The Merchant's Tale

Nobody could be sure whether Groden Pel was alive or not. As each part of his body had failed he’d had it replaced. I’d always assumed he’d live forever, but immortality was an expensive business. When all his creditors had foreclosed on him at the same time Groden had been forced to sell the only thing he still owned; his body.

I’d taken care of his funeral. It was the least I could do after everything Groden had done for me. It’d been Groden who’d taken care of me after my mother’s death, and he’d been the one to help me track down her killer and take my revenge. Then, when I had wanted to disappear, it had been Groden who’d helped me to start a new life.

The casket was small, there not being all that much to put inside. Having outlived all of his contemporaries, the funeral was not that well attended. Apart from myself, there was only one other mourner. The young girl had boarded the funeral cruiser during the final part of the eulogy and taken a seat behind me. We both sat in silence as the public version of Groden’s achievements was read out. The list was missing a lot of things that no one knew about, like the things he and my mother had got up to. At various times during their careers Groden Pel and Jarel Dreer had been traders, prospectors, planet hunters and outlaws.

As Groden’s favourite Jarvey Montillo song boomed over the ship’s audio system, the small metal cylinder containing his remains was fired out towards Procyon. The executor of Groden’s will approached me.

‘Mr. Ryn, the deceased left instructions for this to be given to you.’ He handed me a box. A warning label on the side indicated the presence of organic material.

‘You going to open, Valin?’ the girl asked. I looked around to see who she was.

‘Valin’s dead,’ I answered. ‘My name’s Yosef.’ She stared right back at me with large, pupil-less eyes. They were long and narrow, the colour of liquid honey.

‘My name Amber,’ she said. I laughed. ‘Why is funny?’

‘Your mother,’ I said. ‘Reminding me she had a sense of humour after all.’

Emulon’s eyes had been the first thing I’d noticed when Groden had introduced me to her. They were the eyes of an assassin. Groden had explained that Emulon was a clone, a defector from The Circle of Nine. The group responsible for murdering my mother.

As the executor walked away Amber said,

‘You knew my mother?’

‘Not here,’ I said. Amber followed me to my shuttle. I set the box down in the rear compartment and got in the front.

‘How she die?’ Amber asked, getting in the passenger seat beside me.

‘I don’t know,’ I told her. ‘They found her ship years later, drifting in deep space. There wasn’t much left of her. Radiation damage, they said. She’d been star-hopping, using a heavy magnetic shield and a fuel scoop.’ I started up the shuttle’s engines and took us out of the funeral cruiser’s hanger.

‘Why you not with her?’ Amber asked.

‘Emulon wanted that life. I didn’t,’ I said. ‘My mother’s murderer got what they deserved. Killing them didn’t make me feel any better. I’d lost the best part of my childhood and teenage years in the pursuit of vengeance, and it turned me into something I hated. Somebody just like them.’

Groden had trained me. He’d pushed me to the top of the local combat rankings index, but we both knew I’d have no chance against a member of the Circle. Recruiting Emulon had been a smart move. She was one of them, she knew all their moves, plus a few of her own. The clones of the Circle of Nine had super-human reflexes and I saw first-hand how good Emulon was behind the controls. For all my skill, I was relegated to the co-pilot’s chair and tasked with managing the ship’s systems. It was all I could do to keep the ship from flying apart when Emulon was piloting it. Having Emulon on our side meant we didn’t have to look for the Circle either; we became the hunted.

‘It was neat, I’ll give you that,’ I said. Amber gave me a sideways glance. ‘Setting Groden up, so all his debts came in at once.’

‘Groden old. Want to die.’

‘You knew I’d be at the funeral,’ I said. ‘Groden promised me he’d go to his grave before he told anybody where I was.’

‘He kept word,’ Amber said. She reached over to the back seat and picked up the box. She rolled it around in her hands. ‘What you think inside?’

‘So how did Emulon create you?’ I asked Amber. ‘I mean, we never…’

‘I not know that part,’ Amber said. ‘I was, I think, experiment.’

I guided us into the orbital control zone of Ryn station and locked on to the landing beacon.

‘You own station?’ Amber asked as I set the shuttle down on the landing pad. ‘You so rich?’ said Amber.

‘That why you tracked me down?’ I asked. This part of the station was a holdstock, where I kept all my long-term investments. Behind the hundreds of yellow cargo containers of luxury goods and rare items sat the ship that Emulon and I had flown together. Amber got out of the shuttle and walked towards her mother’s old ship, examining the scorch marks on the underside. Amber traced the letters on the hull with the palm of her hand. H-A-R-B-I-N-G-E-R.

‘What is?’ Amber asked.

‘Your mother’s idea,’ I told Amber. ‘We used the Harbinger to kill Iteph.’

‘Iteph?’ Amber asked.

‘Emulon said Iteph was the clone who’d killed my mother.’ Amber’s face remained as inscrutable as ever. ‘After that was done, I asked Groden to make me a new identity. I was done with being a legend.’

‘So Valin die?’ Amber asked.

‘Your mother had no flight profile, so I let her fly under Valin’s. When the Circle killed her it was a convenient way to bury the legend of Valin.’ Amber stood under the nose of the ship.

‘We go inside?'

I located the release catch and pulled it. A slim ladder dropped down and Amber climbed up.

‘She need a lot of work to get ready,’ she said.

‘Ready for what?’ I asked, following her up into the cockpit. I’d forgotten how cramped it was behind the flight console, and how much slimmer Valin was. It was hard to imagine how Emulon and me used to fly this thing without constantly banging elbows, but we’d learned to anticipate each other’s moves. Amber hopped into the pilot’s seat and for a split second I was back there with Emulon again. The girl was about the same age as her mother had been the last time she’d sat in that seat.

‘Look, I know exactly what you’re feeling right now,’ I told Amber. ‘You want to find whoever killed your mother and blast them to atoms, but it won’t do any good. Nothing will ever stop the pain.’

‘Her name Aleph,’ said Amber. ‘Leader of Circle. That who murder my mother.’