Part 4: (Coming Attractions) The Main Cast of Return to Alpha

By the time of Return to Alpha, Book 6 of the Beta-Earth Chronicles, the time has come for a new generation of Renbourns to take over the saga.

After all, it’s now 40 years after Malcolm Renbourn was drug from his home planet to Beta-Earth, and it’s also 20 years after Malcolm and five of his wives crossed the multi-verse again to come to Cerapin-Earth.

So the return to Alpha is by four of Malcolm Renbourn’s children, two from Beta-Earth, two from Cerapin. It’s 40 years in our earth’s future which means the second generation of Renbourns come to a planet very different from the one their father knew.

This adventure is still in the works at BearManor Media where the editors are doing their magic with the text. Stay tuned for announcements about when Return to Alpha will become available as an eBook—

Return to Alpha Cast of Characters

Malcolm Renbourn II – The Betan son of his namesake and his mother, Sasperia Thorwaif Renbourn, the Ducei of Bercumel, a member of the ruling Mentala of the country of Alma.

His birth had come about under special circumstances. His mother was from a bloodline manipulated by the scientists of the Collective that had given her mutant enhancements that are both physical and mental in the hopes of defeating the genetic Plague-With-No-Name. Sasperia Thorwaif was able to throw huge boulders long distances and leap into trees. Mentally, she could remember everything she had ever heard.

When the Alman War erupted, Sasperia, now pregnant with her twins, Malcolm II and Gunnar, was imprisoned which is where her sons were born. The father’s plague-free Alpha genes, combined with Sasperia’s enhanced metabolism could “jump over” the diseased genes in Betans, resulting in a genetic ladder that could be given to all Beta mothers whose children would be free of the curse that had defined their world for as long as history had memory.

While an infant when it happened, Malcolm Renbourn II had long been praised as being one-half of the salvation of Beta-Earth. As his father had been taken to Cerapin-Earth when he was very young, Malcolm II had no personal memories of his father beyond the international legacy the Alpha-Man had left behind. Malcolm II too had the legacy of his mother’s mutant genetics and the more than likely destiny that he would one day take her seat in the Alman Mentala, a future responsibility he had dreaded since childhood.

Kalmeg Renbourn – Kalmeg is almost an exact duplicate of her mother, Kalma Salk Renbourn, a richly chocolate brown-skinned woman from the country of Balnakin on Beta-Earth. Kalmeg is equally dark, and shares her mother’s entrancing and distinctive golden-yellow eyes. Like her mother, and most all Balnakin women for that matter, Kalmeg is an intense personality who does not suffer fools gladly and despises anything she considers wasting time.

Unlike her half-brother, Malcolm Renbourn II, Kalmeg had lost both her birth-parents when she was but an infant. Kalma Renbourn had unhappily joined with her husband and four of her bond-sisters to go to Cerapin earth. So Kalmeg had been raised by the mothers who remained on Beta—Sasperia, Elena, Doret, and Jona—as well as some of her older half-sisters not to mention considerable affection and interest from her grand-parents and many of her mother’s family who were never strangers in her life.

A woman of many abilities, Kalmeg had always found it difficult to find a distinguishing role for herself in a tribe so large, so spread in its international reach, with such a powerful history on three continents. By going to Alpha-Earth on the spaceship “Merivurn,” she could show the same bravery as both her birth-parents. She could represent the dark-skinned bloodline of not only Tribe Renbourn, but Beta-Earth as a whole.

Olrei Renbourn – While born on Serapin-Earth, Olrei’s mother, Elsbeth Cawl Renbourn, had been one of the five Betan wives who had accompanied their husband on the second cross-versal jump from Beta to Serapin. Back on Beta, Elsbeth and her prophetess sister, Lorei, had been the first wives of Malcolm Renbourn, “The Alpha Man.” In the years to come, Elsbeth had born four Alpha-Beta heirs, children that tore at her heart when she and the other members of her family had to leave their rich and full lives behind to do the bidding of the often harsh deities.

Olrei was Elsbeth’s first child on Cerapin, and her origins were more than special. For while Olrei was still in her mother’s womb, Elsbeth sat at the bedside of her dying birth sister who was being transfigured into a spiritual entity in her final moments. Before her passing, Lorei touched Elsbeth and sent into her offspring Lorei’s powerful gift of prophecy. From her birth, her father always said Olrei’s face was that of an “old soul,” looking much wiser than her years.

Still, Olrei Renbourn was much like her warm, gentle, nurturing mother. While Elsbeth had always thought of herself as a simple, plain-faced farm girl, no one would call Olrei plain. She has a girlish, feminine, welcoming face that has a reddish hue. Her eyelashes are so long and thick, she can’t blink without seeming to be flirtatious even when flirting is the last thing on her mind. Her face matches her rounded, curvaceous figure that is another gift from her mother.

Malcolm Renbourn III – Born on Cerapin-Earth, the sixteen-year-old Malcolm Renbourn III is the first son of Malcolm Renbourn and Pidghe El, one half of the identical Cerapin sisters who became the last of Malcolm Renbourn’s wives. As his mother didn’t have the typical Cerapin characteristics of large lobes or protruding chins, Malcolm III also only bears subtle signs of his Cerapin bloodline. He has a comparatively flat forehead and a more Alphan-like chin than most of his species, but his skin is unusually gray-tinged with the Cerapin markings of colors all across his body. His face is filled with the confidence of youth, his lower lip pushed out as if he is challenging and daring the world to take him on.

Hamed El and Le – An identical pair of brothers from Cerapin-Earth, the Hameds are the pilots for the “Marivurn” spaceship, a craft especially designed to cross the multi-verse on the day when a window between the three universes open to such travel.

Each brother has the puffy forehead-lobes that cover the organs that permit them to not only share their thoughts, but also their physical sensations together at exactly the same times. The Hameds have the usual long, wolfish teeth of Cerapins and, most obviously of all, share the huge, protruding, squared jaws that would have made them look simian if they had any facial hair. Like most of their kind, they have hair only on the tops of their heads, but it is cropped so short, they look nearly bald.

Their bodies have natural markings on their otherwise grey skins, multi-colored splotches, streaks, and uneven stripes illustrating their limbs and torsos. Like all their kind, they have extremely large feet.

Without question, the Hameds are among the most courageous Cerapin pairs in their planet’s history. Because of the specialized operating systems of the “Merivurn,” only a pair could do all the coordinated steps necessary in the seconds it took to go from launch to ascent to the barrier-jump—the most painstaking and precise of all their calibrations—to descent to landing. On two planets—first, landing on Beta to collect two Renbourns, then on to Alpha. Only a pair with interconnected minds could move quickly enough. And volunteering to pilot the “Marivurn” meant the Hameds were going on a one-way voyage with no return home possible.

Two Important Alphans

Major Mary Carpenter – A former infiltrator in the Western Alliance on Alpha-Earth, Mary was transferred to the battleship Clinton of the Southern Union where she was tasked with interrogating the aliens from Beta and Serapin. When they are taken to the elaborate prison called The Citadel, Mary becomes their principal watcher.

Doubtful of most of the aliens’ claims, Mary finds her religious beliefs preclude her accepting the cosmic missions described by the Renbourns. Beautiful, intelligent, and trained in many military skills, Mary quickly catches the eye of Malcolm Renbourn II.

Akito Kawahara – A Japanese-American confined to The Citadel after his parents are convicted of spying for the Japanese. An electronics expert, Akito is enamored with Olrei Renbourn with whom he shares a blossoming romance.