Free Nethereal (Soul Cycle Book 1) by Brian Niemeier Page B

vessels, made over a hundred arrests, and seized thousands of tons of contraband. Those figures rivaled global monthly statistics for a populous sphere like Temil. For a backwater jurisdiction like Tharis, they were staggering.
    Malachi felt the warm glow of vindication. The Cards’ smothering bureaucracy would never have afforded him such results. Yet sobriety tempered his pride. He wasn’t on Tharis to roust vagrants, hence the reason why one particular file commanded his interest.
    Malachi passed the binder to his colleague. “I'd like your thoughts on this,” he said.
    Raising his cup in one hand, Narr accepted the file with the other. He sipped his tea, returned the cup to its saucer, and thumbed through the pages. “There’s been progress in the Peregrine case?”
    “See for yourself.”
    Narr adjusted his glasses and set to reading the most recent entry.
    Malachi awaited his colleague’s appraisal with reserved eagerness. His first official act had been to order every scrap of information on Jaren Peregrine collected into a single file. Narr had objected to Malachi’s preoccupation with one offender until he saw that Peregrine’s crimes spanned more than a century. Having once consigned the Gen to the same mythical realm as gods and kosts, the old Master now conceded that Malachi was on to something.
    The file’s very first entry was a one hundred and five year-old bulletin posted by the Mithgar Port Authority alleging that an adolescent Gen had fled their custody. The report named a female Journeyman as an accomplice. Blessed as she was with prestigious Guild and academic degrees, her defection had sparked a scandal. Though official records presumed her dead, Malachi had no doubt that the same woman currently served as the Gen’s Steersman.
    Narr looked up from the most recent report, which dealt with events that Malachi himself had orchestrated. “Tell me,” said Narr, “were you satisfied with the Melanoros raid’s outcome?”
    The question lingered as Malachi drained his cup. The bitter taste invigorated him. “Never being satisfied is a virtue in which I pride myself,” he said. “However, the ratio of profit to loss was more than acceptable.”
    Narr raised one shaggy eyebrow. “We lost thirteen men.”
    “Yes,” Malachi agreed. “And the pirates lost ten, along with their headquarters and a town which gave them trade and safe haven. Thirteen Enforcers were a bargain for such gains.”
    “Can you weigh their lives so easily?”
    “Sentiment is reason's thief. Yes, thirteen men are dead. There is nothing to be done about it now, and what’s more, nothing could have prevented it.”
    “You could have decided not to send them,” said Narr.
    “Could I? Tell me Brother, what is the source of a man's actions?”
    “His thought.”
    Malachi nodded. “And what are thoughts? Do thought and memory not arise from complex chemical reactions in the brain?”
    “I suppose they do,” said Narr.
    “If a man's consciousness is the product of chemical interaction, then his every thought is dictated by the unyielding laws of matter and energy—as are his actions.” Having made his case, Malachi crossed his arms and reclined in his chair.
    Narr’s brow furrowed. “Are you attributing your actions to fate?”
    Malachi willed himself not to laugh as he shook his head. “ Fate is a primitive abstraction conjured to absolve responsibility. I prefer the hard certainty of determinism .”
    “What of the view,” Narr asked, “once popular in some quarters, that individual consciousness is only a fragment of a universal mind?”
    “The Nexus?” A snort of laughter escaped Malachi’s mental grasp. “An Atavist fable. We needn’t invoke such entities to explain the workings of the mind. Besides, there is no evidence.”
    “Many searched the deep ether for proof,” said Narr. “Even guildsmen.”
    “Yet none returned,” Malachi said. “What use is a theory that cannot be verified? Why base