Holiday Introduction to Return to Alpha!
It has been a very, very long time since I shared an excerpt from any of the Beta-Earth Chronicles. So, for your holiday reading, here’s part of Chapter One from book six, Return to Alpha.
In the holiday spirit, you can get Return to Alpha with a 15% discount until Dec. 31 from BearManor Media in two different ways. You can get RTA as a stand-alone volume and get the 15% discount by visiting BearManor’s ebook store on Selz.com at:
https://bearmanormedia.selz.com/
Or you can get RTA as part of the six-volume Beta-Earth Chronicles box set--
http://bit.ly/BMboxBEC
Don’t go to Amazon, only BearManor Media’s own store offers the 15% off. Fill out your shopping cart, and then enter the discount code:
X05RCWUZ
To whet your appetite, here’s a bit of RTA for your Christmas reading set on our planet some 40 years in the future --
Arrivals
In the year 2044, large crowds had become an uncommon site on Alpha-Earth. After decades of devastating waves of killer epidemics and the rising of waters that eroded coastlines, sank coastal cities, and left rivers and lakes swollen far beyond their former banks, humanity had endured too many inconceivable losses to leave many hoping their world could ever recover. Not after forty years of famines, quarantines, evacuations, and the shunning of possibly infected survivors by even their own families.
That hopelessness had fueled the sometimes complete break-down of social order, the retreats of nations closing themselves off from the rest of the world, and of course the unleashed murderous rage of young men who went out to punish fellow survivors for reasons that often defied comprehension. Too many believed rumors that other places were getting aid denied them. Too many refused to believe there was anywhere on the planet unaffected by what had reduced earth’s population to perhaps a third of what it had once been.
It was that rage that had long made gathering in large crowds so risky. So fatal. But not everywhere. In lands like the island country of Jamaica, where no power brokers ever pulled the levers of international relations, there was far more sorrow than anger. There was no one there who could be blamed for the loss or unfair distribution of resources. Like many such countries, only victims survived. So when the islanders returned to hosting their colorful, very musical festivals and international travel was permitted again, Jamaica became a magnet for visitors who desperately needed respite from the turmoil of their homelands. Humans needed reminders of what their world had once been.
So, on that February day, when six aliens in the Marivurn spaceship touched down on the white sands of Doctor’s Cave Beach, they landed at the most ideal location possible. In less populated places, local law enforcement and other government entities would have immediately done everything possible to suppress the news of an alien landing. Such matters, most governments would have felt, should be cloaked in secrecy, fearing how the public would react.
But there was no way there could be any secrecy with the arrival of the Marivurn. From the moment it appeared in the bright, clear sunny skies over Jamaica, for miles video-phones and cameras began recording the strange craft’s descent. Almost immediately, videos of the unexpected sight were sent to online sites all over the Internet.
At Doctor’s Cave, even more recorders focused on the ship when it glided down for its landing. The only time the ship was hidden from view was when it approached the ground and thick, white beams coming from its bottom kicked up clouds of beach sand and debris into the air. It looked nothing like anything anyone had seen before. With its pulsating, throbbing, rumbling hum that quickly went away once the craft settled on the sand, it sounded like nothing ever heard.
The triangular hull was a deep-black, corrugated metal that shimmered and rippled in the sunlight as if it was a living thing. Its edges looked rough and sharp. There were no obvious windows, lighting, or hatches. That part of the ship was around thirty feet long with a flat middle peak running front to back around seven feet tall towards its back end. Behind the triangle were two large, round metal bulbs that looked about twelve feet in diameter. “That Thing is kind of eerily beautiful,” one onlooker whispered into his camera’s microphone. “It’s kind of menacing, all black on this white beach.”
Interest in the craft grew even more when a side hatch opened and six passengers slowly stumbled out onto the sand. As the aliens became visible, many amateur photographers climbed onto chairs and tables to shoot over the heads of the scattered groups of the beach-goers. Gasps of surprise burst from all over the beach, especially from so many amazed children who raced away from their water sports to join in on the excitement. In particular, those who saw the large-chinned Hamed pilots didn’t know if they should be startled, frightened, or laugh out loud. The other four bodies, looking so normal, didn’t get as much attention. Mostly, the people watched how the two men and two women had difficulty standing up.
But only for a few moments. It didn’t take long for two of the humans, the pair carrying black satchels over their shoulders who looked very much like average teenagers, to rise wobbly to their feet and start looking around. After they said a few words to each other, the young man raised his right hand in greeting and called out, “Greetings, my fellow humans of Alpha-Earth! My name is Malcolm Renbourn III and me and my sister”—he indicated a smiling Olrei beside him—“come to you from our home planet which we call Cerapin-Earth!”
“And the others behind us,” Olrei called out, stepping forward towards the crowd, “include our brother and sister from another earth as well, their home planet called Beta-Earth! All our earths are part of our shared multi-verse which we have come to tell you about! All our planets, including yours, share the spaces in between the swirling masses you call atoms!”
Malcolm III and Olrei looked around them, not certain how far their voices had carried considering how loud the rhythmic music of the synthesized horns and guitars, thumping bass, and the melodic pounding on the steel-pan drums was in the background. They needn’t have worried. They had everyone’s undivided attention, to put it mildly. Some people were even applauding, thinking the show was some sort of creative entertainment.
By this time, Malcolm II and Kalmeg had staggered to their feet, their eyes also looking all around them. They couldn’t have known it, but many cameras carried by male watchers were tightly focused on Kalmeg’s perfectly sculpted hour-glass figure. Instead, the Betans heard Olrei call out, “Oh, before I forget, let me introduce you to our Cerapin pilots back there, the Hamed brothers! I know they might not look it, but they too share our common humanity, the humanity that populates all our worlds!”
While Malcolm III and Olrei began walking towards the gawking people who stared at them with open mouths and wide eyes, Malcolm II and Kalmeg simply looked back at the onlookers. If the aliens intrigued the local folk, well, the Jamaicans and their guests were equally interesting sights for the Renbourns. Under the coconut trees that dotted the beach, people were sitting beneath large shading umbrellas or were walking around wearing sunglasses, hats, and wildly colorful shirts and shorts. Without question, the most eye-catching sights were the swimsuits and the bodies wearing them.
“Father’s people,” Malcolm observed happily, his eyes drinking in the tan and dark-skinned women displaying all that human flesh in those swimsuits.
“It would be nice to think,” Kalmeg replied, her own eyes appreciating the hard-bodies of the other gender, “they arranged this party just to welcome us!”
However, it was quickly evident the aliens weren’t as welcome as they hoped. Suddenly, several official vehicles pushed their way through the crowds. Four and then six uniformed men came running at them. Holding out pistols gripped in both hands, five of them wore white and blue striped short-sleeved shirts and black serge trousers with red stripes down their seams. The one in front, the obvious leader, wore a khaki jacket, shirt and trousers, with epaulettes on his shoulders. He wore a deep blue peaked cap with a black band and silver braiding on the peak.
He was the one to call out, “All of you, down on your knees! Now! Toss those satchels away from you, away from the crowd! Now!”
The four Renbourns looked surprised, but slowly dropped to their knees. Not understanding a word they heard, the Hameds followed suit.
The officer who had called out the commands came closer. “Now, let me see your papers!”
“Papers?” Malcolm III looked up. “Papers?”
“Your entry visas, your passports, your official permission to land that craft over there!”
“Ah, I guess you didn’t hear. We are from other planets. That spaceship just jumped across three universes. These are our very first minutes on your earth.”
“Ah ha. And I’m Bob Marley’s ghost. Flat on the ground, all of you! Put your hands behind your backs!”
In short order, one group of very worried looking officers gave the satchels special attention, sending over two wheeled box-shaped robots that pulled the satchels into their metal bellies. At the same time, other policemen went behind the six aliens and secured their wrists with hand-ties.
“Be careful with those satchels!” Malcolm III cried out. “They contain all our records and files we brought to share with your planet!”
“Ah ha,” the one in charge responded. “Maybe some bombs to create a bit of havoc here?”
“Oh no, oh no,” Olrei cried out. “We have no weapons! We need no weapons!”
“Enough talk!” The officer looked over his shoulder as two quarantine-vans approached. Kalmeg looked up from her now very uncomfortable vantage point and sighed. Was it just this morning she was on her home earth, standing up, her wrists free? Then, looking at the faces of the people not wearing police uniforms, she decided what was happening now might be a very good thing. The faces now looked stunned, serious, uncertain. Perhaps all this wasn’t a show after all.
As two officers hauled Kalmeg to her feet and roughly hustled her to the quarantine-van, her mind went back to how her day had begun. Before the world, well, worlds completely changed not just for her but for her entire family once again.
Explore the Beta Earth Chronicles website:
https://drwesleybritton.com/books/
Follow Wes Britton’s Goodreads blog:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Follow Wes Britton’s Beta Earth Chronicles Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/BetaEarthChr...
View the snazzy Beta Earth Chronicles book trailer at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8rrP...
See and hear the sexy brand-new reading from the opening pages of The Blind Alien, Vol. 1 of the Beta-Earth Chronicles, at YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klMW7...
Read the brand-new first Amazon review for RTA at:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-re...
In the holiday spirit, you can get Return to Alpha with a 15% discount until Dec. 31 from BearManor Media in two different ways. You can get RTA as a stand-alone volume and get the 15% discount by visiting BearManor’s ebook store on Selz.com at:
https://bearmanormedia.selz.com/
Or you can get RTA as part of the six-volume Beta-Earth Chronicles box set--
http://bit.ly/BMboxBEC
Don’t go to Amazon, only BearManor Media’s own store offers the 15% off. Fill out your shopping cart, and then enter the discount code:
X05RCWUZ
To whet your appetite, here’s a bit of RTA for your Christmas reading set on our planet some 40 years in the future --
Arrivals
In the year 2044, large crowds had become an uncommon site on Alpha-Earth. After decades of devastating waves of killer epidemics and the rising of waters that eroded coastlines, sank coastal cities, and left rivers and lakes swollen far beyond their former banks, humanity had endured too many inconceivable losses to leave many hoping their world could ever recover. Not after forty years of famines, quarantines, evacuations, and the shunning of possibly infected survivors by even their own families.
That hopelessness had fueled the sometimes complete break-down of social order, the retreats of nations closing themselves off from the rest of the world, and of course the unleashed murderous rage of young men who went out to punish fellow survivors for reasons that often defied comprehension. Too many believed rumors that other places were getting aid denied them. Too many refused to believe there was anywhere on the planet unaffected by what had reduced earth’s population to perhaps a third of what it had once been.
It was that rage that had long made gathering in large crowds so risky. So fatal. But not everywhere. In lands like the island country of Jamaica, where no power brokers ever pulled the levers of international relations, there was far more sorrow than anger. There was no one there who could be blamed for the loss or unfair distribution of resources. Like many such countries, only victims survived. So when the islanders returned to hosting their colorful, very musical festivals and international travel was permitted again, Jamaica became a magnet for visitors who desperately needed respite from the turmoil of their homelands. Humans needed reminders of what their world had once been.
So, on that February day, when six aliens in the Marivurn spaceship touched down on the white sands of Doctor’s Cave Beach, they landed at the most ideal location possible. In less populated places, local law enforcement and other government entities would have immediately done everything possible to suppress the news of an alien landing. Such matters, most governments would have felt, should be cloaked in secrecy, fearing how the public would react.
But there was no way there could be any secrecy with the arrival of the Marivurn. From the moment it appeared in the bright, clear sunny skies over Jamaica, for miles video-phones and cameras began recording the strange craft’s descent. Almost immediately, videos of the unexpected sight were sent to online sites all over the Internet.
At Doctor’s Cave, even more recorders focused on the ship when it glided down for its landing. The only time the ship was hidden from view was when it approached the ground and thick, white beams coming from its bottom kicked up clouds of beach sand and debris into the air. It looked nothing like anything anyone had seen before. With its pulsating, throbbing, rumbling hum that quickly went away once the craft settled on the sand, it sounded like nothing ever heard.
The triangular hull was a deep-black, corrugated metal that shimmered and rippled in the sunlight as if it was a living thing. Its edges looked rough and sharp. There were no obvious windows, lighting, or hatches. That part of the ship was around thirty feet long with a flat middle peak running front to back around seven feet tall towards its back end. Behind the triangle were two large, round metal bulbs that looked about twelve feet in diameter. “That Thing is kind of eerily beautiful,” one onlooker whispered into his camera’s microphone. “It’s kind of menacing, all black on this white beach.”
Interest in the craft grew even more when a side hatch opened and six passengers slowly stumbled out onto the sand. As the aliens became visible, many amateur photographers climbed onto chairs and tables to shoot over the heads of the scattered groups of the beach-goers. Gasps of surprise burst from all over the beach, especially from so many amazed children who raced away from their water sports to join in on the excitement. In particular, those who saw the large-chinned Hamed pilots didn’t know if they should be startled, frightened, or laugh out loud. The other four bodies, looking so normal, didn’t get as much attention. Mostly, the people watched how the two men and two women had difficulty standing up.
But only for a few moments. It didn’t take long for two of the humans, the pair carrying black satchels over their shoulders who looked very much like average teenagers, to rise wobbly to their feet and start looking around. After they said a few words to each other, the young man raised his right hand in greeting and called out, “Greetings, my fellow humans of Alpha-Earth! My name is Malcolm Renbourn III and me and my sister”—he indicated a smiling Olrei beside him—“come to you from our home planet which we call Cerapin-Earth!”
“And the others behind us,” Olrei called out, stepping forward towards the crowd, “include our brother and sister from another earth as well, their home planet called Beta-Earth! All our earths are part of our shared multi-verse which we have come to tell you about! All our planets, including yours, share the spaces in between the swirling masses you call atoms!”
Malcolm III and Olrei looked around them, not certain how far their voices had carried considering how loud the rhythmic music of the synthesized horns and guitars, thumping bass, and the melodic pounding on the steel-pan drums was in the background. They needn’t have worried. They had everyone’s undivided attention, to put it mildly. Some people were even applauding, thinking the show was some sort of creative entertainment.
By this time, Malcolm II and Kalmeg had staggered to their feet, their eyes also looking all around them. They couldn’t have known it, but many cameras carried by male watchers were tightly focused on Kalmeg’s perfectly sculpted hour-glass figure. Instead, the Betans heard Olrei call out, “Oh, before I forget, let me introduce you to our Cerapin pilots back there, the Hamed brothers! I know they might not look it, but they too share our common humanity, the humanity that populates all our worlds!”
While Malcolm III and Olrei began walking towards the gawking people who stared at them with open mouths and wide eyes, Malcolm II and Kalmeg simply looked back at the onlookers. If the aliens intrigued the local folk, well, the Jamaicans and their guests were equally interesting sights for the Renbourns. Under the coconut trees that dotted the beach, people were sitting beneath large shading umbrellas or were walking around wearing sunglasses, hats, and wildly colorful shirts and shorts. Without question, the most eye-catching sights were the swimsuits and the bodies wearing them.
“Father’s people,” Malcolm observed happily, his eyes drinking in the tan and dark-skinned women displaying all that human flesh in those swimsuits.
“It would be nice to think,” Kalmeg replied, her own eyes appreciating the hard-bodies of the other gender, “they arranged this party just to welcome us!”
However, it was quickly evident the aliens weren’t as welcome as they hoped. Suddenly, several official vehicles pushed their way through the crowds. Four and then six uniformed men came running at them. Holding out pistols gripped in both hands, five of them wore white and blue striped short-sleeved shirts and black serge trousers with red stripes down their seams. The one in front, the obvious leader, wore a khaki jacket, shirt and trousers, with epaulettes on his shoulders. He wore a deep blue peaked cap with a black band and silver braiding on the peak.
He was the one to call out, “All of you, down on your knees! Now! Toss those satchels away from you, away from the crowd! Now!”
The four Renbourns looked surprised, but slowly dropped to their knees. Not understanding a word they heard, the Hameds followed suit.
The officer who had called out the commands came closer. “Now, let me see your papers!”
“Papers?” Malcolm III looked up. “Papers?”
“Your entry visas, your passports, your official permission to land that craft over there!”
“Ah, I guess you didn’t hear. We are from other planets. That spaceship just jumped across three universes. These are our very first minutes on your earth.”
“Ah ha. And I’m Bob Marley’s ghost. Flat on the ground, all of you! Put your hands behind your backs!”
In short order, one group of very worried looking officers gave the satchels special attention, sending over two wheeled box-shaped robots that pulled the satchels into their metal bellies. At the same time, other policemen went behind the six aliens and secured their wrists with hand-ties.
“Be careful with those satchels!” Malcolm III cried out. “They contain all our records and files we brought to share with your planet!”
“Ah ha,” the one in charge responded. “Maybe some bombs to create a bit of havoc here?”
“Oh no, oh no,” Olrei cried out. “We have no weapons! We need no weapons!”
“Enough talk!” The officer looked over his shoulder as two quarantine-vans approached. Kalmeg looked up from her now very uncomfortable vantage point and sighed. Was it just this morning she was on her home earth, standing up, her wrists free? Then, looking at the faces of the people not wearing police uniforms, she decided what was happening now might be a very good thing. The faces now looked stunned, serious, uncertain. Perhaps all this wasn’t a show after all.
As two officers hauled Kalmeg to her feet and roughly hustled her to the quarantine-van, her mind went back to how her day had begun. Before the world, well, worlds completely changed not just for her but for her entire family once again.
Explore the Beta Earth Chronicles website:
https://drwesleybritton.com/books/
Follow Wes Britton’s Goodreads blog:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Follow Wes Britton’s Beta Earth Chronicles Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/BetaEarthChr...
View the snazzy Beta Earth Chronicles book trailer at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8rrP...
See and hear the sexy brand-new reading from the opening pages of The Blind Alien, Vol. 1 of the Beta-Earth Chronicles, at YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klMW7...
Read the brand-new first Amazon review for RTA at:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-re...
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Wesley Britton's Blog
This just came in. My favorite two sentences of all time!
“The Blind Alien is a story with a highly original concept, fascinating characters, and not-too-subtle but truthful allegories. Don’t let the ...more
“The Blind Alien is a story with a highly original concept, fascinating characters, and not-too-subtle but truthful allegories. Don’t let the ...more
- Wesley Britton's profile
- 109 followers
