Shaman (Aeolus Investigations Book 6), page 1
Contents
Cover
Copyright
Dedication
Forward
Chapter 1, Teg Clan
Chapter 2, Getting to Know You
Chapter 3, Hallu
Chapter 4, Breaking Up is Hard to Do
Chapter 5, Ron
Chapter 6, Cage Match
Chapter 7, The Xan’katka’ublan
Chapter 8, Clicking and Snapping
Chapter 9, Bacon
Chapter 10, Fami Village
Chapter 11, Sleeping With the Fami
Chapter 12, Time to Run
Chapter 13, Rjun
Chapter 14, Laki Clan
Chapter 15, Urania
Chapter 16, Efreim
Chapter 17, Starship Graveyard
Chapter 18, Fami Clan
Chapter 19, Survey
Chapter 20, The Little Ship of Horrors
Chapter 21, The Heart of Curdal
Chapter 22, Forerunner
Chapter 23, Command-comp
Chapter 24, Uranus
Chapter 25, In the Shadow of Notre Dame
Chapter 26, Hermannile
Chapter 27, To-do List
Chapter 28, The Akai
Chapter 29, Prison Planet
Chapter 30, The Curdal
Chapter 31, Kill Ron
Chapter 32, The Statue
Chapter 33, Resurrection
Chapter 34, Jailbreak
Chapter 35, No Comas, Please
Chapter 36, Ready, Set, Abort
Chapter 37, Job Well Done
Chapter 38, Going Home
Chapter 39, Limon
Author’s Note
Tipping Point, Chapter 1
Mom, Sample Chapter
Shaman
Aeolus Investigations (Episode 6)
A Lexi Stevens Adventure
by
Robert E Colfax
Copyright © 2020 Robert C Kirk
All rights reserved.
The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher is an infringement of the copyright law.
Cover art by Dave Kirk
Proofread by Dee Bullock
Thank you
Hi, Bob Colfax here.
I hope you don’t object to a brief forward. You’re about to read Shaman, Episode Six in the Aeolus Investigations series.
The books are released chronologically in the order they’re intended to be read. Later novels almost always refer to something from a prior one. I’ve listed them below in the preferred reading order.
What else?
Focal Point is the final book of the Beyond the Divide series. I anticipate one or two additional Aeolus books out in 2020.
The Bradley Conundrum is the first book in a new series. It’s a cozy mystery. I’m struggling to write a mystery that isn’t silly and doesn’t have starships in it. Hence, no publication date, although I’m shooting for June 2020. No promises on that.
Aeolus Investigations
1. Stowaway
2. Avenger
3. Paladin
4. Gambler
5. Gladiator
6. Shaman
7. Mom (Fall 2020?)
Beyond the Divide
1. Tipping Point
2. Turning Point
3. Focal Point (November 2020)
Lost Mansion Mysteries (writing as A.E. Temple)
1. The Bradley Conundrum (Whenever!)
Chapter 1
Teg Clan
When she woke up, she was flat on her back, naked and tied spread-eagled on a very uncomfortable, lumpy mattress that smelled like damp hay, with a large naked man attempting to climb on top of her. What the hell? This guy is at least a foot taller than Ron. Less mass though. And Ron, my husband, would never even consider sexually assaulting me while I’m unconscious. She knew she wasn’t just waking from a night’s sleep. She had been knocked out. On her list of unfortunate situations to wake up in, this only took second place.
Her wrists and ankles were tied to the rustic bed in a small, wood-framed structure. The walls, which looked both fairly sturdy and at the same time somewhat temporary were woven from plant material, held up by long wooden poles. Her assailant was hesitant, as though this was a new experience for him. He smelled strongly of alcohol, burnt wood, and unbathed man.
The atmosphere in the hut was hot and quite humid. A gentle breeze wafted through the loosely woven walls bathing her in smells of the jungle as well as those of a human settlement. From beyond the walls, the soft chatter of people having numerous conversations came to her at the edge of her hearing. The dim light seeping in illuminated the room with a pearly sheen, suggesting bright moonlight rather than dim sunlight. Her night vision was extraordinary. For her, the room was well lit.
She wasn’t concerned that she couldn’t exactly remember her name. She was also clueless about where she was and how she got into this situation. None of that mattered. She would deal with it. At least she remembered Ron. Memory of him was stirring other memories. Her last memory was of her starship crashing to the surface of a terrestrial planet she and Ron intended to investigate. Well, explore might be a better word.
This trip was intended as a vacation from the craziness that permeated their lives for the last decade. The couple was also thinking seriously about starting a family. She wanted a child. He wanted to be a father. All they needed was a year when they weren’t fighting for their lives, or for that matter, the lives of all of the multitudes of beings of the interstellar civilization known as the Accord. That was our plan. This was supposed to be the year. This was supposed to be our honeymoon. So much for that plan.
The weapon that brought down their starship caused massive damage, leaving Urania, the ship’s sentient command-comp addled before becoming completely unresponsive. Her husband, Ron Samue, was probably dead. I’m Lexi Stevens, pseudo-leader of a loose-knit federation of planets known as the Accord.
How much of my memory am I still missing? How long was I unconscious? How I got in this bed is certainly a mystery. If Ron didn’t survive the crash, maybe this guy married me and I just don’t remember it. Maybe my unknown second husband is into kink. It might be nice to know the situation before I kill him. She pulled her legs up to her chest, the cords holding them tied to the foot of the bed snapping. She shoved, sending the stranger flying backward through the far wall. She shrugged mentally. If he’s fragile, that might have killed him. I need to work more on thinking these things through. The crashing and yelling that followed, however, was quite satisfying from her point of view.
Lexi snapped the cords holding her wrists and rose from the bed, following the path of the man’s trajectory, striding purposely through the shattered wall. She wasn’t in the best of moods at the moment. She snapped loose a nine-foot-tall vertical member as she went, further damaging the wall. She was a strong woman, with a sculpted musculature developed by years of a rigorous workout routine in addition to the DNA modifier for strength and speed she developed for her team. They called them hulk-meds. The treatment didn’t turn you green. It didn’t make you any larger than you already were. It enhanced you. It enhanced practically everything — strength, speed, agility, all five senses, mental focus, and the extrasensory senses she and several others had.
The smelly guy was struggling to get to his feet, shaking his head as though to clear it. When he stood, he was easily eight-feet tall, giving him nearly two feet of height on her. His arms, and therefore his reach, were proportionally longer. He was obviously human or close to it. His thin body looked like someone had tied his feet to the ground and pulled up on his hair, stretching what should have been a six-foot-tall body that extra two feet.
Lexi snapped her pole across her knee, leaving her with two lengths of approximately fifty-four inches each. She really didn’t want to get too close to him at this point. She wasn’t afraid of him. She wasn’t even worried that he might hurt her. But, this guy survived being propelled through the admittedly flimsy wall with little or no damage. The man wasn’t fragile.
She didn’t know the situation here. Before the weapon struck her ship, Urania determined this was a preindustrial civilization. It shouldn’t have been possible for these people to bring down a shielded starship. Lexi didn’t want to cause this man injuries that might prove fatal, especially if this culture was as primitive as it appeared to be. With his reach, she might have no choice but to break him if he got a hold on her. A small crowd of equally tall people was gathering, mostly jeering at this man they were calling Hinsu for letting a small woman toss him through his wall. Lovely, Lexi thought. That’s just lovely. Now my damn subconscious is picking up and learning new languages.
Hinsu rose to his full height, flexed his muscles, and charged her. Lexi couldn’t tell what was driving his violence. Apparently, no one in the crowd felt an obligation to try and stop him. Or to help him. They just watched. A few were hurriedly making bets. She nimbly dodged aside at the last second, moving so fast she was a blur to the audience, tapping him behind the left knee with one of her poles. As he went down, the second pole smashed into his butt, sending him sprawling on his face in the dirt. The crowd was larger now and roaring with laughter.
As he struggled back to his feet, anger suffused his features as he glared
This situation was going from bad to worse. Lexi spoke for the first time, her voice firm. “Your best choice is to stop now and ask for my forgiveness.” She tossed her poles aside. Maybe he was stupid. Maybe he was embarrassed by the public punishment he had already taken. He might still have been somewhat addled from being tossed through his wall. Whatever his reason, he made a bad decision and tried to take the small unarmed woman. With a roar, he charged her, long arms swinging. She sensed a feeling of great loss feeding the anger coming from him. No one saw what she did to him, she moved far too fast. What they did see was her stepping back after catching him and easing him to the ground.
The crowd was strangely silent after that. Lexi squatted next to him to check that he still had a pulse. Then she stood and faced the crowd. “Anyone else?” she asked.
One of them pushed through the ring of watchers to face her. He looked fairly young. Based on what she observed of the others in this group, the majority of whom wore little or no clothing, he was almost freakishly muscled. “I’ll fight.”
Lexi nodded. “I’m sure you would, but I have another idea.” She squatted. Using the power of her thighs as she straightened her knees and tightened her abdominal muscles, she lifted a small boulder from the ground. Holding it out from her body, she tossed the eight hundred pound stone ten feet into the air, catching it easily as it fell. Other than the young Hercules, the crowd collectively took a step back, their eyes following the flying boulder. “Let’s just play catch. You and me. Simple rules. The first one to drop the stone loses.”
Her would-be opponent swallowed. He looked down into her eyes for a moment before he bowed his head and clasped both hands over his chest. After letting go of the stone, which hit the ground with a satisfying thud, Lexi nodded at him approvingly. “Good decision. Now, who’s in charge here?”
The young man again met her eyes. Not shy, this one. Not embarrassed by backing down from fighting me either. He looked down at and pointed to Hinsu, now snoring pretty loudly. “Of course he is,” Lexi muttered so softly it was almost a subvocalization. “Listen up, people. From now on, I’m in charge. If anyone here has any issues with that, let’s hear them now.” She waited while low-voiced discussions among the crowd ensued.
Finally, an older-looking man said, “You’re no bigger than a child. We don’t know you. You don’t even look like we do.” He was tall like the others and gaunt, but only marginally more so than anyone else.
“You’re right, of course,” Lexi agreed. “My name is Lexi. Believe me, I am not a child. I am different from you because I’ve traveled a very long way to get here. I will tell you more about me in the morning. It’s late. I want everyone to get a good night’s rest. We have a lot to do, starting tomorrow. You,” she said, indicating the young man. “What’s your name?”
“Epa. I work with the blacksmith.”
“Would you take me to get something to eat, please, Epa?” As he nodded, she said, “The rest of you, find someplace for Hinsu. He’s not welcome in my cabin.”
She asked Epa to sit with her as she ate. Her dinner was a seasoned stew from a large iron cauldron warming on a banked fire. It wasn’t bad. “What do you call yourselves, Epa?”
He smiled, not, apparently, the least bit nervous about sitting with a woman who tossed around boulders. “We are the Teg Clan of the People.” Anticipating her next question, he added, “We are fifty-seven strong.”
When she said nothing, he took a gulp of his beverage and continued, “Hinsu is, or was, our leader. Our leaders are chosen from among the strongest and smartest of us. One day, not soon, but one day, I would have probably been our leader. You are very strong. Are you a good leader, Lexi?”
She looked into his eyes. His question was sincere. Thinking over the events in her life, what she had accomplished these last ten years, she answered, “Yes.”
He nodded, content with her simple answer. “Teg leaders are usually men, although we have had women leaders before. Teg needs a good leader. There are fewer of us each generation. The other clans are our enemies. In my grandparents’ time, it didn’t use to be that way. It is becoming harder for us to hunt enough food. We have other problems. Dangerous creatures now roam our land.” He nodded his head several times, apparently in agreement with what he just said. He repeated, “Teg needs a good leader.”
“Why was Hinsu angry with me? Do you know?”
“Something crazy happened on our hunting grounds yesterday. Hinsu’s mate, Hallu, was killed. We don’t even have her body to send home to the Akai. You magically appeared. He blames you for his loss.”
Chapter 2
Getting to Know You
That night, Lexi only slept a few hours.
Hinsu was sleeping it off somewhere. He didn’t come to reclaim his cabin. No one tried to kill her. These people weren’t like that. They allowed her to usurp the position of leader based solely on her strength and speed. She grinned. Theirs was more a wait and see attitude than actual acceptance. She was stranded on an alien planet inhabited by primitive humanoids. They could help her get her life back together. She could repay them in ways they couldn’t imagine. For that to happen, she needed to be their clan leader. She realized that last night after the fight with Hinsu. She was willing to fight all of them, either singly or as a group, if she had too. She didn’t think that would be necessary. The Teg seemed almost overly honorable. As Epa said, they needed a good leader. So far, she met their criteria.
She got out of the bed and walked silently through the semi-permanent settlement. All three moons were up, casting odd shadows over the ground as they reflected the star’s light onto the planet. The buildings were all of a similar construction to the one she took from Hinsu. They were sturdy but could be disassembled relatively easily. The sanitary facilities were communal and smelly, but relatively efficient. The place Epa took her for food last night was also communal, located across the village from the cesspit.
Loud snoring came from many of the twenty-nine cabins she walked past. Epa’s “fifty-seven strong” counted only the adults, both male and female. She counted eleven children in the village, two of them nearly adults. She briefly heard rustling from one cabin in which a baby was crying. Then that too quieted. There were no pets. She saw no signs of domesticated animals of any kind. This was clearly a hunter/gatherer society.
This was a Level-One world under the classification system used by the Accord, one with a sentient people and a preindustrial civilization. Before the Accord put her in charge of decision-making, this world would have been strictly hands-off. Even her exploratory flyby would have technically been forbidden.
Those millennia-old rules existed for the wrong reasons. They weren’t there to protect less advanced worlds from predation. The rules weren’t to protect them from cultural contamination. The rules were there because the Accord was afraid of change, part and parcel of what she had long termed the “Accord disease.” It was that simple. They didn’t realize that was their reason. She didn’t plan to tell them. Instead, she was changing those rules. Once she got back to the Accord, she would send a team out to evaluate the impact of introducing dogs, horses, and food animals. As far as the Accord went, well, they put her in charge. To survive against the Kreesh, they had no choice. The Accord would never be the same again.
For the last ten years, almost eleven now, ever since the first morning after she stowed away on Ron’s starship, her routine had been to sit and chat with Urania until the others woke up. Urania, the sentient command-comp of her starship, never slept. Lexi was usually up several hours before her biological friends. Four hours was a long night’s sleep for her. It always seemed to be all she needed.
