An excerpt from ‘Usurpation’

Here’s an excerpt from the novel Usurpation , which will be published in October in hardback, ebook, and audiobook (in preparation). You can preorder your copy now.

CHAPTER 3 – Year 2885 CE – Pax Institute, Bayonne, France – LEVANTER

She has arrived, the new director of the Pax Institute, and I will be destroyed. She confirms her credentials with the building and walks through the front door.

She is going to take my place. She will find out that I, Levanter, am not a human being. Foolishly, I used my real name to declare myself director, the name Mirlo gave me three centuries ago. He planted seeds he brought from the planet Pax, and I and my two sisters now grow here at the institute’s garden. My name is in the record’s big clumsy library in too many places to erase before she accesses the system. It is even on a sign in the garden in front of my main stalks. She will discover that Levanter is a rainbow bamboo.

No one knows we are intelligent. No one can know. Bamboo grow all over the Earth, and humans would kill us all if they knew. Not all humans are killers, but some are, and they have proven themselves efficient.