THE FOUR ANGELS (PAPERBACK)

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THE FOUR ANGELS
Chapter 1

She was a clone on the run. Scheduled to be terminated and fed back into the system for the next generation. A fate she had risked everything to avoid.

Amelia Blueheart stared out the viewport in her quarters. Even though she’d been aboard the Malapar for the better part of seven months now, the luxuriousness of her private quarters still filled her with wonder.

Smooth carpeting the color of mountain spruce covered the metal deck. The thick, soft carpet felt wonderful under her bare feet. She grabbed it with her bare toes, stretched them, and grabbed again. Thanks to the Zabolov people’s love of comfort she was slowly learning the joy–and sometimes the discomfort–of physical sensations.

A wide, comfortable bunk lay against the wall opposite the viewport. She had room to spread out and two–not one, but two–extra, cushioned seats. Best of all, the viewport nearly filled one wall. Dwarf red, white, and blue-white stars and dust clouds of deep purple created a constantly changing scene. All of it hers as long as she traveled with the Zabolov cargo ship. A far cry from the life she was used to.

The ship was scheduled for a year-long trip. That gave her five more months to find a safe place to settle and build a new life. When the Malapar returned to its home planet it needed to return without her.

Her Zabolov friends had staged a brilliant and daring plan to free her from the Tribunal. Her owners thought she had perished in a fiery explosion while trying to escape. Of course, if they ever realized she was still alive they would search until they found her and she would be immediately put to death and fed into the latest batch of clones. Nothing went to waste in a cloning lab.

A soft chime sounded and Robena’s image appeared on Amelia’s door. Intelligent, intense, and determined to teach Amelia the skills she would need to survive outside of the narrow limits of her previous life, the only female on the ship’s crew of four had become a cherished friend–her second female friend and hopefully not her last.

“Open.” The door to the quarters slid silently open. Brilliant and skilled engineers, everything the Zabolov people built functioned smoothly. They liked nothing better than to be handed a challenge to turn something that was only adequate into a masterpiece of engineering. Very few outsiders had even the slightest inkling of how advanced their technology was.

Amelia looked at Robena’s expression and frowned.
“What’s wrong?”

Robena set a small container on the arm of a chair and ran one hand through her white hair. Thousands of years of living inside the mountains on their home planet had leached the color from the Zabalov’s skin and hair and left only the palest hint of blue in their eyes. At the moment those eyes looked worried.

“Robena?”

“The Malapar has to return home. Immediately. Daimon’s father has fallen seriously ill and isn’t expected to survive. His mother and two sisters need him.”

No one in the four person crew held rank. They were all technically equal, but Daimon was the ship’s unofficial leader–highly respected by all onboard and at home. Amelia appreciated his ability to strip emotion from any problem and find a solution. If he needed to get home immediately then the situation was indeed serious.

Robena was staring at her. It took a minute for Amelia to realize why. She couldn’t return with them.

“Our only chance to stop is before we enter dark space. Once we start back we can’t detour. Daimon has agreed to drop you off first.”

Amelia’s legs wobbled. She dropped onto the edge of her bunk and took a deep breath.

“Where? What’s nearby? I don’t want to delay Daimon’s departure.” She had only begun her research on the planetary systems the ship would visit over the next few months, looking for a city large enough to absorb her but not so large that it had developed all the problems that overpopulation engendered. With the strong likelihood that she would spend the remainder of her life there, picking the right spot was incredibly important.

Robena pursed her lips. “I’m afraid there’s only one choice: Cyprius. It was our next stop and we’re almost there.”

Amelia nodded even though she could feel panic rising in her chest.

“It has a city?”

“Yes. Theopoline. It’s the largest city on the planet, but not too large.” Robena had laid down some guidelines to help with Amelia’s search, so Amelia took heart that Robena knew what she needed in a new home.

“Okay. How long do I have?” She would learn everything she could about Cyprius and Theopoline before they landed.

“Less than an hour.” Robena picked up the container she had carried in. “That’s why I’m here. We need to work fast.”

She had to leave the safe shelter of the Malapar in an hour?

Amelia looked at the bottle of hair dye and scissors Robena pulled from the container and hid her panic. One problem with being a clone was that she looked exactly like every other translator clone currently working the galaxy. They were carefully crafted to possess the most widely appealing feminine traits, traits that had been determined after years of extensive testing.

Smooth light brown skin, large bright green eyes, straight narrow nose, full red mouth, finely arched dark eyebrows, thick, silky black hair that hung to her narrow waist, with round hips and full breasts–she was the epitomy of a human female designed to appear non-threatening and set others at ease.
She couldn’t do anything about her body shape or facial features, but she could change her hair. She took a deep breath to calm her rattled nerves and stood.

“Okay. Let’s do it,” she said, sinking to her knees in front of Robena. “When you’re finished I’ll pack and you can tell Daimon I’m ready.”

Thirty minutes later, Amelia was packed and set to depart the ship. Her possessions were few but deeply cherished. Four skinsuits, a deep green, thick woven cape, a small painting of the Zabolov’s mountain home, a comb carved from a pale green stone–all were gifts from one special Zabolov–her first real friend. The one who had given her the courage to seek more from her life.

Zena had made her escape and future possible–in the form of two-hundred-fifty-one thousand credits deposited into an account in Amelia’s name by the entire Zabolov population. A fortune in credits, waiting for her to claim them.

She was prohibited from owning anything under the Galaxy Clone Laws. Clones possessed no personal rights at all. Biologically, a clone was fully human, from the hair on their heads to the cells in their hearts and brains. Until four months ago, she herself had been a mere possession, considered a half step above a mechanical droid in the human hierarchy.

Created for the Tribunal to perform a highly specialized duty, she could never change the fact that she’d been grown and birthed in a lab instead of a human womb. She might be an elite in the clone world, but she was still Clone.

Amelia’s heart raced as she paced the floor waiting to hear they were ready to take a shuttle craft down to Cyprius’s surface. She clasped her shaking hands together, then forced them apart and shook them out.

Holy stardust, she was afraid. This was too quick. She hadn’t had time to find the perfect place; hadn’t had time to learn all that Robena wanted to teach her about negotiating daily life with others. She leaned her forehead against the smooth, cold surface of the viewport and looked out at the busy spaceport orbiting Cyprius.

She’d come this far. She couldn’t give up now.
Fear was a new experience for her. While working for the Tribunal there had been no reason to feel fear. Known for maintaining complete neutrality in any negotiation, translator clones traveled the galaxy with impunity. She had facilitated negotiations between some of the most fearsome and dangerous rulers imaginable. Never once had she felt afraid for her personal safety.

The only dangers to a translator clone were burnout or a failed negotiation. The Tribunal rewarded both with termination and reabsorption.

The ship had already docked on Cyprius’s massive spaceport. The size of a small moon, the many-armed construct of metal and polymer latticework revolved at a slow, even pace. According to Robena, who had explained the unusual spaceport, multiple docking bays along both sides of each arm made it possible for a large number of ships to visit the busy metropolis of Theopoline at the same time.

Docking and leaving the spaceport took place whenever an arm revolved away from the planet. Shuttles could only leave the ships and travel to the planet’s surface when the arm they were docked on faced the planet. The system greatly simplified traffic control.

Because of its size, the Malapar had docked at the outermost bay of the Dotheka arm. Amelia could see another large ship across the arm, identified with a grimace by another Zabolov crew member as a Puffskin trading vessel.

She completely understood the grimace. The Puffskin people were a strange lot. Nodules covered most of their skin, growing in size until they erupted with a puff of air that smelled faintly of burning poly-carbons. The nodules then shriveled, and moments later began to swell again in a strange dance that repeated itself all over the surface of their bodies, making them appear to be in motion even when standing perfectly still.

Despite the Puffskins’ reputation as a sensitive lot who grew dangerously annoyed with anyone who stared, it was difficult not to ogle this bizarre skin show. It didn’t help that the Puffskins avoided uniforms or clothing of any sort.

If she angled her head she could see smaller ships off to her left, attached to the strong frame of the spaceport by sturdy metal jaws clamped onto their noses or hulls. She inspected the other ships for several minutes. What if a Tribunal star cruiser–a ship that would carry a translator clone like herself to a negotiation–was docked? What if–

She gave herself a mental shake. It wouldn’t do to let Robena and the others see her like this. They’d done their best for her. Only an emergency would send them home sooner than planned. She needed to pull herself together. She needed to show them that the risk they’d taken by helping her escape wouldn’t be wasted.

Other than on a deserted planet, it didn’t matter where she settled–sooner or later a Tribunal ship was sure to show up. Their monopoly on translator clones ensured that they traveled to every inhabited planet in the Milky Way galaxy. That same monopoly also filled the Tribunal’s coffers and gave them a great deal of power. It was only because of their greed for more credits and more power that she had been able to escape.

She reminded herself that thanks to a clever ploy by her Zabolov friends, the Tribunal were not looking for her. She needed to remember that and stop obsessing. It was time to get on with building a new life.

She possessed several strengths that she could count on. She knew how to research and study alien cultures. Her ability to speed read helped her absorb large quantities of research, and her eidetic memory ensured that she never forgot anything. Once she found new quarters, she would locate an access point to the galaxy open database and read up on Theopoline and its people.

Perhaps even more useful was her ability to easily learn languages. She knew close to a thousand already. Even if she could no longer work as a translator, perhaps she could find a way to use her skill set to integrate into the local society.

The last thought cheered her considerably. She would be all right. The nerves were only because she was being thrust out on her own sooner than she had anticipated.