The Silence of Zegandaria by Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov (book recommendations website txt) 📕

There were a lot of smugglers in the Asteroid Belt, and projecting a shadow of an Ervanan ship right in that area would have attracted even the Intergalactic Police, who might have been tempted to use the occasion to skim the laurels while most likely being escorted by warships.

I wasn't under the illusion that we had stumbled upon anything extraordinary, but how to use the technology we had no idea.

The Ervanan dialect was quite peculiar and consisted of too many nasal sounds - something between a mumble and a growl that changed its tonality from overly polite to brutally aggressive.

On the whole, these aliens were an emotional race that, in addition to being excellent warriors, also made excellent party-goers.

Inside the ship, there were too many indications of this:

- "I'm even starting to like these alien bastards," Lozur Ban snapped, "They don't care about anything, but that doesn't seem to stop them from having a code of honor."

I'm thinking how sorry they'd be to see what those we lost have missed.

I fell silent and stared at him intently for a while. This health guy was probably right. And he certainly wasn't stupid at all. No such thing existed on Earth or Charon.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR: THE HEIR

Old Esborn was already pining for an heir-someone he could trust with his business-but unfortunately he had no children and wasn't about to have any.

Sure, he had the means to clone his own genetic material, but the thought didn't particularly appeal to him.

For one thing, he had a thing about clones, and for another, those records in the Earth Federation's records could be used against him sooner or later, which was still something of a risk.

As much as he struggled to realize some things, his brain remained that of a hardened traditionalist. Esborn had excellent discipline and obliged his crew to follow it as well.

- "Yes, we may be smugglers," he'd say, "but we're human too. The Earth Federation cannot impose its model of life on us. Human beings have the right to be free. That's the way I see things! That's how we all see things! That's why we have been living outside the laws of the Galactic Federation, and Earth's laws in particular, for so many years."

GH306 listened raptly to his incredible pathos and would have believed that this man who had saved him was quite different from the rest. He wanted to know that his pattern of behavior would not upset him, and he would have no hesitations about certain matters relating to establishing his own origins.

It was strange for a clone to think like that! But GH306 wanted to at least find out who the donor was for his series. And where the murderous rage in GH307's eyes had come from, given that clones weren't supposed to feel emotions.

After finishing his speech, Esborn retired for a short break during which he had some rather economic matters to settle.

His quarters weren't too far from the command room, and he headed there at a brisk pace. He hoped to announce his successor today so there would be no more cause for speculation.

The crew was forced to fulfill their daily norm, which consisted mainly of intercepting the foreign ships.

It was proper to say here that in the past there had been skirmishes between members of the Echnaton and the Samael.

The Samael group was engaged in a more peculiar type of smuggling, so-called custom smuggling, and for that reason looked down somewhat on its colleagues. They were hired to supply all sorts of things to select people who were aware of what they wanted out of life.

For example, if Rento were alive, Jervond would have happily provided them with some Ervanan technology they could use at their discretion.

But unfortunately the Samael group was doing everything too incognito even by smuggler standards. So many faces had changed in leadership positions that it was hardly very easy to remember them. So many people came and went - the turnover was enormous. The interesting thing about them was that they had no standards for the appearance of their "employees". Sometimes even homeless people were hired to do relevant things.

Incidentally, one of the qualities that smugglers didn't like at all was pettiness. And they made an excellent distinction between punctuality and pettiness.

After some deliberation, the commander of the Echnaton decided on GH306 to replace it as its successor. The smugglers did not follow any legal procedures, but simply held a general meeting to make the important decisions.

- 'Friends,' Esborn addressed them, 'in the few weeks he has been with us I think ... our new member of the team has been more than useful. And my time to relinquish power has come.

They all listened to him intently, for in the back of their minds they could sense the change. They could not so easily forget the comrade with whom they had shared everything, for better and for worse.

- "From now on he will be your guide," he concluded humbly.

The other smugglers looked on. They knew that the trek across the solar system would soon be over, and in practice even destinations like Proxima B let alone Aldebaran[1] were still beyond the Earth Federation's capabilities.

There had been fierce arguments among the team members as to what exactly their future would be. Frankly, while Esborn had some semblance of sympathy for the young clone, and the others at first shared his enthusiasm the harsh reality remained, and it was more than evident - soon there would be no bread for all.

Even Samael's orders had dropped dramatically, and it was more than clear that they were next in line.

GH306 wasn't grazing grass, but offering them his hidden trump card:

- How about Haumea, or how about Charon?

- "So we've been past them many times," called some of the voices, in an attempt not so much to refute him as to gauge the tone of the general mood.

- "You might have done, but to have missed something that probably lies buried under the ice," he said cryptically. "I'll help you if you'll help me, though. The Earth Federation won't let me live, because I'm obviously a thorn in the side of many of the senators who have indulged in nothing but eating and drinking and have neglected the truly important things. But what lies there may be the key to solving the mystery - the real way to leave the solar system once and for all."

They eyed it with curiosity and dared to question it:

- And then what will happen? We might want something other than just to escape the Galactic Federation and its long arm. Maybe soon Korolan Bru will get it wrong and everything will go to hell.

GH306 waited until the unruly chorus of assorted suggestions had died down and pulled his last trump card:

- And maybe all this time Korolan Bru has been working covertly against you and everyone but its own members. The technological advances she has made cannot be explained otherwise. So did you expect anything different? And where in the whole picture could we, the clones who were used to conquer vital territory, fit in?

No one said a word. They knew of the immense suffering Eberald Eziner had caused him.

[1] Aldebaran b -- An exoplanet 65 light years from Earth in the constellation Taurus.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE: THE SAMAEL GROUP

Everyone wanted to actually live well, but this was strongly true of the earthly senators, who allowed absolute excesses, which, by the way, were completely pointless. Somewhere in there a "golden rule" had been established that luxury was not made for the low in spirit. This elated mood was shared by their fellows who were wallowing in misery because of the huge funding of space weapons development programs as well as those related to genetic engineering.

Few of the senators had actually even left the confines of their well-guarded villas, where in fact they were seeing an entirely different world, having nothing to do with reality on Earth.

There was also a minimum property census that was required for a person to be a senator. He had to own at least ten million ents.

Therefore, Esborn himself wanted to retire and secretly obtain the status of senator, which would grant him certain privileges in his later life.

It was not so easy, however, to bribe the Commission for the Distribution of Titles, since it also checked the pedigree of the candidates themselves.

And Esborn himself didn't have too many opportunities to disguise exactly who he was.

Well, yes, there was the bribery option, but it too had a limit. It wasn't in Esborn's purse to hand out money to every corrupt official.

No matter how the combinations were spun, he felt it was inevitable that they would eventually clash with the interests of the leader of the Samael, Ernest Doom, who believed in the very strange theory that when they were all gone from this world, their deeds would be judged according to their hierarchy here on Earth. He had defended this thesis so strongly that finally on Earth they had wondered if they should put him in the insane asylum, or at least in some sort of correctional facility.

As for the Samael's crew, it numbered thirty people, each of them specializing in a certain activity - one of them stealing rare and expensive items, another one doing numismatic work, and some even hunting down technologies of alien civilizations and selling them at ten-dollar prices, as the market in that respect was quite interesting.

The Samael ship was a benchmark of quality and the motto of its people was that they could find anything for anyone for the right amount.

Few would have asked what was behind it all? The plans of its leader, Ernest Daum, remained shrouded in mystery - a wiry son of a bitch who had emerged as if from the womb of hell.

Among his crew, as we said, there were even bums vying to win his favour. This could be done in several ways.

One was by procuring an overpriced item that brought them foundling status and placed them higher in the hierarchy. The other was if they managed to get their hands on exceptional technology like the Ervanans.

The turnover of this smuggling team was reported to the Upper House of the Senate - and more specifically to the now deceased Senators Bondor and Olroy.

After their ridiculous demise, things began to stall and all trade came