Tomorrow's Spacemage Read online

  Tomorrow's Spacemage

  By Timothy Ellis

  The Spacemage Chronicle, Book Three.

  Copyright © 2018 by Timothy Ellis

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and events are fictional and have no relationship to any real person, place or event. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely co-incidental.

  The author is Australian. In Australia, we colour things slightly differently, so you may notice some of the spelling is different. Please don't be alarmed.

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without the written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contents

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty One

  Twenty Two

  Twenty Three

  Twenty Four

  Twenty Five

  Twenty Six

  Twenty Seven

  Twenty Eight

  Twenty Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty One

  Thirty Two

  Thirty Three

  Thirty Four

  Thirty Five

  Thirty Six

  Thirty Seven

  Thirty Eight

  Thirty Nine

  Forty

  Forty One

  Forty Two

  Forty Three

  Forty Four

  Forty Five

  Forty Six

  Forty Seven

  Forty Eight

  Forty Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty One

  Fifty Two

  Fifty Three

  Fifty Four

  Fifty Five

  Fifty Six

  Fifty Seven

  Fifty Eight

  Fifty Nine

  Sixty

  Sixty One

  Sixty Two

  Sixty Three

  Sixty Four

  Sixty Five

  Sixty Six

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  A Message to my Readers

  Also by Timothy Ellis

  The Hunter Legacy Timeline

  One

  I was bored out of my brain.

  The parliament was supposed to be voting on closing the loopholes which allowed slavery. Instead of a vote, I'd spent the day listening to windbags going on and on about freedoms and rights, and justifications for exploiting everyone.

  Truth was, I was close to losing it.

  The Prime Minister knew I was there, and she cast glances in my direction periodically, checking to see how I was. She knew what I was capable of, and I could see she was scared I'd think she wasn’t doing her best to get this done. To be fair though, she had said I wouldn’t like the result of amending laws which allowed slavery to exist under the guise of indentured servitude. She'd been right so far.

  This was only the first step too. While each planet had its own government, they were second to the government of the space, which was comprised of three distinct entities.

  The Parliament of the People was dominated by five major political parties, with a lot of minor ones trying to become major ones. Electorates each contained twenty five million people, and they voted for a single member. The party with the most members formed a government. The planets with the most people had the most members, so the government usually formed from the votes of the core planets.

  Sounded simple, but never was. Or so I was told. With over five hundred members, and growing each year, no government ever had a majority, and had to negotiate with who they could to get things done.

  The House of Review had six members from each planet. Its purpose was supposedly to ensure the parliament didn’t get out of control, and with each planet having an equal representation, no planet was disadvantaged, as they all had the same voice. Also, as it was explained to me, it was almost unheard of for the parliament and the house of review to be controlled by the same parties, as voters didn’t trust the parliament, and made sure there were brakes put on their power to do things.

  Lastly, there was the House of Planets. Each planetary government appointed a male and female member. It was a further brake on the system to make sure both the other houses didn’t pass things which might cause planets to go to war with each other. And it also presented an equal male and female viewpoint at the top end of things.

  Tasha had spent a lot of nights explaining it all to me, and I now knew exactly what eyes glazing over meant. The best example was the new neutral star system, which separated our part of space from the space of our orange cousins. It had one continent of our people on it, and they had no voice in the parliament at all, since there were not enough people there to form a single electorate. But they did get six votes in the house of review, and two in the house of planets.

  In my opinion, whoever thought up the system, should have been taken out and shot immediately after proposing it. And in some ways, a king or dictatorship was a great deal simpler. But I’d turned the kingship down, and so had to make do with the system in place. And give it its due, it had apparently worked for hundreds of years. The main problem now, was the population was growing faster than the political system could handle.

  The PM had made it clear she expected the other two houses to rubber stamp the amended bills, but the stumbling block was the parliament itself.

  And so it seemed to be the case. The biggest problem was the sheer number of members. The chamber was vast, everyone wanted to speak before voting began, and they constantly heckled the speaker of the moment.

  The current member speaking was exhorting the other members to leave the laws as they were, and allow market forces to find their own balance. Or in other words, he either had slaves himself, his family did, or he was being bribed to push this viewpoint to ensure the amendments didn’t pass.

  The PM shot me a glance again, and I frowned. Not only was this boring, but those against the amendments appeared to have the upper hand. She knew it, I knew it, and she knew what might happen if I lost my temper.

  The volcano on the next island along from my home, was still actively erupting, and before I lost my temper, it'd been a mountain. Those who knew me tried very hard to ensure I didn’t lose my temper any more.

  I kept my cool, even though the result was inevitable.

  Hour after interminable hour, until finally, in the small hours of the morning, the vote was called. The lateness was normal, or so I’d been told. What wasn't normal, was all the seats being occupied.

  Each member had two buttons in front of them. Yay, or nay. The Speaker called the motion to accept the amendments, and for the next few minutes, members made a show of pressing buttons.

  "The nay's have it," said the Speaker finally.

  The actual results appeared on a screen behind her, showing a very substantial defeat. People rose, congratulating themselves, and started for the doors.

  The doors slammed shut, but very few noticed.

  I rose, caught the PM's eye, and shifted myself to behind the Speaker's chair. I stepped to her side, and asked her politely to step down, putting a lot of compulsion into it. She rose, set her gavel down, stepped down, and went to stand next to the PM.

  I steppe
d up into the vacated seat, situated as it was on a raised dais, with a small desk in front of the chair. Very few had actually noticed this happening, being as they were still congratulating themselves on the outcome of the vote.

  I picked up the gavel, and banged it three times to get attention. The noise level dropped rapidly, but came back up as people saw an unknown person in the speaker's chair. I banged it several more times.

  "Court is now in session, Judge Thorn presiding."

  Two

  "Who the hell are you?" demanded the Opposition Leader.

  The Opposition was notionally all the parties not aligned with the government, but the largest party always appointed the opposition leader. He was a man in his late fifties, white frosting his hair, and very comfortable in his expensive business suit. I'd checked. The day had provided a lot of time for looking things up, and expensive suits look like expensive suits, even in the catalogues.

  "This is Judge Thorn," said the Prime Minister. "He is here because his mandate is punishing the guilty, and given the vote just now, there are very obviously a lot of guilty people here."

  "Guilty of what?"

  "Let's start with you," I said, "shall we?"

  "What do you mean start?"

  "EVERYONE WILL SIT!" I bellowed.

  Everyone sat. Several did it so fast they missed their chairs and sprawled on the floor. Several by the shut doors, sat on the floor where they were, and I had to change their intent to return to their seats in a hurry. They did. The only one still standing was the opposition leader, as I'd used non-verbal intent on him to remain standing.

  I looked directly at him with a stern expression on my face. He flinched.

  "You will tell the court how you voted…"

  "This is not a court!"

  I ignored him.

  "You will tell the court how you voted, you will say why you voted that way, and you will tell only the whole truth."

  He tried to speak, and nothing came out. He coughed, almost choked, and coughed again.

  "I voted against the motion because my family own slaves, and always have owned slaves. I could not stand by and allow the loophole in the laws which allowed us to continue owning slaves removed."

  Silence. The man looked shattered, while others were looking daggers at him. Nobody moved, no-one said anything. All eyes were on the OL, and me.

  "A guilty plea has been entered."

  The room erupted.

  "SILENCE!"

  The room went silent.

  "The guilty has two choices. You will pledge now to support the motion when the vote comes around again, or you can choose to be transported to a penal colony right now."

  "I will not change my vote."

  The truth compulsion was still going. The entire chamber was now under my will, and only truth would be told here now.

  "Have you ever killed someone?"

  "Yes."

  He was looking highly surprise to hear himself admit this, and there were shocked looks all around the chamber in hearing him admit it.

  "Explain."

  "Slaves die when they refuse to do as they're told."

  "How many?"

  "Six."

  "You are sentenced to the desert walk."

  The PM flinched. She knew exactly what that meant, having been there.

  The man bristled on hearing himself being sentenced, and clearly had no understanding of what it meant.

  The chamber had a screen up on the only wall without seats. It came on. A row of grave mounds was visible, along with three grave stones. Nearby was a sign. Leaning up against the sign, was a shovel.

  The opposition leader vanished from the chamber, and appeared on the screen, next to the sign. Gasps and exclamations rang out, but all eyes caught the movement on the screen, and turned to watch.

  The man appeared to read the sign, reached out and completely failed to pull it out of the ground, seized the shovel and hurled it away, turned fully around seeking a sign of which way to go, found nothing of note, and began walking the direction he faced. The shovel returned to leaning against the sign.

  "Prime Minister?"

  "Yes Judge?"

  "How did you vote?"

  "I voted for the motion, as I find the whole concept of slavery in any form abhorrent. I'm also terrified of going back to that desert again."

  "Thank you Prime Minister. Madame Speaker?"

  "I was not required to vote, but I support the motion."

  "Thank you."

  I looked at the person next to where the opposition leader had been sitting, and silently compelled him to rise, which he did. He looked horrified for a moment.

  "I voted against the motion because my leader told me to."

  I waited. He swallowed, and started sweating.

  "I don’t own slaves, my family never have, but I was promised one if I voted no."

  His look of horror was now one of terror.

  "Wanting to break the law is not a crime. Sit."

  Instead of sitting, he fainted. My eyes went to the woman next to him.

  "I voted against the motion. The manufacturers of slave collars paid me a great deal to vote no."

  "Guilty, and sentenced to a penal colony."

  The woman vanished, and the screen showed her appear on a beach. People further along turned, and began walking toward her. She looked around in growing panic, eyes finally settling on them, and I shut the view off so no-one could see what happened next. I didn’t want to know myself.

  My eyes went to the next person along this row of seats.

  Three

  It took all night, but by morning, the guilty were all gone.

  Only those who'd voted honestly remained. The desert had more than seventy walkers on it now. The penal colony had an additional hundred and twenty. I'd thought things were bad, but finding nearly half the parliament was breaking the law somehow, or was actively corrupt, was an eye opener.

  I rose from the Speaker's chair, stepped down, and waved the Speaker back into her chair. She looked relieved, and took her place again. Her eyes went to mine, and I nodded.

  "The last vote is cast aside due to illegalities. Does anyone require the motion to be re-read?"

  Silence reined, and head shakes were common.

  "The motion is before you. Please vote."

  Once again, they pressed one of their two buttons. This time however, the result was not immediately called. I used my sight to check what the Speaker was doing, and found her checking totals. This time she had a third total, which was labeled 'abstained'. Her display opened up to show actual seating, and what each position had voted. She very methodically checked each seat for an occupant, and made sure only those with an occupant had a vote cast.

  Finally, the result was announced.

  "The Yay's have it."

  This time it was the other way around. The motion had carried on a substantial majority. There was cheering and general jubilation, but I was tired, and feeling empty.

  "This session is ended," said the Speaker. "Today's session is cancelled while I seek legal advice. Go home, and get a good sleep. I'll let you all know what happens next."

  She banged her gavel. The Prime Minister rose, and came over to where I stood. The Speaker joined us.

  "Have you any idea what you've done?" asked the PM.

  "No, and I don’t really care. Sort it out yourselves."

  "This has never happened before. For a start, the opposition will need to elect a new leader. What's left of them anyway."

  "The least of our worries," broke in the Speaker. "There will need to be by-elections held as soon as possible, and in the meantime, I need a legal opinion on if this parliament can function at all with the numbers remaining."

  "Not my problem. All I'm interested in at the moment, is the other two houses passing the amendments as soon as possible."

  "I'll see they know it," said the PM. "It was arranged, so unless something untoward happens, the amendments should be law within
a day."

  "You'll then issue the appropriate orders to law enforcement?"

  "I'm going to talk to the Chief now. Get him started on preparations. So many slaves no-one knew about need to be set free. I'm not sure the police have the numbers to do it, and we may need to call in the military to help."

  "Give everyone a chance to let their slaves go free quietly. As soon as it's illegal, those identified here need to be raided, and their slaves demonstrated as being freed. Those we don’t know about should simply show up now as unemployed, or be added as proper employees."

  "Some will try to hold onto theirs," said the Speaker.

  "We'll broadcast the changes, and make sure everyone knows keeping a slave is now a crime with a nasty punishment."

  She turned back to me.

  "Do you have a problem if we allow a week for people to find out, and make the necessary changes?"

  "As long as at the end of the week, it's done, I won't have a problem. But you can also make it quite clear that any sudden deaths in the next week will attract a great deal of attention, and those found guilty of killing their slaves will receive a death sentence."

  "I'll make sure the media push that message."

  "Good. I'll be watching. Call my name if you need me."

  "Of course," said the PM, the Speaker nodding as well.

  "I'll leave you to it then."

  "The Chief, media, and bed for me," said the PM.

  "Bed for me," smiled the Speaker.

  I nodded to them both, they nodded back, and I jumped home.

  "Well you have had a busy night," said Tasha. "Haven't you. Does the phrase 'cat amongst the pigeons' mean anything to you?"

  I was too tired to answer, so I just nodded, not actually knowing what she was going on about, shuffled into the bedroom, and collapsed on the bed.

  Four

  We spent the next few days watching the chaos unfold.

  One of the first things Tasha made me do after moving in permanently, was make a media room, with lots of screens, all 'plugged' into her pad. Since the pad worked everywhere now by magic, she was able to view any media anywhere.

  Apparently I'd upset a great many people, and some of them had launched legal challenges to the amendments passed. People who supported the amendments marched in support of them, and riots resulted. We watched these live, and a few police who overreacted, found themselves suddenly on a beach.