Chapter One

Feld woke up from his violent slumber greeted with sharp waves of pain and nausea. His head felt like it had been split open. Reaching up with his left hand, he felt the partially healed gash above his ear. His hair and beard were matted with dried blood.

Slowly, he opened his eyes to see where he was, but the world around him was dark as pitch. No features were discernable. Closing his eyes again, he used his other senses to investigate his environment.

He was lying on a cold, rough surface, probably concrete; he could feel its chill seep into his bones. His clothes were missing, only his underwear remained. A quick check told him it was his regular pair. He had half expected to be wearing a thong. The thought made him smile; the smile cracked the matted blood and made him nauseous again.

The air was still and soundless, save for an occasional drop-drop that echoed around him. Slowly, slowly Feld got to his feet and stood there a moment. Once the nausea passed, he opened his eyes again and tried to get his bearings, but the sense of vertigo in all that darkness was too much to bear and Feld dropped down to his hands and knees. Eyes closed against the darkness, he tried to figure out where the drop-drop was coming from. Picking a direction, he began to crawl toward the sound’s source and give his mind time to solve this particular puzzle.

First, where was he? Could this be a sensory deprivation chamber of some type? Doubtful, unless it was designed to merely impair and not isolate one’s senses. It is an artificial structure; the level, flat floor is proof enough of that. The floor is also definitely concrete, so it’s a low-tech structure. The damp chill of the floor could also mean a structure built on solid ground. But solid ground where?

If only he had his FeldComm, his custom-designed and built communications and information device. The Galactic Positioning Transceiver would be able to tell him where he was. At least which star system anyway. Any clue at all would help tremendously.

At least the FeldComm wasn’t lost for good. SunKrux had thrown it aside before they…, the thought made him smile again, this time without nausea. He could almost sense her pheromone signature, like a scent that is felt and not sniffed. Peaches bathed in honey with a tang of lemon ginger. Sweetness with a bite that one, with a few nibbles along the way for good measure. He smiled again.

The pheromone signature sense was a biological gift from his father, who received it from his father and all the father’s before since the Genome War, the only war to have ever touched Nova Terra and his home, Edelweiss City. Several generations of genetic manipulations done in utero had served to inspire a caste system among the inhabitants on Nova Terra. The Cleansed, as they called themselves, were the result of genetic repairs made in the first trimester. An expensive procedure not without risk, the Cleansed were spared the usual worries regarding disease and longevity. Over time, as the cleansed population grew, the procedure and its associated risk was deemed unnecessary as long as the population reproduced within itself and minimized the chances of damaged genes being passed on to their offspring.

The Tainted, as the rest of society were known as, came to be regarded as second-class citizens and were shunned by the Cleansed. As the initial procedure was very expensive and had determined who would have been cleansed, the inherent financial division between them only served to exacerbate the problem. When the Cleansed-dominated government passed the Genome Codex granting rights to citizens based on genetic integrity, the Tainted rose up and civil war was at hand.

Civil wars are usually brutal affairs and this one was no different. The result of the social side effects of beneficial genetic manipulations, the war bred other less savory manipulations. Many were tried and made as the war spanned three generations. Some were made on offspring in utero, others on children, others still on mature adults. The pheromone signature sense was one of the results of these manipulations. Its original purpose was to protect Tainted leaders from assassinations. The Cleansed had developed a tactic and a genetic formula that allowed women to pass unnoticed in any social situation. This combination bred a guild of assassins, the Gray Ladies, among the Cleansed and nearly proved decisive in the war until the pheromone signature sense allowed men to detect their presence and neutralized the threat. Feld’s ancestor was one of the first Household Guards of Edelweiss City to receive the manipulation and he and his comrades thwarted many assassination attempts. The pheromone signature sense remains a legacy from that heroic group.

And completely worthless right now, he mused.

The drop-drop sounds were getting louder and the echos a bit softer, so things were improving a bit. Opening his eyes, Feld looked ahead of him and saw a faint, vertical line of light. “Thank the hairy photon!”, Feld said to himself, thinking of moif. I wonder what he would’ve done in my situation. Probably contact the hive-mind and blast a big-ass hole in whatever structure this is.

Gaining his feet, Feld decided to make a run for the light line. It was obviously some ways away, but his hands and knees were killing him. Perhaps a light jog to work the kinks out and try to remember what happened before he was brought here.

Feld remembered SunKrux and the hot tub, of course. He also remembered the hyperjump over to Proteus VI in the Needle, his personal ship. He was going to meet a diplomatic envoy from that planet to discuss doing some covert intelligence work for the government in power; it was just such work that got him the nickname of Feldmarschal. They were going to meet among the famous fleshpots and tralkshops in Dinara city, the location to be determined upon arrival by coded mark. The last thing Feld remembered was being overcome with hundreds of pheromone signatures from a dozen different species. Flowery scents mixing with fruits and musks and darker ones like sweat, tears and dank earth.

As the distant line of light grew thicker and higher, as Feld’s world of black pitch turned toward charcoal and smoke by the light ahead, as the echoing drop-drop became louder and louder still, Feld remembered the last signature he had sensed before his vision had exploded into a shower of sparks, stars and burning embers. It was of burning flesh, cold blood and death itself. The scent his father had told him about, related to him by his father and by all the fathers since the Edelweiss City Household Guard all those years ago. The scent of assassination.