This one hooked me in early, and dragged me along happily. The narration absolutely sold it, with the deadpan voice for Arihant, the slightly mad voice for Louca, and the reptilian voice for the "master".(don't have the spelling) I loved the settings of the different worlds, the different species, the various mundane things that Louca and Arihant did while on leave, like some sort of deranged vacation.
To answer some questions:(please note, this is my interpretation, and in no way represents the reality of what was going on in the author's mind)
I'm not sure about the concept of trading souls though... this seems to stray away from Sci-Fi into the realms of Fantasy.Souls, consciousnesses, minds, call it what you will,
a rose by any other name...
If all of humanity is enslaved and the souls are stored in memory cubes or whatnot, how did Arihant and Louca regain some sort of physical manifestation?I'm thinking that Arihant was basically in the same form as the people in the cubes, but the people in the cubes had their consciousnesses "bound" for lack of a better word to a specific form, while Arihant was downloaded into some sort of freer form. Louca, however, needed to manipulate things in a more physical way, and was able to download herself into various avatars for just such tasks. She happened to like raptor forms. I'm not sure how the avatars worked, but I'm guessing it was a matter compiler kind of thing. They did have a LOT of time between systems.
Why isn't this done for other humans?I'm guessing it is some sort of delivery method thing. The humans are delivered in the memory cubes that force them into a specific form, like some sort of conscious hologram, chained to the box it was delivered in. The conquerors of Earth harvested all the humans, and effectively cornered the market. Perhaps some of the human cubes were
"jailbroke", but Arihant and Louca wouldn't know about that.
What is the point of buying a human soul?Entertainment. Think conscious
Tamagotchi or Your Very Own Holopet.
Why are the manifestations of Arihant and Louca so different? (Arihant mostly non-corporeal and Louca the AI of a ship that controls a bodyArihant's consciousness has been downloaded into some sort of self-controlling sentient molecular cloud, a la
Doctor Manhattan. Louca, on the other hand, needs to do physical chores such as pushing the cart with the cubes. I'm guessing that they left Arihant in cloud form because avatar-forms cost more, or they just didn't give a crap about Arihant, as he was just the watchdog.
If Arihant can turn his mostly-non-corporeal form into a knife, how does he move it? Why doesn't it just lie on the ground?
If in his "human" form Louca's hand passes through him, how can he stab his employer?Again, going back to Dr. Manhattan, he might be able to use electromagnetism to control form. If he can do this, he can control his density. But, to be solid, he would have to considerably reduce his volume.
If it takes them years (decades?) to cross between star systems, and the reason that they are doing this and not a paid employee is, as explained, that nobody wants to lose that time, why does Arihant keep encountering his employer on multiple planets? Shouldn't he(?) be left far behind? Or if he doesn't mind decades of travel time, why doesn't he sell the human souls? He obviously will care for them, because they are his profits.I think he's keeping track of the duo. By the end, he is convinced that Louca is up to no good, and combines his suspicions with a hunting trip.
What makes them special, as opposed to the souls of other creatures?I believe that it was mentioned in the story that the reptilian conquerors had other delivery services. It was during the explanation as to why two humans were the couriers. This wasn't their first time at the rodeo.
(Waits for the "tl;dr" responses)