Teaser: a few paragraphs of the Prologue (and a cryogen pic)

A brutal vibration ripped Zed from his shallow sleep. Gasping sharply as he clenched the cushioned armrests, Zed glanced around his dimly-lit environment with disorientation. Years of servitude in the glass mines confined him to a life of cyclic repetition, and for a nauseating moment he struggled to assess the unfamiliar situation. Like strobe flashes, blurred images of his past flashed by his mind’s eye. The suffocating mine tunnels, his bare soli-cell with a creaky cot and minimal furnishings, the endless hours of drilling raw cytoplasm glass from the miry bowels of the planet. That was his invariable life. Until now.

Another vibration rocked his seat, and the bulbous figure reclining next to him leered with both of his mouths. One mouth, intended for chewing solids, flashed a picket fence of crooked teeth while the second mouth, located below the first and intended only for liquids, pulsated like the mouth of an oversized worm. Zed recoiled away from the scarlet-skinned Rithan as another series of recent memories blasted through his consciousness. The foreman abruptly pulling him from the mines. A clean set of clothes. His meeting with the landmaster who discharged him from his bondsman status and handed custody to this expensive-suited Rithan sitting next to him on the starcruiser.

“Don’t worry, darling,” a sweet, gently-accented voice lilted reassuringly. A slim human stewardess of Asian descent paused in the first-class aisle and leaned towards Zed. Her cobalt uniform was spotless and every strand of her ebony hair coiled perfectly in a bun around an alabaster pin - the immaculate public image of this premier Glory-flagged starcruiser passenger line. “It’s just the retro rockets firing to slow our speed for descent. Nothing to fear!” With an effortless smile, she nodded politely and continued her way down the cabin as she checked on the other passengers.

“I’m not afraid...” Zed muttered quietly as he shifted in his seat. Vibrations pulsed again as the trajectory of the ship changed subtly.

The twin-mouthed creature, known to Zed as Magram, chuckled in stereo. “You slept through the worst of it, Zed. We’re out of hyperspace and set to make planetfall very soon.” Magram nodded toward the portal in the bulkhead. Outside, the black vacuum of space faded away as the starcruiser descended into the opalescent upper atmosphere. Rising below was the vast curvature of a planet Zed had never seen before...