to have no preconceived ideas that may affect the investigation. That is all.”

I left the Overseer ’s office and, on the way to Basement Seven, I sent a comms to Asher telling her that I was travelling and would be away overnight. I did not get a reply before I reached the basement. Tobel was waiting for me when I arrived. Akion had managed to have Tobel employed by the public service as a forensic consultant and to be assigned to me.

“Where are we going?” Tobel asked when I got close enough to speak to. “I was sent here without any information.”

“Kozay system; we have a request for assistance,” I replied as I continued over to the distribution point.

“Request for assistance? From another system?”

I stopped moving and turned to speak directly to Tobel. “Smaller systems often issue requests for assistance to larger systems when they do not have the resources or do not want to be directly involved in the investigation for political reasons. A lot of the big players just push the locals to the side lines, complete everything and make sure that they are credited with the work. Sometimes that is a good plan for everyone. Thiegler takes a different approach; it is viewed as an opportunity to develop alliances and build networks of influence. We never take credit for any result; the locals always get the headlines. That way a debt is created that can be traded later. Thiegler is very small and isolated, building networks of support and obligation is very important and the Standing Committee works very hard at it.

“We are usually called when the investigation has something particularly sensitive about it; we guarantee discretion. I have no details about what we are heading into, which declares that it is a very serious problem with all sorts of very unpleasant implications and ramifications. The lifeforms on Kozay are going to want to manage us as much as they can short of actively running the investigation. My plan is to get in and out as quickly as possible, offer some directions the locals can use and fade out. Any further support will be provided remotely.”

Tobel nodded and we continued to the distribution point where the first portal link was set up. I entered a small, enclosed space that had a glowing line on the centre of the floor. I stepped over the line into an identical room and stepped over the second line. I heard Tobel enter as I left. We repeated the process five times before we arrived in a room with no line; this was the last stop on the chain. In theory, a portal should reduce the distance to anywhere to an average human step. The problem was that the greater the distance, the greater the chance that the traveller would arrive in an altered state. The effect was random – alterations could be insignificant or a total reconfiguration of the life form. They were extremely difficult to reverse, for reasons no one has yet quite nailed down. Eventually the safe distance was established, as well as the fact that any travel off planet, no matter how short, had to be done singly – sending groups had spectacularly catastrophic results for the travellers. Mass transport for lifeforms and freight was done via space barges of varying sizes and luxury. They utilised space portals to jump the distances – the structures of the barges were designed to absorb and expel energy at the points of departure and arrival to solve the reconfiguration problem.

A Kozay law-enforcement official encased in a highly polished body covering of golden-coloured metal was waiting for us.

“Hello, I am Breeze Talbreen. I am the lead case officer for the incident. Thank you for coming so promptly – we are anxious to clear this up as soon as we can.”

The front of the uniform helmet cleared to show a face, yellow beard covering the lower half and black eyes looking out under a sloping forehead and a bald skull. Breeze had light-blue skin, which indicated a bottle-born. Many systems staffed the ranks of law enforcement with bottle born, though the management was inevitably natural.

“I am Investigator Mansard of the PR Agency on Thiegler, this is Tobel, a forensic consultant. Is there anything you would like to alert us about before we continue?”

“No,” said Breeze. “We should go to the incident site right away if you do not mind. I have arranged accommodation for you, and I will take you there after you have reviewed the damage.”

Breeze turned and led us out of the distribution point. Damage was an interesting word to use, and it started an alarm in my mind about what we would find. I kept my thoughts to myself as Breeze led us to a plain transport. We boarded and headed out. There was no view out of the transport – the windows were screens that showed whatever they were programmed for. In this case, it was a cityscape showing a dense and complex web of buildings, all of which were connected to each other by a variety of bridges and airborne tunnels. No external traffic was visible – all the movement was within the structures. I had not checked but I was now sure that the external atmosphere in Kozay had been poisoned at some point and the toxin was still active.

The transport stopped and the doors opened. Tobel and I got out and Breeze pointed at a door and walked towards it without speaking. We followed and went down the stairs on to which the door opened, the mental alarm getting louder as I looked at the walls on either side of the stairs. They were perfectly flat and undecorated. They were painted with luminescent paint that illuminated around us as we moved and dimmed as we passed. Simple, effective security to ensure that you could be tracked with ease. I was sure the light was also analysing us as we walked, checking biological details, and recording them. At the end of the stairs was another door, which Breeze opened and then stood aside so we went through it ahead of him and got an unobstructed view of the damage.

It was clear why the Overseer had given me no details in advance and why the Kozay Office of Judicial Enforcement was anxious to hand off the investigation to the PR Agency. I stood looking at the ruins of an illegal bottle farm and tried to take in the details before the implications of what I was looking at crowded them out of my mind. I was standing on a viewing platform over a long and wide space. There was no physical means of descending from the platform to the factory floor, the shield that would have prevented any of the sounds or smells from below being heard or smelled, as well as preventing anyone on the platform accessing the bottle farm was gone, dissolved by the force of whatever had happened below. The Circlet was restive, it was shifting and twisting under my skin. It was responding to something I did not see or did not recognise.

I looked over at Breeze. who started to talk: “An explosive incident at an atmosphere research laboratory has been announced. Approved and clandestine images and recordings have been released. A conspiracy story has been seeded that the lab explosion story is cover for live atmosphere tests on prisoners who have been offered a pardon in return for stepping outside. One of the prisoners survived and was attempting to escape to reveal the fact that the atmosphere is clean, and everyone is being kept indoors for the benefit of a group of insiders. Another conspiracy story will be released in the next minutes showing that an off-plant investigator has been called in because a secret military base that was established here was attacked by external forces. The Kozay armed forces have been placed under the direction of these investigators and military prisons are being prepared.”

“Good, that will buy us some time, which is the good news,” I said

“And the bad news is?” asked Breeze, sounding a little surprised.

“You had a secret bottle farm here and no idea of what it was producing, how long it had been active and where the life forms that were bred here have been distributed. If that is not settled quickly then Kozay will be put into an undeclared quarantine that will strangle you within weeks. That is why I am here, to try to prevent that starting. I have zero idea if I will be able to; if I cannot, I will be trapped by the quarantine and that would be a very severe problem. So, the only thing I can promise you is that I am highly motivated to complete this investigation in a way that satisfies everyone. I need to get some sleep; transporting has taken it out of me, and I need to make sure I have a clear mind to start. Would you take us to our accommodation and pick us up at 7am tomorrow, please?”

Breeze nodded and we climbed the stairs in silence. We were taken to a very pleasant space that had a well-stocked kitchen, two bedrooms and wet rooms and a common space for eating and lounging. Tobel created a pleasant meal while I washed and called Asher, leaving another message. We ate and chatted about anything except the problem at hand and then I went to bed. As soon as I lay down, I fell asleep and found myself right back at the start of the journey I had been on for so long.

2

The day had smashed me to bits, learning the truth about myself, Asher, Petra, Action Group Five and then the encounter with the Retrievers, all being tossed and mixed by my rage. I made it to a transport stop, got on board the first one that arrived and sat in the back so I could watch everyone. Five hours later and too many changes to count and I had stopped checking my surroundings, stopped doing anything except sitting in a lump of despair and bitter remorse. I had abandoned my family in a crisis, a fact that never cools to the touch.

“Hello, I’ve been looking for you and now here you are.” I heard the voice, and the words entered my ears a second or two before they reached my mind. I looked up only because that was a reflex, there was nothing meaningful in my action. A natural-born lifeform was seated opposite, eyeing me with a friendly-seeming curiosity. He was wearing expensive, custom-made dark-red robes. They were made for purpose rather than display; this was someone who did his own work. He had short-cut blond hair, going a little grey around the edges of the mop on top of his head. His full beard, covering his neck like a curtain, was the same colour as his robes. He had blue eyes behind large, circular glasses that rested on a broad, prominent nose. His smile showed regular, white teeth. His hands looked to be older than his face; they had prominent veins under slightly wrinkled skin. His skin was deep pink, a most uncommon colour.

“I should say that I have been looking for you generally, not you specifically. Please do not be worried, I am here to help you. You do need help, don’t you?” he asked with a nod that positively encouraged me to nod in return.

“Good, good. That’s settled then. This is our stop here, come along now.” He stood up and waited for me to move. I stood up and headed for the exit from the transport. I was so relieved that someone else was making decisions for me, I didn’t care where I was going once I did not have to think. We stepped out of the transport, and he took hold of my arm and drew me along with him as we merged into the crowd of travellers and finally came out into the open air. It was full night, and the streetlights were creating shadows everywhere. A private transport emerged from one of the shadows and stopped in front of us and a door opened. I was ushered into the transport, which had extremely comfortable seating, and we sat side by side as the transport moved.

We did not speak for the length of the journey, however long it was, I just sat in the seat and felt nothing. The transport stopped, and the two of us got out and the transport went off. I was standing on an empty street in front of a business cluster. All the buildings were low-rise, ten storeys with retail spaces on the ground floor and offices filling the rest. During the working day, the place would be full of lifeforms hustling and bustling but after hours it was empty. There were no residential spaces, so I did sort of wonder what we were doing in this place. Taking my arm again, the natural led me to the entrance to an office block and we walked into the reception and over to the row of lifts. The natural called a lift and we went inside when the doors opened. They closed and opened again, and we stepped into a living space. I looked behind me to make sure; there was no reception or lift, just a wall covered by a large map of the systems, organised in a way I had never seen before. The lift was a portal.

“I am sure that you are tired and need to have a proper rest,” the natural said to me, leading me through the room and down a wide corridor. I had the vague idea that I had been picked up for a sexual encounter, but I was not bothered one way or the other. The natural opened a door to a large bedroom that contained a wide bed with posts at each corner. The tops of the posts had small, dark crystal shapes I later found were comfort charms that enhanced restful sleep. The natural waved at another door in the bedroom and said: “There is a wet room through there. Give yourself a wash and get some sleep. We will meet again in the morning for breakfast.”

I did as I was told and had a deep and peaceful sleep. When I woke, I felt fully recovered and awake and now had a head full of questions about what I had walked myself into. My clothes, clearly laundered, were folded on a chair and I tried to think of a strategy for the upcoming breakfast. Having settled on nothing and feeling hungry, I left the bedroom and went looking for food and information. I wandered for a while and found that the space was huge, filled with rooms and corridors. The furnishings were very expensive and all carefully arranged to create the feeling of comfort. Finally, I went into a room where the natural was sitting at a large round table, having breakfast. There was a place laid next to him and, when I came into the room, a lifeform in a uniform stepped forward and pulled out the chair for me to sit. I did so.

The natural was wearing a red one-piece that had numerous pockets and was covered in script embroidered with threads of gold. The script, I later found out, was a long-dead language from the original seat of the empire, the Wrexen Federation. The language had been used exclusively by the administrative class who were not native to the federation. They had arrived from somewhere still unidentified and rapidly taken over. As they started to expand their area of control, they moved to Thiegler and established that as the hub of an empire. The Wrexen Federation faded into a backwater that was finally taken over by another external group and was no longer part of the empire. For a very long time it appeared that no one cared, until it was made clear that nothing had been forgotten.

As I helped myself to the food on the table and coffee, real coffee, was poured into my cup, the natural looked at me, took a drink from his cup, set it down and started talking to me.

“Good morning, I can see that you had a refreshing sleep, and I am sure you also have a lot of questions. Let me get started on answering them. I never did introduce myself last night, I did not think that there was the time to do it properly. I am Duceer Blackwood.” He paused slightly and, after I introduced myself, he continued: “Thank you, Shakbout, it is a pleasure to meet you and to be sharing this meal with you. If you do not mind me saying so you had the look of a lifeform who needed somewhere to stay and needed employment when we met last night, and I would like to offer both to you. No need to respond quite yet, let us continue this talk and, when you have heard everything, then you can decide if you are interested or not. Agreed?”

I nodded. To be honest, I was ready to say yes to any offer that would be made.

“What do you know about the history of the empire prior to the war?”

I was stumped by the question. I had never actually given any thought to the empire before the war. In fact, I had hardly given any attention to the empire or the war at all. I had studied it as part of my education, but it was not given a lot of focus. This was a deliberate strategy that had been pursued by the Standing Committee; they had to acknowledge the existence of the empire and the fact of the war, but they were not going to encourage any further study that might lead to unsettling conclusions about the role of Thiegler or their own establishment and continuing existence.

“Nothing really,” I replied.

Duceer smiled and sat back in his chair, took another gulp from his cup, and readied himself to enlighten me.

“The war has become a curtain behind which the history of the empire is hidden from view. Ingea did not build the empire, she inherited it. She was the last of an extensive line who had carefully built and shaped the empire. All that history has been forgotten, hidden by the blaze from the war so that history for most lifeforms really starts in the aftermath of the war, or at best extends into the activities of the conflict itself. Very few look to the times before the war, to the time when the Windscale Empire was the dominant force in the inhabited systems, one of several powerful groups, the most powerful but not the controlling one. I lift that curtain to see what came before, what knowledge has been forgotten.

“The only way that history leaks through to today is the existence of empire artefacts, items that were made prior to or over the course of the war and have survived. They are prized because they demonstrate a technology that has not been replicated or improved. They are antiques, valued for their provenance though some are more than that. I am sure that you have heard rumours of keys that will open any lock, locations that are impossible to map or navigate without the right charm. They are not just a legend – they exist. They are tiny clues that point to greater accomplishments on the other side of the curtain. I seek out those accomplishments, map, measure and read them. I rescue forgotten knowledge and bring it into the light.”