Wesley Britton's Blog - Posts Tagged "parallel-earths"

This morning, it dawned on me that posting something fresh every day here is really overdoing it. So, as of today, I’m going to try to keep to a Tuesday, Thursday schedule unless I have special announcements I want to share in between. After all, a fifth book is coming . . .

Returning to my character descriptions from The Blind Alien, I thought it time you meet the very unusual Doret Galess, the mutant dwarf initiate “Dream Guesser” of a unique religious school.

For a little set-up, the following scene takes place after Tribe Renbourn has suffered a series of painful trials. After the catastrophe in Bergarten, the Balnakin government openly encouraged its citizens to seek out and kill the alien from Alpha-Earth. They extorted the rights to all of Malcolm Renbourn’s books as partial compensation for the horrible pit that destroyed much of Bergarten. As a result of all this, Dr. Malcolm Renbourn suffered a near fatal heart attack. Tormented for the role she feared she played in all that, Bar Tine Renbourn left the tribe.

So the extremely talkative Helprim Annijol Hod, Malcolm’s heart doctor, thought it wise to bring a spiritual healer to the tribe. Here’s that first encounter where you’ll not only meet Doret but read many insights into Tribe Renbourn as a whole.

Defining a few terms: “Hearthstone” is the name of the Renbourn home and estate. “Sojoa-sheets” are solar panels. “Togs” are clothes and “pravines” are wine-like alcoholic drinks.

While I’m thinking about it, remember The Blind Alien is currently on sale for 99 cents at Amazon. I have no idea how long that will last—

Most of this introduction is in Doret’s voice with a few observations from Alnenia and Lorei Renbourn along the way:

Doret: I met the Renbourns one wet and humid day when I accompanied Annijol Hod on one of her trips to Hearthstone. She had told me much about their situation in her usual style, trying to prepare me for the experience. "You've been seeing them on the news for years," she said, "but films are flimsy Sojoa-sheets into their tribal soul. You have been reading up on their trials? Good. I knew you would. I predict you are in for the challenge of your young career. But I know you, young as you feel, are better equipped than any senior Hollow-Bone at Appool. You are limber enough still to be creative, intuitive, adaptable. This is no test for dry skols and formulaic lists, I promise. Did I tell you, yes, I'm sure I did. Here we are. Open your six senses, Initiate Galess.
You will sense much before you see a face. This will be a true test of your dream-Guessing skills."
Annijol spoke true. But one step out of her trans, I felt the aura-cloud hovering over this place. I looked to the sky and shivered. Before that moment, All I knew of evil was what I had studied — evil comes in currents, vibrations, in parasitic funguses and pollutions that scurry like crabs in sea mud.
I had heard this and read this. But I was young. I had touched or sensed it not in my life. But there it was, unmistakable. Walking to the guest-arch of this gray house, I thought The untrained might have sensed the cloud as an invasion of resentful or angry spirits trapped in this world of matter. But even I knew this was an aura of dead ones not. It was a cloud of psychic despair.
Annijol was in full stride when we reached the door arch and a young woman answered her ring. "Ah Sari, how are things this day? You look not good. Is your face what all in the house wear? I thought so. Come Doret, you are here not a day too soon." I followed Annijol down a short hall and paused in the doorway as she went forward to a dining-table where most of the family sat. I scanned the room, focusing my aura-eye on a thin woman to my left. She was bending over very small children being herded into a room I saw not. She turned in our direction and smiled at me behind a veil of dry tears. I recognized her from the news films. This was Elsbeth. Yes, she was wife and mother and nurturer by birth.
I then looked at the table and scanned the seated group. First was Joline, the sad beauty whose spirit-womb ached. She was with child, but the child was her affliction not. Next to her sat the tight-lipped and determined Alnenia. Yes, she was solid, brash, an anchor. I could see the Husband not through Annijol blocking my vision as she stood by the other woman whose back was to me. From the long brown hair, I presumed she was Lorei. I keenly awaited sensing her presence. One was missing, the Balnakin slave. So I listened and heard Annijol talk, a strange, clear voice in the atmosphere of grief.
"What mean you, gone?" Annijol sat heavily by Lorei and I finally saw the side of the unsighted's face as she turned to speak to Annijol. Oh yes, I sensed her gifts even from this distance. Raw, untrained, unschooled, but unmistakable. A priestess by birth and inclination. I moved forward and stood by Annijol, noticing Elsbeth coming to join her clan. I heard, or rather, heard not, one remarkable occurrence. Annijol was silent.
After a long pause, Annijol collected herself and said, "I sorry. I have no words." Then, she remembered. "Perhaps the friend I told you about arrives on the very day she is most needed." She turned to me and offered me the chair next to her. "This is Doret Galess, a Hollow-Bone from the Appool Ordinum. She is not only trained in spiritual and mental understandings, she was raised in that Seminary from birth. Introduce yourself, Doret. Give these Renbourns something to hear that will distract them from their bad news. I presume you heard. One of their Sisterhood has departed. A spoke of their family wheel is broken."
I looked over the faces and saw Malcolm for the first time. I had to hold back my surprise. His aura was incredibly intense, filled with vibrating colors from the entire spectrum. But there was more. A separate unseen aura was beside him but not in him. His Alpha god? Alien chemistries? It was as if all the auras I had ever sensed had been painted by one artist. A different creator had blended the alien's colors. I sensed that, like Lorei, there was a presence inside him of unique power. But his face told me he was unaware of such presences. Rather, he looked like a man too familiar with cages. He was a mind who had to calculate every thought, each action processed through layers of questions. He was a creature who had lost all instincts. I saw Alnenia
reach over and whisper in his ear. His eyebrows rose. I laughed.
"Alnenia Renbourn," I said, you need not whisper. Immediately I will tell our unsighted company that, yes, I am remarkably short. I expect Joline's legs are taller than I stand. Against most, I stand to the breasts. Still, I am twenty-six years of age. I am short because I was birthed from two parents who participated in an unsanctioned experiment to see if certain chemicals wetted to a fertilized egg might make male offspring more certain. I was the result. A perfect female in all ways. But one who will always wear children's togs. I know not who my parents were. I was a strange creation brought by one Icealt to the school, a little thing apparently no larger than a hand."
I smiled. "Like you, Doctor Renbourn, I am product of strange science. This is one reason Annijol felt I might be of special use here. I am, like you, familiar with being unique."

Alnenia: Looking at Doret that first day, I saw the quiet, certain compassion in her. I drew her story out while the others listened, I know, with only half minds. I intrigued to meet a woman abandoned by her parents at birth to a religious school where she grew up without other children around her. To grow up in prayer-cells and pravine-yards and libraries seemed a sad beginning in life. But I saw no sadness in the short one. She looked complete in herself, a soul with quiet waters in her womb.

Lorei: I gratefulled when Annijol rose and told Malcolm it be time for him to sit in the large-chair so she could examine his chest. As they walked to the other side of the room, Annijol still offering quiet consolations, I turned to Doret and asked, "So what be the help you believe you can offer us?"

Doret: In some moments, I can feel Lorei's strength and it almost drops me to my knees. Perhaps I am too attuned to such waves. Perhaps, no, I certain, that in some moments her Olos-force is beyond anyone I have known. On that first day, I knew the source of her terrible grief and how this shaped her aura. This was a family of extraordinary shared power, tightly inter-woven auras, survivors of incredible adversity. When Annijol had promised me a challenge, she spoke half-truth. This tribe was self-aware, knowledgeable, and so unique I could share not simple consolations. I looked at the man and one list leaped to my mind — "If you can find bearings not, make no short-cuts through the trees. Any explorer knows — return to your starting place instead." But I felt unprepared, unable to reach into my toolbag of skols and phrases and techniques to grab ahold of a starting point. After all, this alien, well, his starting place was another planet. And his starting place on my world had become as cursed a site as any in history. And many placed the curse on his brow.

Beta-Earth website:

https://drwesleybritton.com/

Author contact:

spywise@verizon.net

To begin introducing myself as an author, I thought I’d talk a bit about my blindness. After all, that was one characteristic I gave my main protagonist, Dr. Malcolm Renbourn. My own blindness resulted from a genetic disease called retinitis pigmentosa, Malcolm’s came from being ripped across the barrier between the multi-verses. Hence, that’s why so much about genetics in the Beta-Earth Chronicles.

I admit being very surprised by something I’ve noticed in all the reviews posted at Amazon and Goodreads. Some astute folks have pointed out the depth of the books comes from all the social and cultural issues addressed in one way or another—race, class, religion, sex, politics. But little is said about disability. I sense a reluctance out there facing disabilities which I can’t explain.

Which leads to the question—how much of author Wesley Britton is in the character of Malcolm Renbourn? In a way, I’m not sure I’m the best person to ask. I’m certain there’s much about him that must reflect who I am. For me, I know there are incidents and experiences from my own life I used in the first three chapters of The Blind Alien. However, from the moment Malcolm escapes across the border into Rhasvi, I’ve always felt he had become his own man, always surprising me thereafter. Perhaps you’ve heard TV actors talk about how they started playing a role before a switch goes off inside them and the actor steps into their character, becomes that character, and goes deeper than reading lines and hitting the marks. Well, that moment happened for Malcolm, in my mind, when Bar sends him north into freedom.

What has this to do with disability? Well, when blindness becomes a central attribute of your being, especially when you’re on a strange planet and absolutely nothing is familiar, what doesn’t blindness impact? I think of one scene where Malcolm meets the blind prophetess, Lorei Caul. While Malcolm became sightless at the age of 35, she was blind from birth. These are very different experiences resulting in very different responses from people. One person has memories of what they once saw, what they lost; the other has no such memories—being blind was all they ever knew. So the individual who became blind later in life has the added confusion of trying to mix and match what they feel and hear with things they remember. From personal experience, I can say those of us who went blind later in life have to go through a process of grief and loss. I drew on this truth quite a bit in The Blind Alien.

For another observation, in book two I had a priestess reveal Malcolm’s eyes perceive blackness. Lorei’s eyes perceive nothing at all. There’s a difference. Malcolm has the awareness of darkness, of something impenetrable filling his visual screens. Lorei has no such awareness and senses nothing missing. Here’s something to ponder—the difference between blackness and nothingness.

What has blindness meant to me, a man who started losing his sight in his mid-twenties? A complex question with a complex answer. Let me try this. Some twenty years or so ago, when being a poet of some small renown was my creative identity, I had a friend who was a Lakota-Sioux Shaman. He looked at me one day and commanded, “Write me a poem about the joys of blindness.” Talk about a writing prompt!

The result was “The Veil.” Reading it again so many years later, I can think of many revisions and changes I could and probably should make. But I think it more honest to present it just as it appeared in Talus & Scree, one of my favorite print magazines of the small-press era.

THE VEIL

When the blindness came, so did the veil
& few look in & those that do
I cannot tell for certain

what I am perceiving. Not light, not dark,
not the common colors shared by most.
I see no body language so speak it poorly.
I see neither smile nor frown so ignore both.
Cannot tell friend from stranger, so the veil
swells like a smoke or fog
around me in protection, confusion,
aloneness while
interdependency grows just as thick and wide
regulated by the whims and schedules of others
living around the cracks of others' good will,
hearing more intentions and promises than fulfillment
or commitment or truth
and grasp the limitations after
the embers of rage finally subside

and accept the moment, what is,
what can be patiently done,

ah, patience against my worse nature,
finally accepting calm Now after the
Disappointment Series and feel the
Ying of happy quiet aloneness without
the being with anyone not just to be alone
the Yang of the female other who
may be illusion, fantasy, nightmare
while I casually, cautiously, distantly
touch others veiled not to be hurt
veiled to expect assault
veiled to be comfortable within
and always aware of the separateness
that lives against my belief in
interconnections
expecting more than is offered
expecting more than can be given

so I create little footnotes in books
and minds and groups and drums and
the image of the invisible man walking
thru the town that did not see him before
and is not looking for him now
as I await the next step
whether shin-cracking or
softer, whether pain or the touch
of my dogs & toys

so I have not answered your question. You wonder what are
The joys of blindness?

Well, the joy of music, but I had that before.
The joy of touch, but that has a powerful yang.
The joy of surprising connections, the nuggets
amongst the dross,
and the surprise of occasionally remembering a color,
a face, place, a possible poem
but mostly I find the happiness in thinking of Buddha,
of little accomplishments, small adventures, never minding
the great promise of youth
and knowing how much I've improved--hell,
I've had so far to go--and how different
I do things now so I must call the happiness
acceptance, letting go of illusions
becoming aware of illusions
de-emphasizing illusions
putting illusions into perspective
knowing my past is my own illusion
shared delusionally with others
whose place in the Now is never certain
and uncertainty has its place, especially in

a cocky man
who came to belief and conviction very slowly,
from the Bible to the nothing to the nothing with
meaning
who expects all to be transitory
as is All
and to cease craving, the source
of suffering, and emphasize service and
gifts, even gifts not wanted or expected,
and see what seeds grow.

----
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Remember the 99 cents sale of The Blind Alien while it still lasts!

Beta-Earth website:
https://drwesleybritton.com/

Wanting to give some love to A Throne for an Alien, the fourth book of the Beta-Earth Chronicles, I thought I’d share an action scene from the book with you. A rather edited passage as the full scene is too long for a simple blog post.

For a quick set-up: For nearly 20 years, The Collective, an international cabal of ruthless scientists, has been Tribe Renbourn’s most consistent threat. Among their many experiments to battle the Plague-With-No-Name was the creation of enhanced mutants like Sasperia Thorwaif Renbourn who has incredible physical ability and an often overheated mental metabolism.

Another such mutant is the elderly Kiem Holenris, the current head of the Collective. After calling a truce with the Renbourns, Holendris was delighted when she learned the children of Sasperia Renbourn, with their combined mutant DNA merged with Malcolm Renbourn’s Alphan genetics, carried the cure to the ancient curse of Beta-Earth.

Problem: Due to extraordinary circumstances, the files with the cure are only on one electronic pad. And that pad was stolen by agents of Gant Thanq, an evil member of the royal household of Hitilec.

Holenris knows the only way to save the world is to steal the pad back in a night invasion of Thanq’s headquarters. It will take two enhanced mutants to pull it off, even two old adversaries who both rely on the same special medicines to stay alive.

So here’s how Sasperia describes the adventure, with some sections cut for length. I probably should define a number of terms, but that would add to the length I’m trying to control. Hopefully, nothing will be too incomprehensible to throw off your enjoyment of this little battle:

I confidently turned and walked to the bedroom, where I knew Kiem Holenris was working on the disguise that would hide her features from anyone or anything that might see us even in dark night shadows. When I saw her pulling on tight boots over her feet and calves, I first suspected her gifts in deceit were as marvelous as any Shadow-Kin. I saw her body that bore muscles as broad and limber as Alnenia's. In fact, she seemed built like a man used to carrying heavy materials. As she moved, her limbs stretched and pulled as if those of a young woman. When she looked up at me, I full startled. Her face not yet covered with the black mask, she looked younger than myself. Her short hair was dark and shiny. There was nothing of the crone in her beautiful, uncracked face. Kiem Holenris looked as fresh as the cool, white surface of dawn-bowl cream. For a fleeting moment, I thought, Were the two of us to battle, even I might well lose.

Then, the truth struck me. "Oh Sojoa!" I cried, stepping forward, "You've taken an overdose of our formula! Kiem, this cannot —"

She raised both her arms and flexed her fingers to both interrupt me and test her new strength. "I estimate," she told me with calm, strong tones, "I have perhaps six hours as you see me. Then, yes Sasperia, my body will cruelly incinerate." She smiled with deep happiness. "Little kitty, I need but six hours to complete my life's work. As I said, the need for the Collective will soon pass." She rose, and planted her hands firm on widened hips. "I am prepared to be sacrifice. Let us go."

My mind spinning in a flurry of thoughts, I quickly pulled on my own invasion suit of a close fitting tunic, leggings, gloves, and laced boots. I pulled on the rubber headgear that covered my hair and exposed only my ears, eyes, mouth, and nostrils. I pulled on the belt that had deep pockets with the gas-filters, small explosive materials, and the safe-breaking device. As I dressed, I observed Kiem Holenris examining herself in the mirror, smiling as she stretched her arms, jogged in place, and rotated her torso and head. The backs of her legs rippled in the tightness of her muscles. The energy in her entire frame seemed to crackle in her aura. She looked more and more youthful by the moment.

. . . In a private elevator, we two quickly descended to the basement floor and raced behind rows of trans’s and columns. At and end door, we paused as Kiem looked around. Finally, she nodded, and we darted to a metal cover in the street. Opening the hole, we moved in quick time down the pipe to the tunnels of waste below and made our way to another such opening in an alleyway behind a building next to the Lorilian headquarters.

Following Kiem, I crawled up the side of this unfinished eight level structure. It was a new addition to Monte Carlo waiting for merchants to design what would fill the now empty halls. Like many such skeletons in the area, only vats of paint, spackle, and piles of molding laid behind the uncharged Sojoa sheets we climbed past with ease. using the crevices between stones for finger and toe holds, I felt the almost soft smoothness of the yet unweathered masonry. How strange, I thought, for a Ducal of the Alman Mentela to be creeping up buildings like a Shadow-Kin from Rigil. Instead of participating in loud debates behind long tables, I thought of the Collective agents on the streets below creating small diversions and blocking access to this alley. No one saw our ascent. It felt like I was participating in a battle, now being the warrior I'd not been during the war in Alma.

When Holenris and I reached the roof, we crept to the other side and looked down. Yes, there was the outside ledge across the street called First Draw Way. The level we were targeting was six levels above ground. Behind the inviting porch, we knew the offices of Kuf Oy's Eniq were secure from all directions. How could anyone get to that ledge unless, of course, they could leap across a wide four-laned street? Even then, how could magnificent leapers gain access unseen by electronic eyes and ears?

Together, Kiem Holenris and I laid at the roof edge waiting for the answer to the second question. Over and over in my mind, I measured the length of our jump, how I'd land on the cold ledge, how I'd quickly need to move, and what I'd need to do on entering the room behind the closed arches of thick Sojoa-sheets. As we waited for inky dark to fill the skies over the colorful lights beckoning in the signs below us, I wondered how my companion measured time. Inside her, I thought, each moment must be a lifetime, a memory, a new scheme, new discovery, new disappointment.

. . . I also thought of the wizened face of the woman beside me, seemingly the last head of that Collective that had shaped my fate long before the arrival of Malcolm Renbourn on this world. I thought of my bronze skin tanned under the Bilan sun and how my children, my children alone of all my sisters, had borne the fruit yearned for since history began. What had shaped all civilizations was now answered in genetic ladders that were half alien, half genetic mutations. All these streams had come together in one little pad of electronic data hidden in the offices across from where two women waited. And waited.

. . . In a power station located beams from this place, a mysterious overload suddenly cut all power to this part of the city. All of the colorful tribute to Alpha quickly became as black as what my Husband saw each minute. As if sharing one mind, Kiem and I rose, and ran back halfway across the unseen roof of a quiet building. As if four legs of the same body, we ran forward, building momentum. In the same moment, we launched ourselves high over the street, trusting we'd correctly measured the arc to our landing. As I hit a cold floor and slammed into a stone wall, I knew I had done well. A quick glance to my left told me my partner was safe as well. I felt small breaks in my ankle bones and knew for one brief moment my feet, my hands, my breasts were bruised like a normal woman. As ever, I felt the healing energies quickly repair any damage. Equally as quick, we two flattened our backs beside the Sojoa-doors knowing at least one guard would have heard the thuds and come running. One breath. Two breaths. I heard the lock clicking and then sensed a body moving forward. With one motion, I grabbed an extended arm and twisted it, loosening the chroner from one surprised Secops grip. I pulled the body toward me and slammed a mutant fist under an open mouthed jaw. As this body slumped, I saw Kiem pull the small nose filters from her belt and insert them into her nostrils. I did the same as Kiem tossed several thin vials into the room. We heard coughing, choking noises, and then quiet. Then we heard alarms and quickly ran into the room.

In the dark, I knew Kiem was rushing to a V-AV where she could first turn off the alarms, send a signal through the building's networks that would shut down the backup generators, and mechanically lock the doors to the room from inside. With all the confusion happening within the building, and the planned confusion now erupting in the streets below, with luck we had the time I needed. As Kiem did her labors, I sprang to the wall to the right of the main desk and began ripping off wall coverings, not trying to discover just how to covertly get to the safe we knew was imbedded in the wall. My fingers pulled at thick sheets of laminated wood, but I was strong enough to pull and pry and finally snap off the protective layers. There it was, the sophisticated round door with the triangle of three locks. I reached into my belt pocket and pulled out the small machine I'd had no time to master. All I could do, or was expected to do, was place the circular box between the locks and secure it with the suction cups on the back.

I pulled out three smaller boxes with dangling wires which I secured on each of the locks. Each wire I inserted into the proper holes on the center box, and I pressed a button.

While I waited for the device to do its work, I turned and watched Kiem inserting pads into the computers on the desks. It would be long not before every record, every file within this building or connected to it would find itself scrambled, destroyed, or unusable. Then I heard clicks on the wall beside me.

"Now!" I called.

Kiem ran to my side, as I easily pulled the safe door open. I stood back as Kiem's fingers reached inside and explored all she could grasp. Small piles of objects and pads fell to the floor I bothered not to look down at. Finally, I heard her sigh, "Ah!"

I studied her gloved hands as she held the precious, small green square between her fingers. All across it were tiny raised dots I understood not. For one moment, I watched her eyes mist as she clenched the final solution to the mystery of the ages. I wondered if this was the longest moment of her life.

She looked over at me and nearly thrust the pad into my hands. Wordlessly, I tucked it into my now empty belt pocket while she pulled out other pads and handed them to me. I accepted them all. She stood back and I heard her dropping tiny fire-grenades. As pops and green smoke began to sprout by my feet, we rushed back to the ledge and studied the streets outside.

I had to smile. For some unknown reason, at least unknown to the Net officers and the Secops who'd poured out of this very building, panicked people had pulled their trans's into the wrong lanes and blocked traffic from all directions. Women and men stood in the streets yelling and jumping out of their vehicles. It would have taken only two or three planned agents to start this chaos, and then the turmoil would have cascaded on its own. I turned to smile at Kiem but my thoughts quickly turned on themselves. She was looking down like me, but I could tell her body had begun to quake and quiver. Was it illusion or was her tight-suit becoming too big for the body within?

She looked at me and croaked, "My hair turns white again. Blessed be, little kitty." "Then we must hurry," I cried.

She nodded. We ran back into the room, paused, looked at each other, and then ran. And leaped. I pulled my body to its full length to ensure I at least was able to grab the edge of the empty building's roof. I needn't have worried. I landed flat on my face and belly and felt unaccustomed pain. Even such as I have their limits. And my eyes were beginning to water. As we'd begun our leap, I knew something was wrong. From the corner of my eye, I'd noticed Kiem Holenris's jump was aimed not across the way for this roof. She'd leaped almost straight up, as if jumping to the sky. In that moment, I remembered Malcolm's story of Icarus the Fool who'd flown too close to the Alphan sun with wings of feathers and wax.

I quickly rose on my hands and knees and crept to the edge of the roof. Yes, I saw it below, the terrible crush of someone's trans roof. I saw a black form draped from one end of the bent metal. But the dark night hid the details. Sojoa, Sojoa, I prayed, make her end quick and but one flash of pain. Let her not feel the flames of a body now rebelling against chemicals it can withstand not. She had died with double purpose. To end her existence with minimal pain. And to leave her body as a means to draw Lorilian ire at the Collective. And my family not. Blessed be.


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Remember, the 99 cent sale of The Blind Alien is still going on! A Throne for an Alien is still only $4.95!

Strange as it might sound, I can point To very few specific literary influences on anything in the Beta-Earth Chronicles. However, in The Blood of Balnakin, I had one author very much in mind when I crafted one scene. That author was Anne Rice.

In particular, in Rice’s better books, and I can’t claim to have read much more than her Vampire Chronicles, her descriptive gifts are on full display. She does an amazing job of presenting the sweep of history with such a haunting, powerful, romantic, sensuous tone. If I were to point out my favorite scene showcasing these abilities, I’d choose the chapter in Servant of the Bones where we enter a cave of jewels that’s both beautiful and richly detailed.

Now, in no way do I claim the scene below imitates or emulates Rice’s style or depth. I’m not in her league. I don’t sound like her and am not trying to do so. Instead, while writing it, I thought it was, in a sense, a tribute to Rice. That’s because I wanted to encapsulate several millennia of history in a few pages with a Rice-like sweep with a large dose of mysticism.

To set the stage, the Mother-Icealt of Beta-Earth, who is housed in the Great-Ring-of-All-Domes in the island sanctuary of Nilexdra, offers an audience to Tribe Renbourn. For most of the Renbourn wives, this summons to meet the supreme priestess and oracle of their world is the opportunity of a lifetime. They realize her purpose is most likely to give her the chance to meet and assess their husband, the Alpha-Man, Dr. Malcolm Renbourn.

The women are correct. The Mother is keenly interested in checking out the one man on the planet whose auras are veiled from her mystical powers due to his other-world origins. As an alien, Malcolm isn’t connected to any of the flows of Olos, the name for both the planet and the goddess who protects it. The Mother determines Malcolm is flawed because of his fears and uncertainties, has important roles in celestial plans for the future whether he likes it or not, and is far, far from dangerous to her people.

The Mother then offers “full oracle” to the Renbourn wives—Elsbeth, Lorei, Joline, Alnenia, and Doret. Most of them meet privately with the Mother in her oracle cell and are given surprising visions into their futures.

But when Doret walks through the curtain for her blessing, the Mother asks her to share her time with her bond-sister, Lorei. That’s because both Doret and Lorei have their own powerful spiritual gifts and the Mother knows the three of them together can open paths never possible before.

To define a few terms: “Sojoa” is the Betan term for the sun which supposedly oversees masculine attributes. The “Sea-of-the-Lost-Moon” is a giant body of water filling what would be much of lower Europe and Asia on our planet. As far as anyone knows, it was indeed a lost moon that crashed there and created the sea before there was any recorded history.

“The Plague-With-No-Name” is the most important influence on Betan culture. Killing three out of four infant boys their first year, it’s the reason for the planet’s polygamy. No one knows its origins. Until now.

In Doret’s words:

As I closed my body-eyes, I felt the flow of interconnection in my mind. I lowered my head. At first, random thoughts floated uncontrolled in my consciousness. Then a flower with the face of Olos began to form, at first vague and detailed not, then a clear image of the goddess studying her child. I knew each of us saw the same image. Then, the flower-Olos stretched out two branches like human arms, and the astounding revelations began.

In a growing flood, images filled me, not of the future, but of distant pasts. I saw, heard, smelled, and touched the guttural-sounds of many, many men in the garb of mere unworked animal-skins. I saw them in paddle-boats on rivers which were true images of times before the plague. So many men, men stronger than women. Men in seated circles around log fires. Men and women roasting the meat of giant birds on the stone cooking platforms. Men and women stuffing simple boots with dry grass as insulation in the cold of ice and snow.

Then, I felt the shaking of the ground, the wail of wounded Olos, the gray cloud in the sky that blocked out Sojoa for so, so long. I, too, felt the shaking earth and ran into the caves and tunnels and spit up waters from my womb and peered into the gray and endless cloud of the angry god that circled Olos, Olos crawling in pain, her hand clutching the rip in her side. She gasped and choked and panted for her missing consort in the sky. Looking down from above, I saw the fissures and veins of splitting land sprouting in all directions cracking the skin of Our Mother. I saw the waves and waves of hot liquid rock and dirt pouring and falling from the mountains. I saw the corpses of the winged creatures that were never to fly again. I heard the howls and growls and cries of animals as they fled into lands new and frightening. I saw water harden and humans walking across seas without need of ships and boats.

As if time moved as fast as a waver picture, I saw the cloud loose its thickness as it became part of all-breathing. Then it faded into the soil and humans returned to the soaking rays and waves of Sojoa. I saw the ice melt, and old connections between tribes were lost to a wandering humanity who continued to search for game and food.

Then, I saw the first wailings as infants died in surprising numbers. I saw the burnings of women whose seed was determined rotten. I saw wives cast out who bore only daughters and were forced inland away from tribal ports. I saw infant girls buried in the sands. I saw the fleeings from the Old Continent when all-skins felt the disasters within their own colors. I saw old worships change when even Olos was branded the demon of our earth. I, too, crouched in my hut fearing the night visits of the imagined Red-Scarfed Plague-Maiden choosing which infants to spare. I saw the beginnings of skol writings and I saw the burnings of skols which told fearful stories. I saw time pass and a gentleness of regret fill migrating tribes who moved from sorrow to resignation to living as if no plague had ever been. Such histories, I knew, were lost in the fearing times when the Plague lost its name and became the mystery with no beginning. Nor end.

I saw how the jealousies and envies of many wives gave way to hope of inclusion and child-birth in tribal alliances. I saw how cultures began to shape themselves as if disconnected from all others. I saw the growth of the Domes and the reverence for Olos return as female nurture spread from home-cribs to all aspects of life. I saw the rises and falls of Lieges on all continents. Through all, I felt the flow of Olos in the fields and skies and waters.

The most puzzling image was of Olos herself standing by a red-brook, a red-sword in her hand. It was a stone-sword she had pulled from the ground but had nowhere to place it. I read her thoughts — the sword is drawn but where is the scabbard to put it to rest?

Then the images cleared and I was again kneeling in the small room with the Mother-Of-All. Lorei was on her knees beside me in deep tears. As was I.

"Plague with no name?" the Mother wailed, her hands gripping her throne. "No, now I see it! It was no Lost Moon who fell into Olos as if in need of her warmth! No, it was a moon of angry rock from far from Olos! A moon jealous of the life on Olos it could spawn not itself! An angry moon, a jealous moon that gave us the Sea we named after a lost moon! Cursed Moon that cursed Olos! And the waters that bear this plague and spread it lap against the shores of this holy island!"

We three said nothing for a time. We now knew of the pollution that infected the wombs and milk of the children of Olos. We knew the ways of prophecy and science had new work to begin.

---
Find out more in The Blood of Balnakin—The Beta-Earth Chronicles: Book 2
https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Balnakin...

The Blind Alien is still on sale for 99 cents!
https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Alien-Be...

Coming This Fall!

The Third Earth—The Beta-Earth Chronicles: Book 5
http://bmfiction.com/science-fiction/...

I admit, the following excerpt is very strange. That’s because, from time to time, I tried to inject some humor into the Beta-Earth Chronicles. For example, I think characters pulling playful tricks on each other can be very funny.

Here’s one example of female guile from The Blood of Balnakin. To set things up, one storyline is the shaping of the Balnakin Kalma Salk into a full member of Tribe Renbourn. At first, absolutely no one wants this to happen. The mistrust between the Renbourns and all Balnakins is very deep. However, being a devout believer in the goddess Olos, Kalma accepts the divine prophecy that her physical bonding with Malcolm Renbourn will be part of the needed reconciliation between her country and the long hated Renbourns. (That story is told in The Blind Alien.)

This bonding will require Kalma to face one of her deepest fears, of committing what she has been taught is the sin of all sins, of a Balnakin brown lying with a light-skin. On top of that, she has no special attraction for Malcolm. She assumes the goddess will move something to spark passion and desire between them that will override the near terror in her heart.

For his part, Malcolm isn’t interested in what the goddess Olos wants and is deeply resentful of her pulling strings in his life. He likes his family the way it is and has no wish to shake things up. He finds Kalma abrasive and obnoxious and has good reasons for this. She is abrasive and obnoxious. He’ll accept the inevitable if he has to, but he won’t lift a finger to get things going.

So what to do? Three of the Renbourn wives concoct an imaginative conspiracy. Doret, Elsbeth, and Alnenia spend three days doing interesting things to Kalma’s food and drink. Beyond immersing Kalma in erotic poetry and chattering about their favorite physical pleasures, they’re essentially getting her secretly stoned to set up what they can do with the power of suggestion.

What does this accomplish? Here’s what happens in Kalma’s words:

the morn of the fourth day of this foolishness, I had had enough. I burst into Alnenia's office. I demanded, "Sister, what is all this strange curiosity with my food and drinks and eyes and unusual gifts?" "Why, what mean you?" Alnenia replied, innocently looking up at me from behind her desk. "Mean you Elsbeth's interest in making sure your meals are pleasing?"
"Play no more games with me!" I exclaimed, "There is more here than culinary foolishness! What goes on here?" Alnenia looked at me intent, staring into my eyes.
"Yes," she said, as if being a Helprim preparing a diagnosis. "You are getting rather impatient. Ah, feel you any unusual discomforts?" "I have an itch," I began, and then stopped. I turned and closed her door. I sat in her chair and stared back at her. "I am leaving not this chair," I announced, "until you give me explanation full!"
Alnenia turned her cran to one side and looked thoughtful. "It's the fourth day," she said to herself. "It is finally seeming to work." Her face told that she had come to a decision. "Yes, it is the time for truth." She sat back and smiled. "Know you anything about the Ming-ti plant?" "No, I know not," I told her cold. "What is the Ming-ti plant?"
She picked up a skol-stick and tapped it nervously on her desk. "It really should be Doret or Elsbeth to explain it. What I know, they told me. The Ming-ti plant is a heaf
that grows not natural on the Old Continent. It's one Doret ordered seeds for from Menzia. It's a powerful, ah, ah, well, when its leaves are dried and cooked into foods as spices or ground into powder and put into nectars, it, ah, ah," she smiled broad, "considerably enflames our natural drive to be speared. It creates a strong need, very strong, in women for a man-stalk bonding. In your case, the results should be very,
very interesting."
"Interesting!" I thundered. "You've poisoned me and call that interesting! What mean you?" Alnenia looked hurt and shook her head. "Poisoned? Oh no, there is nothing toxic in Ming-ti. The only possible trouble you could have is, well, if you were unable to act on the stimulus inside you. But," her smile returned, "your acting on it is the point. It is long past time for Malcolm to part your legs with full thrusts in between."
I stood and paced before her desk. Questions filled me, and the first was obvious. "Have you others taken this Ming-ti?" "No," Alnenia admitted. "We knew nothing of it until Doret spoke of it after our visit to the Mother-Icealt. None of us, ah, have ever needed the stimulus. We thought of experimenting with it, naturally. For Doret, she'd probably only need a very small amount. Then again, all Malcolm has to do is reach his hand up her tunic, play with her nipples, and irresistible shockwaves, well, you know. Or soon will."
She laughed. "Joline is about your body weight although not as strongly built or muscled." She laughed again. "But, then again, you'd only have to show Joline the plant, tell her of its purpose, and its effect would be complete on sight."
I stared at her. "So, how much of this Ming-ti is in my blood?" Her eyes lit up. "That's what is extraordinary! Very, very extraordinary! Again, Doret can better answer your questions. Normally, I understand, one meal only is sufficient. You've —." She paused and looked at me in wonder." You should, by now, be unable to do anything else but think of being speared. I'm tempted to alert Yil and tell him to clear all males out of —."
"You'll do no such thing!" I exclaimed with full power, pulling her door open. "I am sufficiently disciplined and self-controlled to fight this poison! I will go find Doret and find a cure for this mean trick!"
I stormed up the stairs and burst into Doret's sparsely furnished room. As usual, I found her sitting cross-legged on her mat, meditating, a skol-book by her side. "So, little sister," I demanded, "tell me of this Ming-ti and how to cleanse it from me!"
Doret opened her eyes and looked at me. She studied me. "Finally," she said, "I can believe not it took so long. Well, sit while you can. I'll explain." I sat on her mat while Doret stood and walked over to her desk. She returned with a stack of books, each with many markers poking from the tops. She sat by me, opened the first on the stack, and offered me the book. I looked at the skols and saw the words "Ming-ti." I read the description, history, and reputed uses of the plant and looked at a picture of the tall, leafy weed. "Oh ha," I said, "This says the famed belief that the Ming-ti leaves have powers of excitement have been proved not."
"So it says," Doret agreed, "as do most books written for readers without special knowledge." She handed me another open book, this one yellowed with age with old and faded print. This one had a drawing of the plant along with recipes for its use. "I'd share these others," Doret said, indicating the rest of her stack, "but I'd have to read them aloud to you. They are in the lost and secret languages known only to Icealts of the Old Dome."
She opened a box, and pulled out a set of strange skols and symbols. "From the Mother Icealt herself, I have details unknown outside of priestly circles. For what some say is unproven is merely a matter of knowing how to work the magic proper." She looked at me kind. "I'm wonder struck you can sit there with focused eyes. Have you any idea how much power flows in you? Can you feel your body sweat?"
"How do I rid myself of this?" I asked, looking at my hands and arms. Indeed, I was sweating. My itch was near throbbing.
Doret smiled and shook her cran. "There is one release, and one release only. I confess fear for Husband watching you sit there. The more you resist, the stronger your drive will be."
"Enough!" I cried, "I would see these plants!"
Doret nodded and stood. "Let’s go see Elsbeth's private garden." She picked up her EV-com and coded for Elsbeth. "Sister, May we meet in your rooms? Kalma would like to meet your Ming-ti works."
We walked down the hall and waited for Elsbeth by her door. She appeared smiling. "Oh yes," she beamed. "I see it." As she opened her door and led us to her porch-garden, I asked almost pleadingly, "Sister, gentlest of all, how could you do this to me?" She looked up at me with a hurt expression. "Kalma, Kalma, understand you not? We're only helping your body overcome the fears in your womb. We have taken your fear of touch and turned it upside down. Your fear must have been very strong," she said as we walked into her enclosed porch. "Your desire will be as your fear. Which might break Malcolm's bones."
She led us to one corner where a tray of plants sat in Sojoa-light. The tray looked as if it had once been full of plants. Now, only three bushes remained with many three-pronged leaves soaking in the light. Next to the tray was a three-part stand. Two poles stood upright, one pole stretched between them. From that pole, three plants hung downward, their leaves drying and falling to waiting plates below. "The richness of the Ming-ti juice," Doret said proud, "is enhanced when Sojoa dried, for obvious reasons. The more Sojoa light, the more we women need Sojoa milk." She pointed to a skull-bowl where dried leaves floated in a liquid. "Now there is the solution I can reveal not, the secret that science has uncovered not. It is what converts mere itching into a need of the womb. Kalma, your forehead is wet. I think not you should stand here and delay much longer."
For some pointless reason, I exclaimed, "I will defeat you and your trickery and pay you back in kind!" I stormed out of Elsbeth's rooms. I rushed to my quarters and thought to lock myself in my room. I knew this was foolishness. I went to my mirror and examined my face. Yes, my eyes were red, my skin damp, my body quivering. My breasts had hardened. I laid on my bed and groaned. I clenched my teeth. I dug nails into my palms. I slapped my belly.
I know not how long I writhed and saw images in my mind of Joline's verse and her toes reaching high to limbs of blue leaves and Malcolm's fingers awakening the music in his wives and green plants drying in Sojoa-light and suddenly my body moved without my mind and I nearly ran down the hallway to Husban's room. He was there, he was there, my soul cried, working peaceful at his V-Skiler. He heard me come in but recognized not who I was. "Yes," he said kind, knowing it must be a tribe member to enter his third-floor sanctuary.

Doret: Close to eve-plate time, I heard a soft knock at my door and I called permission for admittance. Kalma walked in looking agitated. I studied her but could read not the confusion on her face. She was biting her lips and unable to focus her yellow eyes. "Little one," she finally stuttered, "Your magic worked well. Very well. Extremely well. Amazingly well. Astoundingly well." She smiled with a faraway look.
She looked unsteady on her legs, like she'd topple any moment. Then her eyes cleared and she looked concerned. "Ah, Doret, you need to see Malcolm and try a different
kind of magic for him or help him to the Int-Clin or whatever should be done. Doret, I'm afraid, ah, I'm afraid I surprised him. He says his back will move not. He groans when he tries to move." As my jaw dropped, and I rose to help Malcolm, Kalma's dreamy look returned. "The rest of those plants," she breathed soft and firm, "are mine."

The Beta-Earth Chronicles (so far)

The Blind Alien (still on sale for 99 cents!)
https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Alien-Be...

The Blood of Balnakin (Book 2)
https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Balnakin...

When War Returns (book 3)
https://www.amazon.com/When-War-Retur...

A Throne for an Alien (book 4)
https://www.amazon.com/Throne-Alien-B...

Coming This Fall!

The Third Earth—The Beta-Earth Chronicles: Book 5
http://bmfiction.com/science-fiction/...

It’s been a while since I gave y’all a free sample from a Beta book. So here’s a passage from The Blood of Balnakin I’m rather proud of.

That’s because this section not only introduces you to a major character in the series, but, in that character’s own words, introduces you to some of the major themes of the book. In particular, the role of race in the country of Balnakin.

For a little set-up: “Sojoa-sheets” are essentially solar panels. “Stadsems” are colleges. In the country of Balnakin, the dominant race is brown-skins. Blues are their slaves. “Tribal sewings” are markings worn on tunics to indicate strong tribal alliances.

In the final third of The Blind Alien, the book that preceded Blood, a terrible catastrophe occurred when an explosion destroyed much of the city of Bergarten. Many Balnakins mistakenly believed the blind alien, Dr. Malcolm Renbourn, could have averted the disaster if he’d have sacrificed himself in the laboratory that had brought him over from Alpha earth. As a result, the Renbourns and all light-skins are blamed for the deaths of thousands. So Kalma is about to discuss various reactions to the event from her family’s various points of view.

Kalma: I am daughter of the great city of Bergarten, a city I have known with pride, shame, and aching womb all my days. In the twenty-five years of my growing near the three rivers, I thrived in the knowledge my home city was a center of the world. All around me were the wide, clean walkways leading past gleaming buildings unlike any in any other city on Olos earth. I knew these flowing streets well, I knew I was one fleshly part of the best of humanity. My Bergarten was where the future shaped, where discipline and energy superseded the ways of others tangled in their tired pasts.
But I also was shaped by a family deeply troubled by the slavery of fellow Balnakins sharing not our deep, earth-soil colors. I knew well our Sojoa sheets shone because of the polishings of blues dangled from rooftops or belted to mechanical ladders. Riding in our trans from one site to another, my Mother often circled her breasts with single finger loops, signaling gratitude to be blessed each time she glanced at a sullen blue woman tuning tools, unloading tracs, crawling down into pipes below ground. Many such women would know spears, children, family not.
Futures not. We whispered our regret. But only whispers, silences, prayers. After all, without the blues, our greatness possibled not.
Then, my soul ached and more as I was in Bergarten the day the soundless explosion robbed my city of its heart. I was one of those shoved onto an evacuation bus at stadsem that cursed day, cramped with students and sweating teachers on the road north when the catastrophe took away the rooms we sat in but minutes before. I can name names of many who exist no more. My belly tightens still to think of them.
Had not my Tribe fast boats on the Gell River, two of my Sisters and their children would also exist no more.
To say more, for years, my family has been a deep part of what I loved most about Bergarten. For one matter, unlike many, my father, Lius Salk, built his empire of
connections relying not on what he considered a dishonest means of business. That is, as he rose in the ranks of the shipping company of Mhelapras, he chose not his wives based on tunic sewings. Instead, each of his five bondings were daughters from the New Dome Church of No-Stratas founded by the eminent Devlin Joco Llyam. Llyam's congregation agreed on various principles including the possibility, but rarity of, true prophecy. We believed Olos was indeed the Mother of All, and that all included all skins. This meant Olos abhorred slavery. No member of the New Domes associated with Devlin Llyam could own or deal with the selling of humans. This meant we had few prosperous, powerful tribes to share worship with. My father looked for wives with these beliefs knowing they would come from families with these values. He wanted wives focused on their children. So, each of us grew in a home devoted to our betterment while my father grew his company in countries stained not by human bondage. He worked with makers of goods with sellers all over the globe interested in unique wares from cultures across land and sea. As Father rose to the top of Mhelapras, we rose with him.
True said, in each family, seeds bear different fruits. My brother Mool became as interested as my father in the ways of connecting makers with distributors. So, he established his own healthy branch to the family's growth into the countries south of the Psam Peninsula, mostly on the continent of Verashush. But my brother Kinn could find his way not. He became an angry student at the Lipran Stadsem, graduating just before the news came out that an alien was in the Halls of the great Bergarten Institute of the Species. Kinn stood in the audience the day Doctor Malcolm Renbourn reached out to two globes. Later, Kinn raged in father's house the day the alien snuck across the border into Rhasvi. My father dismayed when Kinn denounced loud the Lipran authorities for having allowed this escape to happen. Why had any fool put a Shaprim robe on a blue, why was a creature so obviously defective contained not here in Bergarten where all the world should come and beg access to our knowledge? "Olos put her stamp on every Brown," Kin preached, "when she marked us with her own color, the color of her most fertile land! What is blue but an empty shade between day and night? Unnatural. Name one other creature sharing this strange pigment!" He laughed. "And these are creatures to envy, pity not! How relaxing to have no decisions to make, no will to exercise! We shelter, feed, guide these off-colors!" My father had known not my brother had changed at the Stadsem. Into this nest of anti-slavery philosophies, a racist had emerged.
And Kinn became more than that when one-fourth of our city became a dome in
the earth, a gaping hole where once friends and companions lived. One horrible day, my father's office view overlooked a wound that now defined a culture. Devlin Llyam's home was but two-lanes away. During the first years after that damnable rip in Olos appeared, such men and their women grieved in silent wonder. During the same years, men and women like my brother Kinn spoke often and loud. "I stood there, right there at the very center of that wound in the Mother! By miracle alone three of my Sisters survived! But a minute, a moment, our Tribe, too, would have had souls with bodies not for holy burning!" All Balnakin homes knew the debates. Yes, drain and bleed Rhasvin coffers for compensation. But compensate who? How can lost knowledge be re-claimed? Who owned the lost land? They were gone, too. Rebuild? Build a memorial? Answers were slow. But those like Kin looked for answers not.
Vengeance. Slashing, burning, crushing of all creatures whose skin was brown not. Consuming, unyielding rage. So, father sent my brother to Alma in the hopes the distance might calm his angry spear. To live among blues who were slaves not, Balnakin, Rhasvi not. For a time, we knew not of success in father's dreams. We more concerned with our world turned upside down.
For the record, I have seven sisters, as well, but my purpose here is not to fully flesh out my blood-tree. To say simple, my tribe, like most, was a story of contrasts. I, well, I was my father's favorite star. From early years, I was the quickest of my brood to show promise in my studies, especially seeing the patterns of numbers. As I grew in
health, comfort, dignity, and belief in the values of our New Dome association, it was obvious to all I should have the brightest possibilities of my generation. Young men
eyed my tall frame and wide birth-hips with considerable interest. Even when I was young, boys loved to stare into my yellow-iris eyes, a trait passed down from my
Mother. Along with my well-recognized tunic-colors I designed myself, I was praised
for my song-voice which I shaped in praise for Olos. But I was ready for bonding not.
Unlike my mother, I planned to establish myself as a woman with a scope far larger
than our mansion near River Lod. In my womb, I imagined myself wife to a Tribal-Centel if not one myself. Where I to bond with such a man, he'd have to be one
expecting considerable guidance from his first wife. For I would settle not for less.

Learn what happens next, and what happened before, in:

The Blood of Balnakin—The Beta-Earth Chronicles: Book Two
https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Balnakin...

I know. Making overt connections between my books and the writings of Mark Twain stretches and strains credulity. This despite the fact that, for a decade of my life, I was completely immersed in the life and works of Samuel Clemens. My master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation were about his religious views. During those years, I was a happy member of the lively and personable Twain scholarly community. To be honest, I miss those days and especially those people.

Still, only once during my writing process did I feel Twain was looking over my shoulder when I crafted the first chapter of A Throne for an Alien. I remembered, or thought I remembered, one chapter from Life on the Mississippi that opens with a descriptive overview of an area on the Mississippi. Then Twain narrowed his focus to a specific town, then narrowed his view to one street, then one house, and finally one sleeping drunk on a porch. Well, as Twain once said, I remember everything whether it happened or not. Actually, the passage read like this:

http://www.bartleby.com/library/prose...

Interestingly, the way I remembered the scene, Twain would have been using a cameratic technique long before any camera could do anything like this. According to some helpful Twain scholars, he’s starting the scene with a "Zoom in" or "establishing shot", also known as a bird's eye or pan(orama) shot. You’ve seen this used in films like Psycho, The Birdcage, and The Dark Knight.

The way I recalled the passage is what I tried to emulate when describing the fleet of exiles in the opening pages of Throne for an Alien. The “bird’s eye” view comes from what the character named Joline imagines what the spirit of her murdered sister Bar might see looking down from the clouds. Later in the chapter, Joline has Bar’s perspective focus on the ship of her former family and then her spirit looks into the ship’s cabin. You can see for yourselves how I used the pan (orama) technique here:

Joline: One day looking over the horizon-deck of our "Barbara Blue," I thought of my lost sister, Bar. For one moment, I wondered what she might think if she looked down from the skies over Tribe Renbourn. From the quiet clouds feeding occasional gentle rains onto the foaming, rocking blue waters of the Philosea, she'd see one of the strangest, most magnificent sights in Betan history. As our fleet, our "rag-tag" fleet as Husband described it, sailed east across the Philosea, 60, 70, 90 ships would sometimes be a swelling entity all together, sometimes be streams of smaller fleets seemingly independent but parallel, and sometimes scattered armadas when boat-Captains decided to linger in ports or at island landings at their will.

That day, I thought, the view from where I stood on our ship was just as dramatic as any overhead eyes. After all, my vision was combined with the smells and feels of ocean winds and waters. Some days, we all saw and smelled smoke rising like gentle ladders to the clouds from ships of burning engines. Sometimes, we heard sky booms and saw vapor trails from fast-moving wingers racing above us, no doubt looking down to see what they could see. Many days, wide-sails with proud Alliance signs were filled with the winds and we looked through our glass scopes to see who was nearby.

Some decorated sails we knew well, many our friends from Biol, Oyne, and Persis. We smiled seeing their new flags bearing the Half-Moon sign Husband had made the emblem of the first peaceful resistance to a government gone mad. We waved at friendly sailors climbing up rigging or waving at us from watch-nests atop sturdy masts, especially the cargo-ship Alnenia's father, Sikas Ricipa, had loaned our tribe to carry many of our support-hands. Other ships in the distance we saw rare. We knew their leaders only by Two-Way or EV-com contacts. We knew every ship in the fleet was filled with fearful refugees, many wondering if Alman submersibles would rise to the surface to demand some ships be turned around.

Others worried the powerful Alman Navy might make attempts to capture individuals the new Alman government might have reason to want. Men especially feared their homeland might insist on reclaiming them. But, in the main, the Alman Navy was conspicuous by its absence.

"Perhaps," Alnenia mused, "they prefer to leave us at the mercy of the elements and possible raiders."

Only as time passed did this unease seem to slowly vanish like the flocks of seabirds winging overhead. Of course, many of these ships were small and designed not for long voyages. Many such had been provisioned in quick time and lacked for food, water, and long-distance navigation equipment. Cargo ships had been hastily converted into passenger vessels. Sometimes we lingered to allow these stragglers to keep close to their protective neighbors. Some days, we all paused as if we were one
body to allow ships heading other directions to cross or cut through our path.

"I would never have imagined," Husband remarked, inhaling the sea air he loved, "that there could be traffic jams in the middle of an ocean."

We had many such. All these disparate exiles cast their fates away from the country that had given us all one choice — bend your mind, your soul, your will to one Lunta, one vision of Olos, one cruel woman with double-powers or leave. So many left. For reasons even the prophets said not, many followed the Duce of Bilan, My Husband, the blind alien of Alpha-Earth to wherever he and his tribe might go. And on this, the third arc of our voyage, we knew not where we went.

To our east, we knew Rhasvin ships were forming a buffer on their coast as if to say, "Sail on, sail on, but sail not here." We knew Arasad ships floated like barracuda to our west as if hoping for at least a few morsels of tribute. But mostly the world watched and wondered.

At the moment I stood on our deck and thought of sister Bar, my womb was too full of the present and the family around me to wonder too much about the doings on other ships or in remote lands. Instead, I allowed my imagined cloud-spirit of Bar to narrow her vision, pointing her fleshless eyes downward at her namesake, our pride, the "Barbara Blue." She'd have seen a very different husband from the tortured animal she'd first met in the Bergarten see-through cell, the abused teacher in the Balnakin School, the haunted husband and father who'd been blamed for the deaths of thousands. Now, if she looked closely, she'd see a man on the deck of his ship playing games with children of nine mothers, including her own daughter, Becky. If she looked close, she might amaze to see a father and his tribe in happy play, a tribe seemingly unconcerned that, once again, our family was homeless.

Once, our tribe would have looked cautious outward, wondering and speculating about the future in new places under new rules with shifting lines of power and need. Once, our Tribal Council would have mourned the loss of a beloved home and the roots we'd sought to plant on Island Bilan. Now, this tribe in transition was led by a father deliberately losing games for laughing offspring between tickling helpless mothers to the decks. Now, the reluctant father of an international exodus seemed to fear nothing.

Still, wise eyes would see Noriah of the Willing Horse and her ten Trustees
spending much time on deck, teaching children and adults alike the ways of alertness and preparation. As she had for years, Sister Doret still taught everyone intricacies of Kin-Po, our exercise that was also our physical defense.

Had the spirit of Bar peered into the window of our ship's parlor, she would have seen the famous corner of Two-Way wavers that once beamed out signals of distress when Tribe Renbourn was at the mercy of Arasad raiders. Now, she'd see maps of all sizes and designs decorating the walls as every Renbourn of every age had been given a vote in the great question. Where was home?

----
Find out what happens next in A Throne for an Alien—The Beta-Earth Chronicles: Book 4
https://www.amazon.com/Throne-Alien-B...

Book 1, The Blind Alien, is still on sale for 99 cents!
https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Alien-Be...

Here’s one last free sample from A Throne for an Alien. It’s the very descriptive and gentle introduction as “written” by a new character, Elena Richelo Renbourn. Elena paints the setting for Throne in her own words. Here ya go--

Many of the new terms below I won’t explain here as they are being introduced for the first time in Elena’s words. But you might like to know the title, Duce of Bilan, applies to Malcolm Renbourn, the title he accepted when he bonded with Sasperia Thorwaif which made him a member of the Alman Mentala, roughly the equivalent of England’s House of Lords. The reasons for that are a long story, a huge part of When War Returns, book 3 of the Chronicles.

In her first paragraph, Elena identifies this book as the last in the series. What she couldn’t have known, and what this author didn’t know at the time, was that other adventures awaited Tribe Renbourn on a Third Earth.

So without further ado and hoping those who haven’t read the first three books won’t get lost or confused, meet Elena, her family, and her country. I suspect you’ll experience a big surprise at the end, but an introduction is no place for spoilers:

Alone in my private chambers, I, Elena Richelo Renbourn, sit and skol these painful words by myself. Unlike our Preparations to our first three books, my bond-sisters feel my thoughts are of special interest beginning this, our last chronicles of the first generation of Tribe Renbourn on Beta-Earth. Sister Doret believes my story is the least known and worthy of some introduction. Sasperia believes my perspective sets the stage for the events of these years with a voice not part of the First Circle. Jona prefers to skol not at all. So, I will tell of how the little-known country of Hitalec came to offer its shores to the water-meandering Renbourn tribe and the exiled fleet in their wake in the year, 1735.

In 1720, I was in my ninth year when the word went forth that an alien from a sister-earth had been captured and was living in our northern neighbor, Balnakin. For our island, for all our part of the planet, such news was fascinating but remote. As I grew, the stories of Malcolm Renbourn and his wives, Lorei, Elsbeth, Bar, Joline, Alnenia, and then Doret, Kalma, and Sasperia were adventures of a tribe relevant to the Old and New Continents. But these stories were of little importance in our hemisphere. Hitalec, in truth, was also of little importance in our own region, the island countries part of the Grovsea basin. In the words of my Father, we were the tail of a dog whose history was wagged by others. For Hitalec was a country barely a nation.

Simple said, my mother, Nor, the Queen of Hitalec, ruled as a connector between tribes from three cultures. We had three populated regions that were primarily colonies of our neighbors. Our capital, Satraq, and the lands around it on our western coast, for example, were beholden to Menzia. Menzia was, and remains, the curving land bridging the New Continent with the land mass known as Verashesh.

My Mother's eldest sister, Kinita, ruled Menzia with her three husbands and helped our land with resources and protection. Like her sister, my mother, too, had three husbands in the Menzian royal-blood tradition. Her first bond-mate, the late Marmine Richelo, father to my older sister, Bet, had been Consort-Liege before his ill-timed fall down a mountain face. Bet would one day rule Hitalec with her wary and worried eyes.

In the craggy north coast beside our capital was Rumus, an undisciplined colony of settlers from Rymo, the desert land between Balnakin and Menzia. Once, these were the people who had filled our island before waves of disease, earthquakes, and other now forgotten devastations wiped out a population of mostly farmers and animal grazers.

My father, Tusjin, brother to the dead Consort-Liege, was Lord of this region of survivors. He was a kindly man who adored My Mother and his daughter. One day, I would govern here bonded to one Lord or another from the same culture, obedient to my sister.

Below Rumus, next to my Mother's domain, was the unruly Lumus, our industrial area governed by My Mother's third husband, Gant Thanq, the leader of the thin-haired and cat-eyed Lorilians. They were a race who had founded their own colony there many years past to have a base for their own trade interests in our seas. Unlike most from Grovsea countries, the Lorilians were blue-brown not in their skin tones, but were instead the yellow of puffy Ear-Leaves in planting times.

The daughter of this union, my sister Moy, was both slow of mind and encouraged not by her father to accomplish much in her life. She'd be ill-suited for governance or bonding, which her father desired not for her. For the Lorilians wanted little to do with a central government in our country. With government comes responsibility and restraints. The southern half of Hitalec wanted neither.

The rest of our island, beautiful as it was, was surprisingly sparse in people. For many years, the northern coast to the east was but a land for escaping Balnakin slaves to pass through after short voyages from their unfriendly homeland. Few stayed, wishing to distance themselves from slave-raiders. Those who tried to plant roots were at the mercy of foragers, bandits, and the sea-pirates who roamed freely on that coast. So, over time, few even tried to make use of our fertile soils.

By the time of my maturity, the hills to the south and to the east of Lumus were filled with secretive and hidden enclaves of former slaves only now learning that Balnakin no longer sought them. After Crater Bergarten and the miraculous bonding of Malcolm and Kalma Renbourn, blues still poured through the region as freed people, but they still wanted distance from Balnakin fearing changes in political winds. They still dug the tunnels and underground vikas free from the prying eyes of satellites in the sky.

Only the port town of Weg, an unorganized area of fishers and small farmers, sat unmolested at the end of Hitalec, far from the interests of their government. So, a vast area of land sat dormant. Inviting. Waiting.

Hitalec, remote as it was, had not been untouched by the influence of Tribe Renbourn. The Renbourn reach had, in fact, made its first presence on my island while I began completion of my school years. Helprims and teachers for the Fisher Way were now brought to our disadvantaged people in Weg and to the blue-skin cave-dwellers.

In Rumus, I dealt much with the Salk family who had many contracts with our businesses who bought and sold goods based on Alphan designs. I recall one eve listening to My Father telling My Mother about the Renbourn's visit with the Mother-Icealt of All-Domes.

"There is comfort," he said, "knowing there is another earth like ours. We're alone not."

But such musings had little to do with a young woman's life that was bordered on four sides by the Grovsea. Alma, Kirip, Silvivan, even Rhasvi were my world not, even if I shared the mother-tongue of Alma.

So, in our royal palace, we watched the vicious and deadly turmoil in Alma as if watching dynasties change in Rigel or Minnestt. When we saw the strange fleet leave the Old Continent led by the Duce of Bilan and his tribe, we watched as if seeing a tale of imaginative skolers.

My Mother leaned forward and said to My Father, "Tusjin, I've read the reports of that fleet. Those ships carry Helprims, Legems, fishers, farmers, builders, and perhaps miners and engineers — and the famous Renbourn Tribe. They seek new roots. I cannot see such as the Renbourns settling here. But the others? Tusjin, we have lands that could use such peoples. Perhaps Hitalec could attract some of the unwanted of Alma? If those sailing now settled here, they might well call for their tribes still on the Old Continent."

My Father laughed. "Perhaps. Should I make inquiries?"

And that is how it began.

Elena Renbourn,
Liege of the United States of America

The full A Throne for an Alien is available at:
https://www.amazon.com/Throne-Alien-B...

Book 1 of the series, The Blind Alien, is still on sale for 99 cents!
https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Alien-Be...

Coming This Fall!

The Third Earth—The Beta-Earth Chronicles: Book 5
http://bmfiction.com/science-fiction/...

Here's anew review I spotted at Amazon today--

A great read for any sci-fi fan!
ByChip Stollon September 30, 2016

I thoroughly enjoyed Dr. Wesley Britton's "The Blind Alien", the story of Malcolm who is transported to a parallel earth-like planet, losing his eyesight in the process. It took only a couple of pages to adjust to the parallel dialect but soon came to enjoy it. It difficulted my cran at times to interpret the new words and this sometimes took me out of the flow of the story. But this is also the fun of reading sci-fi. The story itself was very believable and the world creation kept me fixated. The way Malcolm was treated was a great allegory as to how we might have treated an alien visiting our planet. The family he formed produced many empathetic characters and situations. I found it extremely interesting that although they planned on comparing the spirituality between the Alphas and Betas, the Betans were actually more interested in the Alphas fashions and games. This is a great read for any fan of the sci-fi genre.

Stopped by Amazon again today, and was presently surprised to see yet another new review for The Blind Alien! Perhaps the 99 cent sale is sparking new interest in the debut novel of the Beta-earth Chronicles:

The Blind Alien. The Beta Earth Chronicles by Dr. Wesley Britton.
By Amazon Customer

This is the first book of a series where “Robinson Crusoe” meets “Fringe” in a parallel Universe dominated by women because of a disease that kills 3 to 1 the males who are born. A history teacher is dragged from our world to theirs, gets blind through that transition and after escaping medical experiments he claims his position and rights in a world that tends to recognize him as an abomination.
This is the beginning of an intriguing storyline being told through different voices, making it even more interesting and vivid. A former teacher has to become a student again, a fighter, a lover, a husband, a father and eventually a leader of his own tribe. He has to conquer his own demons before he stands up and fights for his existence over a reality he didn’t choose.
Despite the numerous questions that lay underneath the story line about genders, equality, freedom, religion e.t.c. it never ceases to make you want to turn pages to learn what happens next. It’s a book that I would gladly have in my bag and read it while I was moving around the city through metro or a bus and maybe I could even blame it for missing my stop. There are so many different types of characters that it’s almost impossible not to find at least one that you can relate to and start following their journey to personal fulfillment.
Dr. Wesley Britton is a natural born storyteller who has worked so much on his craft that it seems effortless. Don’t let yourself be deceived by that. It takes a lot of effort and talent to create so many characters that can stand on their own, have your own, simple yet particular voice as a writer that can keep you on reading and reading and once you are done, you wonder… “That’s all? I definitely need to know what happened next!” (Get book 2 and then book 3 and then book 4 and keep your fingers crossed for book 5)
I would strongly recommend it for someone who enjoys sci-fi fiction and furthermore to the ones who are not familiar with the genre and are reluctant to read it. It’s a great introduction to it and its unique charms thanks to a gifted author. Buy it, read it and don’t forget to thank the author for the beautiful journey once you are done with a smile on your face.


The Blind Alien is still on sale for 99 cents at:
https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Alien-Be...