Where it All Began

Earlier this week, I posted the opening passages of A Throne for an Alien for you. Today, I’m offering the opening for The Blind Alien, the first book in the Beta-Earth Chronicles. (Remember, it’s only 99 cents this month.) Let me know what you think!

Bar: True said, I was raised not to do the things I have done. None like me expect to see the things I have seen. Deep in my womb, I still fear to share
my memories of the shakings of two earths. Deep in my womb, I would prefer to keep our private memories within our tribe. But the lies, the distortions
rage on. So our skolings begin.
For my part, in 5 of 1720, in the 24th year of my being, I had honored to complete my training at Stadsem Wostra for Independent Literates. As I was an
orphaned blue-skin with no family linkages, my Brown Shapers had determined I was marriageable. This possibled, they told me, only if I became skilled
enough to secure a position where my talents could be shown at their best advantage. Still, I stunned when I was told to report to Director-Shaprim Uneld
Kharg at the Central Science Institute in Bergarten just hours after collecting my certificates. I had expected not my first assignment to be in such an
important place, in the middle of the capital of Balnakin. Few blues worked at such Institutes, at least in the mid-level positions. This was no mere task
as a scribe assisting some Brown Master. Instead, this was a call to go to the core of my country.
I doubt anyone, in those days, could go to the great Bergarten Institutional Collective without feeling awe at what had been built there. As a blue slave,
all my life I'd been accustomed to tight, functional four-square buildings that were clean, mobile, ecologically sound. All my nights had been spent in
cramped sleeping slots where six, seven, eight girls shared space waiting the results of our tests and how they met the needs of our exacting masters.
Now, on this day while I walked through Bergarten for the first time, I stared skyward at the immense round structures of stone and crystal. They were
all spacious, permanent, imposingly beautiful. True said, Bergarten architecture had not the dignity or aged looks of similar cities across the Philosea
on the Old Continent. There, wooden stack-modules showed every human where civilization had begun. here In Bergarten, the awe was in the size of the smooth
walls that cried power and grandeur. Here, there were no age cracks in the stones. Here, the rounded Sojoa-sheets bulging from each window, drawing power from Our God reflecting light and energy, seemed to say without words — "Here grows the future."
Entering my assigned building through the back arches for Blue Professionals, I surprised even more when the Security Op looked at my papers, scanned my
travel-satchel, and then personally escorted me to the sixth level. I certained I was in some trouble — why would any Brown escort a mere applicant through
an easy, if winding maze? More amazing, waiting not, she marched me into a long room where four dignified Browns sat behind a thick, long shining frost-white
desk full of skols and skol-books. Bright without shadows, this room was lit by a long, wall-to-wall Sojoa-sheet pulsating with energy behind the Shaper's
table. The other walls were mellow, white-spine wood connected by plush, silenting brown-rope carpet. Everything was polished, new, a place of importance.
Walking to the table, I marked that all four women wore the short-hair and bare ear shells of females who'd never bonded by choice or had been found unsuitable.
None were young. Considering where they sat, I presumed all four were there by choice and lacked not in solid tribal Alliances. I could see not their tunics
with their tribal sewings on their breasts because of the piles of skols on the table. I kept my eyes proper low and looked not at the faces contemplating
my future.
At first, the committee talked among themselves and ignored me in the customary way important Shaprims and Maprims always deal with blues in their presence.
Then, with no introductions, the four went quiet and the eldest Brown in the middle, the taut, long-armed woman who I knew must be Shaprim Kharg, sat back
and studied me. With a face full of doubt and disapproval, she looked like an old monument, crows-feet crowding the skin above her cheeks. "Give ear!"
she commanded sharp. "Come child." I walked forward. "Turn and show," she ordered. I spun the proper slow turn for the group. I ended with my head kneeled
with the gesture of open palms to show my deference. "Speak child," she commanded. "Say anything. Let us hear your voice." Puzzled, I recited my gratitude
greeting, staring at my open hands. Shaprim Kharg barked for me to stop. It was so hard for me to avert my eyes, so intense was her stare. I focused on
her thick face muscles which made her words seem like sounds coming from a dark machine.
"Think you," she asked, turning her head to the long-cheeked graying Brown to her right, "our guest will like this fleshy Bar Tine?" Gazing at me with
sad eyes, The second Shaprim measured me as if choosing house ornaments. She sounded neutral as she shrugged, "Who can tell? Tine carries the bearing of
innocence. As non-threatening as we could ask." These notions were strange to hear. But I said nothing as I awaited my first assignment.