Untitled: Chapter 1
This is the first chapter of an unreleased, untitled novel. This text will change, likely many times, before the book is published. Please feel free to reach out with feedback or suggestions via Twitter.
Throughout the history of humanity, and far before our time, there has always been a search for the theory of everything, the grand universal truth. Few species have come close to finding this universal truth, and indeed, many species have come across truths that seem truer to some than to others, but one truth is truer than the rest: Space is wide and seemingly without limit. From tiny, insignificant solar systems like Sol to supermassive stars that form galaxies so vast that time bends as it stretches across black holes.
This vastness has a knack for putting you in your place, whichever place that might be at the time. For Boras Gelpien of Drak, for example, that place was kneeling over a toilet in a backstreet Berlin bar after a long night of Texas hold ‘em and cheap shots of something called ‘Mexikaner’. This wasn’t exactly where he intended to end up on a Saturday night; he had actually been looking forward to a slow night at the hotel, poring over paperwork and a glass of milk. Instead, he decided to follow a group of rowdy tourists who looked like they knew where they were going into a shady-looking bar, of which Berlin had plenty. This was his evening, and he was spending it losing money, his sobriety, and much of his dignity. Luck should have it that Gelpien, an otherwise upstanding Drakkian from a long line of lawmen, had the foresight to hide half of his earnings from the evening’s risky gamble halfway up the toilet chute before having his pockets shaken empty, getting his long, slender frame twisted into a pretzel and what was left of him thrown out into the crisp Berlin Winter air. He’d be back for those credits, he thought, and then he’d get off this blasted planet - but first he needed to get some clean pants.
Boras Gelpien of Drak wasn’t in town for a gamble, nor was he there for the local spirits (however much they reminded him fondly of spiced Corpus bile from back home). Indeed, Boras Gelpien was looking for someone, a Union starship captain, who had something he very much needed. Retired Union captains don’t tend to hide, he knew, but bask in the glory of their achievements and spend their retirement earnings on expensive yachts and trips to pleasure planets. Leetha, however, was different. A celebrated captain at the heart of The Union’s most important diplomatic enterprise, Captain Leetha Farouk was sent to represent The Union in peace talks with the ambassador of the Vega Empire. The Empire was a collection of theocratic planets in the Vega System that recently suffered the loss of their highest religious leader, and The Union swooped in and took the chance to bring these planets into the ranks and take advantage of their mining and military resources. Vega Gamma was especially rich in iron-infused Uridium, a resource that The Union used to build their fleet. How unfortunate was it, then, that Captain Leetha Farouk disappeared halfway through the negotiations, and even more unfortunate that Boras Gelpien of Drak was the one to be looking for her.
Gelpien wasn’t interested in Captain Farouk herself, or starring in the surely very exciting headlines that would be written with her return. He wasn’t even interested in her rambunctious exploits around the galaxy. Sure, he’d heard a laundry list of fascinating rumors about how she nabbed the Vega ambassador’s heritage jewels and made her way to the gambling strips of Techya (a terrible resort planet full of reserved loungers with beach towels; a strange, human-only behavior that he couldn’t quite wrap his head around) and then booked a seat on a cargo freighter bound for the off-Union space station of Norterak 7. As fascinating as she may have been, she had something he needed. Gelpien was following a lead for a client. Which client, he could not say - he accepted a large credit advance from the broker and didn‘t ask too many questions. Honorable law men accept the contract and go about their business. Besides, he could retire with that kind of money. Gelpien was looking for a piece of evidence that Captain Farouk supposedly had - evidence which would prove that the Union had ulterior motives in their negotiations with the Vega Empire. The Vega people had been isolationist and untrusting of other species, sending only clerics to other planets in any official capacity. Law men have an underground network of gossip and rumors, and it had long been suspected that these clerics were actually spies. Spying to what end, he did not know, but his client seemed to have been of the opinion that whatever information the Vegas had about the Union, the Union wanted to control it. Gelpien’s client, it seems, wanted to expose it. Leetha Farouk was a liability.
He was not expecting a trip to Berlin, but the trail of evidence brought him here. Earth was not The Union’s smallest planet (that prestigious title was reserved for Woku, a dust ball with 50 Union scientists and 50 million sand worms, each more horrendous than the last - the scientists, not the sand worms), but he had been tipped off by a source on Mars that Leetha had passed through Martian space on an unregistered flyer on her way to her home world. Of all the Human planets, Earth was the oldest and most densely populated. Berlin, her hometown, had not easily kept up with the times. The lack of eye scanners made it easier for anyone, even for Gelpien - with his immense height and unusually scrawny physique - to blend in with the crowd. Activists regularly dismantled SubQ readers, which meant that the chip that all Union citizens had implanted under their wrist at birth (provided they were of a species that had wrists) could not be read. Berlin was the perfect place to get lost.
Thus he found himself in this backwater bar in a backwater town on a backwater planet in the backwater solar system of Sol. Without clean pants.
He picked up the rest of his composure and what was left of his dignity and dusted off his shirt. He headed into the night air. It was cold in Berlin, and the icy air seared the back of his nostrils. He was used to the cold. Drak had its fair share of icy winters, and they were much longer than those on Earth. Drak was a planet of dunes, and the cold winter air always rushed though the sands and rubbed his cheeks raw. Here, in Berlin, the frosty air stood still and crept up his nose only when he breathed in - giving him the illusion that if he’d just stop breathing for a moment, he wouldn’t be as cold. He held his breath for a bit and turned left onto Friedrichstraße, a wide street full of tourists, mostly human, largely from the colonies. A man bumped into Gelpien with an “Aid for Europa” pin and quickly disappeared before he could give him the stink-eye. A woman, another Drakkian, stood out to him from a few steps away. Drakkians were often found on Human planets, mostly doing business or diplomacy. Gelpien liked to think that as a law man, he was doing a little of both. After a short walk, he reached hotel “Ostberli”, housed in an old-century building that probably used to be called “Ostberliner”, but the remaining letters of the word were either removed, stolen or just as likely - forgotten. The Ostberli was his kind of a hotel. Modest, authentic and with a mostly empty bar.
“Long night, Mr. Gelpien?”
He nodded to the night staff and made his way through the Art Nuevo lobby to the elevator with brass doors. This was not his first night at The Ostberli. In fact, he had been staying there for close to three weeks at that point. It was unlike Gelpien to follow a dead lead, but most signs that had pointed to Captain Farouk’s presence in the city had so far turned out to be bunk. As he opened the door to his room on the 3rd floor, he was greeted, just like every night, with a large mirror in the hallway plastered with handwritten sticky notes. “Bahnhof Zoo, May 19th”, read one. “Goldmann Books and Stamps at Warschauer”, read another. He closed the door behind him and went straight for the half-empty bottle of milk on the desk. Popping it open, he poured a quarter of a glass and stood in front of the mirror. The lead at Bahnhof Zoo was a dead end - he pulled the sticky note off, crumpled it up, and threw it unceremoniously into the dust bin on the other side of the room. He took his (now mostly empty) wallet out from the back of his pocket and pulled out a slightly dented business card. “D.A. Goldmann” it read: “Books and Collectibles”. This was a lead that Gelpien felt was probably another dead end. Not many people frequented bookstores unless they were looking for information that hadn’t been audited by The Union, but Gelpien was running out of official sources. It was in The Union’s interest to find Captain Farouk, and typically Union officials made information available to law men with proper cause. Every lead and tip had, however, dried up, and a nosy but well-meaning bartender who served him one too many Mexikaner on one of his other rambunctious nights in the city suggested he try a slightly unconventional source. “They’ve been here forever, hundreds of years”, said the bartender. “They have seen everything this city has ever been through. They know who passes through here. Give them a try.” It had been a long time since Gelpien used the services of a bookstore; not since he needed some information off-the-record while attempting to solve a missing person’s case in the old town district of Mars’ Discovery City. He didn’t trust the purveyors. He didn’t trust the information, and he didn’t trust that he could pay for it.
Putting aside the empty glass of milk, he kicked off his shoes and slumped onto the double bed, which was far too short, but comfortable enough.
Boras Gelpien awoke with a loud knocking on the door of his hotel room. “Room Service!” Yelled a man from the other side. “Hello! You want now or later?” Gelpien opened his eyes and took a second to orientate himself before rolling off the bed and onto the scruffy carpet. He opened the door and stared down intently at the short Promethean in an apron. “Later, okay! I come back one hour!” Yelled the man loudly, seemingly without regard to the fact that Gelpien was now stood right in front of him. He scuttled along the corridor to the next room, pushing a cart ahead of him. A pair of clean pants sat folded on the carpet outside Gelpien's door with a small note that read "with compliments". He picked up the pants, turned back into the room and set it them on the back of the chair. He opened the window blinds, letting in the blue-tinged light of a late Berlin Winter morning. His SubQ vibrated softly.
"Mmm."
"You awake?"
It was Tam, his agent.
"I haven't had any coffee yet, if that's what you're asking."
"No. How's it going with the Farouk case?"
Gelpien made a barely audible grumble.
"I pay you to get me jobs, not to poke your nose into them. What do you want?”
Tam's job was to scour the broker boards and compete for high-paying jobs. If solved, Gelpien paid him a 20% commission, so he had a keen interest in making sure Gelpien was on the right track. This case had a big payout, and Tam was probably hoping to retire on Techya in close proximity to a VR multiplex.
"You're a terrible person before you've had coffee" quipped Tam, which was probably true. "Look, I thought you might want to know that there are a bunch of Hives on the ground in Berlin." "Hives" were small Union reconnaissance units who were very good at hiding in plain sight.
"I'm NOT going to ask you how you know", said Gelpien, rolling his eyes although Tam couldn't see; he knew that Tam had his own, unscrupulous ways of getting information.
"They're obviously looking for her too. How does this affect my case?"
"OUR case", emphasized Tam. Gelpien rolled his eyes again. "We want to find her first. Just watch your back."
Tam hung up.
Gelpien stepped out of The Ostberli in a pair of clean pants and made his way down Friedrichstraße. The city was just as full during the day as it was at night, but at the moment it seemed to be mostly salary workers scuttling to and fro. He tossed his empty coffee cup into the recycling chute at the entrance to the train station and paused to look around him. A group of young women in suits and identical hairstyles passed him on their way up the stairs. Hives typically traveled together in groups of three or four, he knew, and decided to walk a few steps behind them as they boarded the Maglev carriage towards the back. He tried to avoid looking in their direction, while standing close enough to hear their chatter.
"I've interviewed 20 candidates in the past week. They were all completely useless."
"That's unfortunate. Did you at least record the interviews?"
"Of course I recorded the interviews. I spent hours going over them again last night. I pored over every detail."
"Well, did you find anything?"
Gelpien's ears perked up.
"No, I didn't 'find anything'. They all went on and about their Ivy League degrees, border collies back home and their love for competitive rowing. Nothing we can use. Nothing of any substance."
"What about the voice scanners? Did you check them against the database?"
"I came up with nothing. They were all as clean as a whistle. Paint their fences. Pay their taxes. Tell the truth."
One of the women lowered her voice to a whisper.
"I guess that we'll have to dig a lot deeper if we want find out what Indico are up to. Bossman is going to be real pleased when we deliver their business forecast to him ahead of our investor meeting. Might even land us a raise and a complementary visit to Spa City."
Gelpien groaned in a manner audible only to himself. If there was any business he dreaded to take on, it was corporate espionage. It was a pity - those jobs tended to pay more credits than they were worth, but always demanded a part of his soul in exchange. He was a clean law man, he thought to himself. Aside from some unavoidable bar brawls and brushes with the Techyan Underworld, his soul was mostly intact - or at least, his official records were.
The near-identical women scuttled off of the Maglev at Ostbahnhof. Their shoes made the same "clack-clack" sound as they got off the train and onto the pavement of the platform. Gelpien looked up at the transit map posted over the door of the carriage as it closed behind them. "Next stop: Warschauer Straße. Please exit here for Pleasuredome and East Side Gallery", said a pre-recorded voice. He peered out of the large glass pane of the maglev at the dense, hive-like structures and the billboards that covered their entire facade. He had not been to this part of the city before, but it looked like the rest of it; tourists, tired-eyed salary workers, Bratwurst stands. The train slowed to a halt. Gelpien ducked and stepped out, narrowly avoiding a collision with a young man holding a large speaker box which was blazing some form of loud guitar-based "music". The young man was being trailed by a younger woman wearing lights in her hair. Gelpien scuttled through the crowd and made his way to the station exit. On the far left, across the bridge, was a massive mega-structure with the lettering "Pleasuredome" in large, colorful lights. The structure was so imposing that he momentarily forgot the purpose of his visit to this side of the city. Animated images of scantily-clad men and woman adorned the entrance in a manner that seemed to beckon him in. Flashing images of cash-credits reminded him he probaby shouldn't. He took a right turn and continued up Warschauer, leaving the dense crowds behind him.
After a short walk he arrived at a small intersection with a Mag-tram station. He looked around. An empty plot on the North-Eastern side of the intersection stood out like a sore thumb. "Curious", he thought to himself "This is where the bookstore should be". He took his wallet out from his back pocket, still mostly empty, and looked down at the dented business card. “D.A. Goldmann, Books and Collectibles. Warschauer Straße 74 since 2023”. He looked back up and noticed the building adjacent to the empty plot was numbered 76. He was at the right spot. Looking down, he shuffled the freshly-laid soil with his shoe. A hastily-written sign hung from the side of a fence: "For Sale". A moment of confusion led to a stark realization: There was no doubt about it; the only remaining lead he had for finding captain Leetha Farouk was quite literally gone. Vanished, as if it had never existed at all.