Shannon Eichorn's Blog, page 2

Vinnet Vignette #2c

SPOILERS AHEAD: RIGHTS OF USE

I highly recommend recapping Vinnet Vignette #2a and #2b before reading the conclusion! Most of these will be episodic, but this one grew a bit.

Also, shout out to Zelienople, PA, which is a wonderful and mighty little town. Don’t listen to Vinnet, Zelie; you can change the world!

Gentle Giant Counseling



Sarah Anderson, 2002

“What I want to know,” Hartwin insisted, “is what’s going on
between you two.”

It’s none of his business. I was with Vinnet on this
one. Sure, she was being mean and wrong about the whole
wrong-decision-to-not-kill-Maggie thing, but it was between us. I thought.

Counseling is part of his job.

Something about that screamed that there was a conflict of
interest.

Honesty among us is the only way to live in peace.

But he doesn’t have to be honest with you? I
objected.

He chooses to be. We all must continuously make that
decision. Vinnet tucked my legs up in the chair. “Have you ever returned to
the place where your host experienced trauma?”

He shuddered and nodded.

“Have you ever lived there?”

“Yes.”

Now, he had my undivided attention. At that point, the only
other person I knew who understood was Maggie.

“Vinnet, I love meeting people. You didn’t think I vied for
this role, just to be on the Council, did you? I had other reasons for giving
up going off world.” He smiled sadly. (Knowing him better now, I think he has a
smile for every emotion. I don’t know how he does that.) “Are you still living
there?”

“Not the majority of the time. Speaker Rockefeller convinced
Sarah’s parents to let us attend a boarding school with his daughter—”

“Hold on. Her parents? Let you? Why are they treating you
like a child?”

“They consider Sarah a child.”

“But she’s…” He waved down my body.

The legal age is eighteen! I insisted, trying to
explain.

Your years mean nothing to him, and I don’t want to
convert your nonsense decimal math right now. She raised her voice. “She’s
a child to them. They shelter their children far longer than anywhere else I
know. By their laws, Sarah has three, nine, 108 years remaining.
Approximately.”

“She’ll be free for the next Kings’ Ball.”

“Please don’t joke about that.”

“I’m sorry.”

I thought it was funny.

Hartwin crossed his massive arms. “Vinnet, we’ve been
working out how to accommodate their demands to keep you there. You have a
role. You’re there to teach them and recruit hosts. It’s not a family vacation.”

And it didn’t feel like one. Vinnet’s temper flared with
mine.

“I’m working with them, too. It isn’t a vacation. It’s a
delicate situation. The whole planet thinks they’re the only life in the
galaxy. Sarah’s parents don’t know about me, and by their laws, Sarah belongs
to them. It is a different kind of undercover mission and not one we can dismiss
without ruining our relationship with Project Black Book.”

“Step me through that,” Hartwin asked.

Vinnet sighed. “Project Black Book is Earth’s only effort in
pursuit of defending the planet against the Kemtewet. It’s very small, perhaps
under two hundred people, and its continued existence is contingent on
financial backers who are largely unconvinced of the threat.”

Hartwin’s jaw dropped open.

“Their activities are monitored by blasé superiors and by a
xenophobic task force called NFI-Com that is convinced my ultimate aim is to
launch an attack on the country from within. By cooperating with the government’s
secrecy and accommodating the needs of Sarah’s family and her social
expectations, I have preliminarily established our goodwill toward humans on
their own merit, rather than Earth’s tactical merit. Insisting that I work only
with Black Book and disregard Sarah’s place in society would—” She furrowed her
brow. “—seem to be taken as trying to erase her.”

“She’s—” He fumbled his words. “—old enough. She can
participate and contribute.”

Ha! I told you so!

“Don’t encourage her,” Vinnet grumbled. “Her country has a
prescribed path to social maturity, and if we deviated from it, it would be
seen as a threat.”

Hartwin looked me in the eyes again, as if he expected this
conversation to have three participants. But he had to know I couldn’t speak
with her in control. He hummed and reached back for his own golden bottle. “Hence
your turmoil.”

What ‽
How does he know that?

He’s good with people, both hosts and symbionts.
Frowning, Vinnet looked away. “That’s much of it.”

Hartwin shrugged. “Then come back. If they’re not going to
treat you with the respect you deserve, we have other places to deploy you.”

“But Katorin’s intel—”

“—has stepped up every timetable we had,” Hartwin finished. “We
have to find a way to end this before the Kemtewet can assimilate Earth, or we’ll
never weed them back out before we all die of old age. If Earth doesn’t want
you to be effective there, we’ll find better ways to use your talents.”

“After I already failed our best chance?”

“You can’t place that all on yourself, Vinnet. Teresh used
the opening you made.”

Vinnet flung her feet to the floor and sat on the edge of
the seat. “He got in?”

“He did. And soon after, he had to flee, too. We knew it was
a long shot. We had to try. We did. It didn’t pan out. We’re back where we
were: fresh out of workable strategies to actually win. For the time being,
those who aren’t in strictly intelligence gathering roles are back to pursuing
kingdoms.”

Groaning, Vinnet hung her head in her hands.

What’s that mean? I demanded.

Our best plan right now is to have operatives work their
way to becoming lords then from lords to kings. From there, they’ll have the
resources to stage an attack on Sais if they can do so without a mutiny.

Sounds like a plan.

A plan with a 1% success rate and 66% mortality rate. In base eight.

Tell me in real numbers, I insisted.

Those are real numbers.

Base ten.

More than three out of four.

Almost a quarter seemed like it wasn’t terrible odds until I
started thinking names. That’d be like Vinnet surviving but Hartwin, Kitchell,
and Katorin dying. Almost everyone.

There must be another way. Vinnet squeezed her eyes
closed, trying to come up with a plan when the Gertewet’s master strategists
had nothing. If we ally with Earth…

Vinnet, humans—Earth humans—can’t even get to Mars without
Kemtewet tech. What do you think we can actually help with?

You’re not without Kem tech. That’s why it’s an alliance.
Part of why our options are so limited is that there just aren’t many of us.
Earth doesn’t have that problem. You have a real, sustainable population.
She wilted back in the seat. And if we lose the opportunity to work with
Earth, it’s all up to a few thousand Gertewet.

That sounds like a lot.

She sighed again. If we use the current plan, there will
soon be fewer Gertewet left than people in your parents’ town. She winced. There
might already be.

Zelienople had a Main Street. And a few traffic lights.

Could Zelienople alone combat the rest of Earth?

Working together, everyone in Zelienople might be able to
cause some problems in Pittsburgh. But not the state or the country or the
world. It wasn’t big enough to make a difference.

No.

We need a big ally. We need Earth.

I couldn’t roll my eyes with her in control. (She relished
that.) Which means playing by Black Book’s and NFI-Com’s rules. I get it.

Vinnet looked up at Hartwin quietly sipping his booze. “We
need Earth. Ten years of building trust with Project Black Book is no more time
wasted than ten years seeking sponsorship and planning an assassination to
become a lord.”

“I see.” He tilted his bottle at her. “May I speak to Sarah?”

She frowned but nodded and started to give me control.

He didn’t even wait for me. “Sarah, I’d like to hear your
perspective on all of this. You’re one of us now, but you’re still your own
person, too. I’m sure you see different possibilities for your future than
Vinnet does.”

He finished right as I finished gaining control. Neat trick. “Vinnet’s right. Working with the Air Force has to be better than the whole lord thing. And, yeah, the whole school thing sucks, but Vinnet’s right again. That’s what’s keeping everyone thinking she’s a good guy.”

“I’ve heard from Vinnet. What do you think?”

I tucked my knees under my chin. “I spent the entire time
with the Kemtewet wishing I was back home and things were normal. Things will
never go back to the way they were, but I think they’re better. Black Book is
taking us seriously. They’re trying to figure out how to protect the planet.
And…”

The alternative Hartwin offered struck me again. It was either
stay at school, where everyone treated me like nothing happened and I didn’t
have an alien spy in my head, or go back to her life of danger and intrigue and
constant worries that someone was going to find out and kill me, just like I’d
experienced on Sais. As much as I resented how everyone on Earth treated me,
just like Hartwin seemed to resent it, the only other alternative was
everything I wanted to get away from when I’d first started hosting her.

Except things were different now.

I’d done it once, and I trusted Vinnet’s experience a lot
more now. She’d become a lord several times before. She could do it again. We could
do it.

Or I could stay in school, where it was safe, hang out with Maggie,
and help Black Book defend Earth, which Vinnet thought was the better long-term
plan, anyway.

I watched my fingers pick at cuticles. “I’m glad not to go
back out yet. Is that what Vinnet means by me being too young?”

Hartwin didn’t answer immediately. Was I proving Vinnet
extra right? He hummed. “Maybe. When her past hosts haven’t been emotionally
ready, though, she’s said so. She didn’t tell me anything about you being too
young.”

“She said I’m too young to understand what it means that we
failed the mission as Anjedet.”

He sighed, set down his bottle, and folded his hands. “First,
it’s good to acknowledge that everyone thinks differently at different stages
of life. For humans, there’s a correlation to age, among many other things. For
tewet, it’s more cyclical, as we’re influenced by our hosts.” He shot me a
stern look. “Vinnet, like many of us, doesn’t have much experience with
hosts who are starting into the prime of their lives. It must be a rather destabilizing
experience for her.”

I wondered then, and I wonder now: How could any experience
destabilize Vinnet? It rang true, but I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it.

“Her first host had raised children to adulthood before they
met. She’s never experienced life at your age.”

“Am I… Too young for her to understand me?”

He chuckled. “In some ways, though all our hosts have been
your age. It’s not completely alien.”

I studied him to try to see if he meant the pun, and I pinkie
promise you his eyes twinkled. I couldn’t help smiling back at this
near-stranger eliciting all my secrets.

He picked up his bottle again. “If Vinnet actually called
you too young—”

I nodded emphatically, my cheeks burning as I ratted out my
symbiont.

“—she’s probably looking at the situation from a perspective
of a different stage of life. The way you see things may be strange to her, but
that doesn’t make it invalid.” He hesitated before taking a sip. “How do you
see things?”

“We blew the mission, because I convinced her not to kill my
friend.”

He shrugged and took a sip. “You’re fine.”

“You don’t have to brush it off. She’s been putting herself
through the guilt wringer, thinking that she should have killed my friend.”

“The spare?” he guessed. How did he know?

Hartwin talks to everyone incessantly.

“Yeah. Maggie. She’s my roommate at school now.”

He nodded and looked me in the eye again. “Vinnet, you don’t have to prove anything. You didn’t lose your abilities by sitting out a year. You make good decisions.”

You weren’t there, she answered.

“She says you weren’t there.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Teresh was. He knew about the doppelgänger. Those were long odds.
They probably wouldn’t have worked out.”

“Probably?”

He shrugged. “Everything is a possibility. Nothing is
certain. You’ll get used to it.” He winked. “In a different stage of life.”

When I was older.

I rubbed my face. Symbionts.

Are you just going to let him put words in your mouth?
I asked.

Something in Vinnet’s emotional bass-line resolved. Yes.

How am I supposed to know he’s saying the right things
for you?

You’ll know. And Sarah? I apologize. I shouldn’t have said
that to you.

I wilted against the chair’s arm. Hartwin says you’re
right.

He says you’re right, too, about Maggie. I’m glad I have
you here to make me be better.

The best companions aren’t the ones who never make mistakes.
They’re not the ones who never think of themselves. They’re the ones that learn
from their mistakes and take time to listen.

And that’s my symbiont.

She’s the best.

Previously in Vinnet Vignettes:

Reflections on Becoming a Host Vinnet Vignette #1: Memory Vandalism Vinnet Vignette #2a: Disclaimers and Context Vinnet Vignette #2b: Words You Can’t Take Back

Vinnet Vignette #2b

SPOILERS AHEAD: RIGHTS OF USE

Words You Can’t Take Back



Sarah Anderson, 2002

When we got into the kaxan, that’s when
Vinnet started to lose her cool. She set the destination then lay back,
intending to sleep. It wasn’t supposed to be a big deal. She’d been excited
about going home for weeks. She wanted to show me everything. She wanted me to
meet everyone. She talked Maggie’s ears off and described even more to me.

But once we were on our way, it wasn’t just a celebration
anymore. She owed the Council her own report, and while she assured me that she
believed saving Maggie was “a” right thing to do, she didn’t think the Council
would. She spent hours trying to figure out how to justify it to them.

I spared the girl, because she was innocent. Then
what about the mission and billions of other innocent humans?

I scrubbed the mission, because Anjedet’s body double had
recognized me. Then why not kill her and stay?

I scrubbed the mission, because I killed queens to save
the girl. Evidence suggested the queens battled often. Surely, there were
occasional accidents.

I started off trying to figure out how to help her, but
nothing I came up with sounded good, either.

How do you expect us to be good guys if we’re killing
people we’re supposed to save? I’d read about collateral damage before.
Vinnet obviously thought the Council would find it acceptable.

Maggie was our friend. She trusted us. See above on
collateral damage.

Vinnet came up with more bad ideas faster than I could. It
was her report, after all.

Finally, she stared up at the ceiling, and a tear slid down
my cheek. I should have kept to the mission. It was a miracle that
opportunity came about and a miracle we made it in. No one has done that
before. There was too much riding on it to not risk everything.

Something seemed off. I didn’t think she was talking about
Maggie. But what was I supposed to do? Pat her back? She had control, and it
was my back.

And I didn’t want her to regret saving Maggie. Whatever she
thought or the Council thought, I thought it was the right thing to do.

Yeah, we could have maybe saved the galaxy, but I wasn’t the
Council. I didn’t believe in collateral damage. There’s no circumstance in which
you should have to kill your friend for a greater good. Then what kind of
person would you be?

Vinnet rolled over and nestled her face in her elbow,
letting the sleeve catch her tears. I’d just gotten you, and you were so
scared. You didn’t know what we were doing or why or how. It was too soon to do
any mission, let alone this one. You’re too young to understand.

Now, what a minute!

You’re not weighing this rationally. You can’t. It’s all
so new and clear to you, and you’re missing the bigger picture. Somewhere out
there, a girl just like you is getting taken to the queens or to the Empress
herself, and we could have stopped it. Next year, it’ll be someone else. And
the year after and the one after that. I am responsible for their deaths
instead.

I could barely think through the haze of anger. Too young‽ Was her whole
nurturing-friend demeanor just a way to manipulate me?

I failed you and the Council and the entire galaxy, all
because I couldn’t bear to risk you getting hurt.

I had gotten hurt. Anjedet’s body double was decent with a
sword. But that wasn’t the hurt Vinnet meant.

I don’t know why it surprised me that she thought the
biggest impediment to her mission was her drive to protect me. I knew she
missed her previous host (and the ones before her, too). I knew she’d gone half
mad in the months without one. It made sense that I’d be extra special to her,
especially in the first couple days.

But it was Vinnet.

For all I knew, if logic and wisdom were going to be
embodied in a person, they’d choose to be her.

I still think that.

It was an extra shock, because everything during the mission
and back on Earth had seemed so clear-cut to her. She had her objectives, and
she worked toward them. And she had objectives now, too: report honestly and thoroughly
and please the Council.

I didn’t get hurt, I tried to reassure her.

Exactly. She sat up and scrunched against the padded
kaxan wall, like I had after first hearing about her. I was supposed to
replace another king or queen with a Gertewet or die trying. I didn’t.

But now you know things no other Gertewet knew about
being a queen: about the swords and the fighting and the wardrobes. When the
next person tries, they’ll be better off because you lived.

You don’t understand. There will never be a next person.
We will never have another chance that like. It was a fluke.

We sat in miserable silence until we got there.

Vinnet had shown me her true colors, I thought. Sure, she
cared about me, but in hindsight, not as much as she cared about her mission. And
somehow, I had to live with her.

When we arrived, she trudged straight to the Council chambers without showing me anything. We were in luck: the permanent Council was at another base, leaving just the Plains Base Adjunct, Hartwin.

We crossed paths with him outside the Council chambers before Vinnet pulled herself together to decide to talk to him. He was a big man, or his host was. About a foot taller than me and heavyset. He froze when he saw me, his face set in concern.

My symbiont had control, but she didn’t meet his eyes. “It’s
Vinnet.”

His whole face lit in a smile, and he stepped closer. “And
who is this?”

“Sarah Anderson.” Forcing her own smile, Vinnet pulled his
right hand from his side and shook it. She told me later that while Hartwin
wanted to greet each host appropriately and familiarly, the variety of human
cultures within the Kemtewet Empire made it hard. Even if Hartwin knew which
planet a host was from, he might not have encountered their customs before, or
they could have changed. “From Earth.”

He nodded as if he already knew. If I’d been paying
attention, I’d have realized that he did. Then he looked me straight in the
eyes. “Welcome, Sarah Anderson. Thank you for hosting Vinnet. I hope you have a
long and productive time with us.”

I couldn’t answer. I didn’t have control. But it was the
nicest thing anyone ever said to me about my symbiont. Everyone at Black Book
talked to one of us at a time, and for the most part, pretended the other
didn’t exist.

Too bad she didn’t want me. I was too young.

I do want you.

But not the way I am.

“Come, sit down,” Hartwin insisted, brushing my shoulder to
steer Vinnet into his study. “How are you two getting along so far? It’s been,
what, a couple years? Nine months?”

My mind spun at his loose grasp of time.

The Sais year is four and a half months, and our months
are similar to yours. Vinnet settled into a padded chair. “Eight months or
so.”

Hartwin settled on a composite stool and politely glared.
“And?”

“Bien dans sa peau.”

He nodded. “And the two of you?”

I kid you not. Vinnet squirmed. “Nothing time won’t heal.”

Because I’m not old enough yet?

She swallowed.

Hartwin reached to a shelf behind him and passed her a plain
glass bottle. Then he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “Tell me
about it.”

Vinnet took the bottle, traced a thumb across its smooth
surface over golden liquid inside. “Sarah doesn’t drink alcohol.” She set it on
a side table. “Hartwin, it’s been a long process to get here. I’d prefer not to
have this conversation right now. I came to report in.”

“What are you going to tell me that Katorin, Donn, and
Teresh haven’t already pieced together? I know what happened.”

Vinnet tensed.

“What I want to know,” Hartwin insisted, “is what’s going on between you two.”

Previously in Vinnet Vignettes:

Reflections on Becoming a Host Vinnet Vignette #1: Memory Vandalism Vinnet Vignette #2a: Disclaimers and Context

Vinnet Vignette #2a

SPOILERS AHEAD: RIGHTS OF USE

The following content takes place between Rights of Use and Laws Among Friends.

The immediate response to Vinnet Vignette #1 was:

Vinnet Vignette #1

I’m starting a new blog series of Sarah and Vinnet vignettes that take place between Rights of Use and Laws Among Friends. [SPOILERS AHEAD.] There’s been a book there that has almost happened many times, but the episodic events have so far defied a good, consistent plot. Nonetheless, I’ve been accumulating material and ideas for it since I first started writing Vinnet in 2003.

This incarnation came about from a Twitter conversation:

A small volume of “Vinnet’s Vignettes”, as told by older Sarah?— Darren Radford (@InkyD) January 31, 2020

A lot of friends (new and old) who’ve read Rights of Use have expressed some consternation about the ending and intense curiosity about this between-time I wasn’t planning to write about in the main series. I know there’s interest in what happens in Sarah’s life back on Earth. And there’s plenty of conflict, too, as Megan points out:

How do you go from high risk action and espionage to enduring the banality of high school/mundane world growing up?

— Megan (@NotAnotherRed) January 31, 2020

Writing these side stories helps me manage my motivation for my primary project, so I’m happy to share them. Let me know what you think on Twitter or my Facebook page (where the Russian bot spam takes less time to sort)!

I hope y’all enjoy!

SPOILERS AHEAD: RIGHTS OF USE

Vinnet Vignettes #1: Memory Vandalism



Sarah Anderson, 2002

Everyone thinks that going on adventures is some grand thing. At least, that’s what it looks like in books and movies. Luke Skywalker leaves Tatooine for the Rebellion and never thinks back on Uncle Owen or Aunt Beru. Kirk leaves Earth and never looks back. Paul Atreides… Nevermind.

It wasn’t like that for me.

Then again, I was kidnapped. It wasn’t supposed to be an
adventure. It took a lot of nightmares and painful silences before l started to
miss the excitement and the simplicity. More accurately, Vinnet started missing
being an adult and an insurgent more than she was happy about being on Earth.

Don’t get me wrong. I was happy to go home. I felt like I
was going to get my life back.

Until I was back in my room.

My parents closed the door, and suddenly, everything was
just as it had been when they came. Late afternoon sunlight slanted through my
blinds, across the desk and past the closet door, still open from when they’d
found my hiding spot. Stuffed animals had spilled out with me and been kicked across
the room in the struggle.

Shaking, I listened for footsteps, and even though I heard
my parents and the dog, I was sure I’d hear Banebdjedet’s raiding party, too.

Except I wasn’t alone. Vinnet was there with me, following
my thoughts.

She broke into the downward spiral. I’m sorry the
Kemtewet vandalized your home with your own memories. Other fragments of
thought came with that one: that I didn’t deserve it, that no one did, that
this had to stop. Surely, we can go somewhere you’re more comfortable.

This is my room.

Then let’s reclaim it. She started picturing all the
things reminding me of what happened: the mess, the open door, the light.

I couldn’t move, and I couldn’t stop shaking. It could all
happen again.

Black Book is monitoring kaxan activity more actively
now. They will intercept future raids faster.

It’d been hours before the Air Force had shown up. Faster
didn’t mean the raids wouldn’t take people—wouldn’t take me—again.

You have me. If it ever happened again, we would fight
and win.

What more could I have done?

Vinnet pictured three different techniques for fighting free,
plus how easy it would be for her to take control the kaxan I’d been left alone
in.

They’d left me alone in a getaway vehicle.

All I’d had to do was log in, undock, and fly home. It was a
handful of button presses. Vinnet and I had done exactly that later on, which
made Banebdjedet’s raiding party kind of inept. Which was great, except they’d
still bested me.

You’ve learned and changed since then, Vinnet
insisted. May I help with your room?

Yeah. As she took control, I thought about it. She
was right. I’d never be the same.

With control of my body, she picked up the stuffed animals
and settled them back into their pile on the floor of the closet. She closed
the door reverently, as if locking up both the bad and good memories for a later
time when I could untangle them. The next time you encounter agents acting
for the Kemtewet, you’ll be equipped to defend both yourself and others, as you
defended Maggie on Sais.

I had talked Vinnet out of killing her, but… If
you hadn’t killed her, we’d still be there, working on taking out the whole
Kemtewet Empire.

That started to sink in.

We’d been right there, among the queens and kings. Vinnet
was supposed to get one alone and replaced them with a Gertewet. One by one,
the leaders of the Kemtewet Empire would secretly become Gertewet until the
Gertewet had control of everything. It could have worked.

If I hadn’t gotten Vinnet to save Maggie.

Vinnet angled my blinds backwards and turned on every light
in the room, making it look more like it did when I worked on homework in the
evenings. Then she lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling. She frowned, and a
glimmer of a critical thought flitted by, too abstract for me to understand.
She closed her eyes, focusing. Saving Maggie was a right thing to do.

But not the right thing.

She folded her hands on her stomach. Every decision
refines who we are. Choosing Maggie was a decision of compassion for an
individual.

And killing her would have ended the war and saved a
bunch of other lives.

Maybe. She took a slow, deep breath and blew it out. Anjedet’s
spares had already recognized that I wasn’t her. Even without Maggie, we may
not have survived long enough to strengthen the Gertewet foothold. These situations
are fraught with uncertainty.

I’d forgotten about the doppelgänger and her suspicious glances.

But not about my hands killing her.

Vinnet rushed to continue, You argued for me to have
compassion for an individual over the slim possibility that our mission would
have succeeded. Looking up, she framed the center of the ceiling with her
fingers. The first Gertewet, Mute, believed that personal contact is what
changes society for the better, even more than grandiose strategies. My
progenitor didn’t. I’d rather be like Mute.

It was going to take a lot more conversations before I
understood what she was talking about, but that was the first I’d heard Vinnet
describe the kind of person she wanted to be. Gertewet aren’t like humans. They
don’t get asked what they want to be when they grow up. They’re born kind of
knowing what they’re supposed to do, and they grow up learning how to do it. It’s
presumed they’re going to be an insurgent like everyone else and the queen who
bore them and the queen before her.

Vinnet got to dream on Earth.

Anyway, there we were, lying on my bed, studiously ignoring
the corner of the room where Banebdjedet’s guards had dragged me away, Vinnet
framing the ceiling with my fingers.

What are you doing? I asked. (Deep thoughts there. I
know.)

Sighing, she lowered her hands and started giving me back
control. Tewet décor has ceiling art. We’re aquatic creatures, originally.
We’re used to operating in three dimensions. Your ceiling is very plain,
especially compared to your walls.

It was true. Every square foot of my walls was covered in
posters, letters, postcards, and cutouts of packaging I liked.

On impulse, I reached out to brush my fingers against the
pieces closest to the head of the bed, some of my favorites, like letters from
friends back South. I had control. I tried out my voice, trying to change the
sound of the room, too. “You’re staying here. Why don’t you take the ceiling?”

She did.

But she made me clear some of the wall space in exchange.
Something about clutter being bad for the mind? Most of it moved straight onto
the closet door.

We talked like that a lot: me aloud, her thinking back. I
was home. We were safe. There wasn’t anything to be afraid of, she said.

Until Mom started asking who I was talking to.

Previously in Vinnet Vignettes: Reflections on Becoming a Host

Vinnet Vignettes #1

I’m starting a new blog series of Sarah and Vinnet vignettes that take place between Rights of Use and Laws Among Friends. [SPOILERS AHEAD.] There’s been a book there that has almost happened many times, but the episodic events have so far defied a good, consistent plot. Nonetheless, I’ve been accumulating material and ideas for it since I first started writing Vinnet in 2003.

This incarnation came about from a Twitter conversation:

A small volume of “Vinnet’s Vignettes”, as told by older Sarah?— Darren Radford (@InkyD) January 31, 2020

A lot of friends (new and old) who’ve read Rights of Use have expressed some consternation about the ending and intense curiosity about this between-time I wasn’t planning to write about in the main series. I know there’s interest in what happens in Sarah’s life back on Earth. And there’s plenty of conflict, too, as Megan points out:

How do you go from high risk action and espionage to enduring the banality of high school/mundane world growing up?

— Megan (@NotAnotherRed) January 31, 2020

Writing these side stories helps me manage my motivation for my primary project, so I’m happy to share them. Let me know what you think on Twitter or my Facebook page (where the Russian bot spam takes less time to sort)!

I hope y’all enjoy!

SPOILERS AHEAD: RIGHTS OF USE

Vinnet Vignettes #1: Memory Vandalism



Sarah Anderson, 2002

Everyone thinks that going on adventures is some grand thing. At least, that’s what it looks like in books and movies. Luke Skywalker leaves Tatooine for the Rebellion and never thinks back on Uncle Owen or Aunt Beru. Kirk leaves Earth and never looks back. Paul Atreides… Nevermind.

It wasn’t like that for me.

Then again, I was kidnapped. It wasn’t supposed to be an
adventure. It took a lot of nightmares and painful silences before l started to
miss the excitement and the simplicity. More accurately, Vinnet started missing
being an adult and an insurgent more than she was happy about being on Earth.

Don’t get me wrong. I was happy to go home. I felt like I
was going to get my life back.

Until I was back in my room.

My parents closed the door, and suddenly, everything was
just as it had been when they came. Late afternoon sunlight slanted through my
blinds, across the desk and past the closet door, still open from when they’d
found my hiding spot. Stuffed animals had spilled out with me and been kicked across
the room in the struggle.

Shaking, I listened for footsteps, and even though I heard
my parents and the dog, I was sure I’d hear Banebdjedet’s raiding party, too.

Except I wasn’t alone. Vinnet was there with me, following
my thoughts.

She broke into the downward spiral. I’m sorry the
Kemtewet vandalized your home with your own memories. Other fragments of
thought came with that one: that I didn’t deserve it, that no one did, that
this had to stop. Surely, we can go somewhere you’re more comfortable.

This is my room.

Then let’s reclaim it. She started picturing all the
things reminding me of what happened: the mess, the open door, the light.

I couldn’t move, and I couldn’t stop shaking. It could all
happen again.

Black Book is monitoring kaxan activity more actively
now. They will intercept future raids faster.

It’d been hours before the Air Force had shown up. Faster
didn’t mean the raids wouldn’t take people—wouldn’t take me—again.

You have me. If it ever happened again, we would fight
and win.

What more could I have done?

Vinnet pictured three different techniques for fighting free,
plus how easy it would be for her to take control the kaxan I’d been left alone
in.

They’d left me alone in a getaway vehicle.

All I’d had to do was log in, undock, and fly home. It was a
handful of button presses. Vinnet and I had done exactly that later on, which
made Banebdjedet’s raiding party kind of inept. Which was great, except they’d
still bested me.

You’ve learned and changed since then, Vinnet
insisted. May I help with your room?

Yeah. As she took control, I thought about it. She
was right. I’d never be the same.

With control of my body, she picked up the stuffed animals
and settled them back into their pile on the floor of the closet. She closed
the door reverently, as if locking up both the bad and good memories for a later
time when I could untangle them. The next time you encounter agents acting
for the Kemtewet, you’ll be equipped to defend both yourself and others, as you
defended Maggie on Sais.

I had talked Vinnet out of killing her, but… If
you hadn’t killed her, we’d still be there, working on taking out the whole
Kemtewet Empire.

That started to sink in.

We’d been right there, among the queens and kings. Vinnet
was supposed to get one alone and replaced them with a Gertewet. One by one,
the leaders of the Kemtewet Empire would secretly become Gertewet until the
Gertewet had control of everything. It could have worked.

If I hadn’t gotten Vinnet to save Maggie.

Vinnet angled my blinds backwards and turned on every light
in the room, making it look more like it did when I worked on homework in the
evenings. Then she lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling. She frowned, and a
glimmer of a critical thought flitted by, too abstract for me to understand.
She closed her eyes, focusing. Saving Maggie was a right thing to do.

But not the right thing.

She folded her hands on her stomach. Every decision
refines who we are. Choosing Maggie was a decision of compassion for an
individual.

And killing her would have ended the war and saved a
bunch of other lives.

Maybe. She took a slow, deep breath and blew it out. Anjedet’s
spares had already recognized that I wasn’t her. Even without Maggie, we may
not have survived long enough to strengthen the Gertewet foothold. These situations
are fraught with uncertainty.

I’d forgotten about the doppelgänger and her suspicious glances.

But not about my hands killing her.

Vinnet rushed to continue, You argued for me to have
compassion for an individual over the slim possibility that our mission would
have succeeded. Looking up, she framed the center of the ceiling with her
fingers. The first Gertewet, Mute, believed that personal contact is what
changes society for the better, even more than grandiose strategies. My
progenitor didn’t. I’d rather be like Mute.

It was going to take a lot more conversations before I
understood what she was talking about, but that was the first I’d heard Vinnet
describe the kind of person she wanted to be. Gertewet aren’t like humans. They
don’t get asked what they want to be when they grow up. They’re born kind of
knowing what they’re supposed to do, and they grow up learning how to do it. It’s
presumed they’re going to be an insurgent like everyone else and the queen who
bore them and the queen before her.

Vinnet got to dream on Earth.

Anyway, there we were, lying on my bed, studiously ignoring
the corner of the room where Banebdjedet’s guards had dragged me away, Vinnet
framing the ceiling with my fingers.

What are you doing? I asked. (Deep thoughts there. I
know.)

Sighing, she lowered her hands and started giving me back
control. Tewet décor has ceiling art. We’re aquatic creatures, originally.
We’re used to operating in three dimensions. Your ceiling is very plain,
especially compared to your walls.

It was true. Every square foot of my walls was covered in
posters, letters, postcards, and cutouts of packaging I liked.

On impulse, I reached out to brush my fingers against the
pieces closest to the head of the bed, some of my favorites, like letters from
friends back South. I had control. I tried out my voice, trying to change the
sound of the room, too. “You’re staying here. Why don’t you take the ceiling?”

She did.

But she made me clear some of the wall space in exchange.
Something about clutter being bad for the mind? Most of it moved straight onto
the closet door.

We talked like that a lot: me aloud, her thinking back. I
was home. We were safe. There wasn’t anything to be afraid of, she said.

Until Mom started asking who I was talking to.

Previously in Vinnet Vignettes: Reflections on Becoming a Host

History in Rights of Use

I recently spoke at Confluence on a panel about history and mythology in science fiction and fantasy. I knew it wasn’t a ringer for my typical topics, but I’m happy to try to help out wherever I’m asked.

When the moderator turned to me and asked how I incorporate history in my books, I froze.

I hate history.

I’ve hated history for a long time.

But the truth of it is that I did a lot of research to try to get things right: from the background of the Air Force UFO research to characters’ reactions to alien technology to the way characters interface with Earth tech.

When I brought up historical research for my 1998 setting, the whole room groaned. Is that really history? It’s so recent! Even I remember 1998. But the world has changed in many ways since then, and we all agreed that tech anachronisms are to be Avoided.

So, what history went into Rights of Use?

First was the tech. The flying saucers in this book use touch screens, and I needed to understand whether this technology would seem like evidence of an alien environment to my fourteen-year-old characters or to their parents. I found that touchscreen ATMs were already in use in 1998, so it made sense that adult characters shouldn’t be surprised by it. But teens? I thought it was a toss-up, so I listened to the voices reminding me of modern audiences and left this one alone. After all, teen and adult readers now won’t be wowed at all by touchscreens.

Cell phones were next. I feel like folks my age are among the youngest who have any grasp of what life was like without cell phones. Since I’ve always had one as an adult, it’s hard to image how communication traveled differently without them. I needed to know what was appropriate to show. A little research revealed somewhat stagnant cell phone development in commercial markets between the late 1990s and early 2000s, so it was reasonable to assume my upper class characters would have workable mobile communications. Plus one for not laying the groundwork for modern audiences to respond with disbelief!

Amid all my research into the mindset of politicians, the role of the Speaker of the House, and the Capitol, I felt it was critical to understand what was going on in the House of Representatives during the course of the book. What issues were hot? What may have been on the Speaker’s mind when he wasn’t worried about his kidnapped daughter? I relied heavily on the Congressional Record (which is a wonderful and absolutely underutilized resource).

Some of my Congressional Record research made it into the book, especially in the opening scene. I was writing about ongoing UFO defense programs. How could I not address the missile defense discussions ongoing that week? Were we defending against Middle Eastern rockets or extraterrestrial craft?

Some of my Congressional Record research didn’t make it into the book. The evening the book starts, there was a shooting in the US Capitol that killed two police officers and injured two others. I found out, because of tribute speeches afterward. I did not feel that it would be respectful to mention this as a diversion from the events in the book. It works out with the events in the book, but it did not work out for the two officers doing everything they could to protect the people within the building.

I didn’t have that problem with the Air Force’s history researching UFOs. I know Wikipedia is not a great resource for accuracy, but it was accurate enough for backstory. I augmented it with discussions from the University of Colorado report on the Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects.

The last main portion of historical research I undertook was to try to explain how humans had appeared from other planets and where they came from. I have a head canon on this. It’s backed up by Dr. Daniel Jackson-level fringe research and some coarse historical knowledge. It’s enough for me to work from and to provide the series with internal consistency. It is not enough, however, for me to share with any confidence. That will have to be a discussion for a different day.

All in all, I’d say there’s a lot more history in Rights of Use than I ever intended or expected. I guess I know a few things after all.

Leveling Up on Writing

I’m writing internal dialogue between Vinnet and her host. It’s Vinnet’s turn to reply. I know I want a short ah-ha! statement, something to indicate the speaker, then a longer explanation. Once again, I need to choose between a dialogue tag or a meaningful action with subtext. Once again, I’m a little stuck, because my character is really just a brain tapped into someone else’s brain but not in control of her host’s body. She’s very limited in both physical motions and in visceral reactions.

I encounter this dilemma every 2-3 pages on average, and while it bothers me and I feel I should have already conquered it, the continuous commitment to find creative solutions to the same problem is one of the things that helps me grow as a writer.

“Why don’t you just use dialogue tags and move on with it?” I’m sure you’re asking.

My first answer is, “Because someone told me not to use dialogue tags.”

“Well, that’s silly. Readers fly over them. They’re just signposts.”

While I believe that’s true for a lot of readers (excluding those who avoid them in their own writing), I stick to this, because it has driven significant improvement in my writing. It was one of the things I learned that helped me Level Up as a Writer.

One of my biggest problems as a writer has always been that I don’t show enough of the right details. My writing tends to be dialogue, a few stage directions, and just enough setting that I think you should catch onto where it’s taking place. But at the speeds that novel readers zoom through words, my default once-and-done, everything-else-is-implied approach doesn’t make for a satisfying reading experience.

But I’ve got my plot, character, and setting! What else does a story need?

A story needs a connection with the reader. And the reader needs more information than I default to. I need to stop thinking that someone else has downloaded all the context for the characters’ decisions and the setting they’re taking place in–and that needs to get shown on the page.

There are reams of metadata that should accompany the character and their relationships: past hurts and triumphs, cherished moments, cherished people, nemeses, values and attitudes, beliefs, political positions. Aspects of themselves that support or inhibit their current goals. Contradictions between what they want to believe about themselves, others, or the world, and what is actually true. People are messy and complicated on their own, let alone in conjunction with other people and in a messed up world.

And all the relevant metadata needs to make it onto the page, probably more than once in case it’s missed the first time. (I have gotten editorial requests to explain things that I explained only once in the book.)

Now, I could just info dump all that.

I’m sure my readers would love it.

Or, I could indicate portions of these things instead of dialogue tags. Little motions in response to dialogue can be big indicators of attitudes and (sometimes) why they’re held, rather than just breaking up blocks of text.

My writing leveled up when I started trying to avoid dialogue tags, and I had to find something else to substitute in. It leveled up even more as I learned more types of content that I could use as filler that also accomplished other purposes. I’m grateful to the writing professor who started me down this path.

Review: All Systems Red (Murderbot Diaries #1)

5 stars

The main character’s thoughtful and sarcastic tone will make anything in this series an instant read. That they are a security cyborg with grunt-level insight into the world and all its mundane absurdities sweetens the deal. Couple that with might-as-well-be-there setting and an action-packed plot, and this is Grade A book. I look forward to immersing myself in the rest of the series.

Find out more on Goodreads!

Review: Corruption (Blood Trails #4)

4.5 stars

The fourth book in the Blood Trails series takes the shades of gray established in the previous books and mixes them thoroughly when Shade is asked to save a demon (and its paladin host) after a double homicide of their exorcists. While this book has kind of stale representation of its religious characters, it serves to contrast the negative side of the religious characters with the social graces of the demon and her cult, while still defaulting to paladin = good, demon = bad. Blackstream continues with her unfailing depiction of lovable main and side characters. I’m rooting for the cat sith and the maybe-not-so-terrible-we’ll-see leannan sidhe.

Find out more on Goodreads!

Review: Taken (Blood Trails #3)

4.5 stars

TAKEN takes the Blood Trails series further into shades of gray by asking whose moral standards are being referenced. If something is evil by human standards and honest and moral by Fey standards, what is the objective truth? This book cranks up the series stakes, as well as reader investment in endearing characters. Still a wonderful pleasure read.

Find out more on Goodreads!