Sonata in Orionis (Earth Song Cycle Book 2) Read online

  “I know you’ll take good care of it,” he said, simply. Minu stared at it for a second. The meaning was obvious; he considered her an adult now. The necklace was more significant than anything else he could have given her, regardless of the cost.

  “You need not fear, Father,” she said formally, closing the box and slipping it into her pocket.

  “I don’t; it’s in capable hands.”

  She smiled as he brushed his lips against her upturned forehead. He was as tall as she was short (Minu only came up to mid-chest on him), and his black hair and bright blue eyes so unlike the red hair and green eyes she’d inherited from Mindy Harper. His broad shoulders and muscled arms spoke of his physical condition, and the scar on his cheek of the dangers he lived with. She remembered when he’d come home with the scar, and how he’d refused to talk about it, not even to her frightened and concerned mother. Chosen had died on that mission—everyone knew when a Chosen died.

  “Do you want a snack?” she asked and gestured to the nearby table laden with all manner of foods. He nodded, and they walked through the crowd that parted for them, as if they were a marauding band of Kloth pursuing a fat tuck.

  Several hours later, they were sitting on a bench in the academy’s spacious, central courtyard, sipping punch among the rhododendrons, as Chriso told the story of why Dean Portman had beaten him.

  “—and there I was, with a fifth of the Dean’s best mead in one hand and a folder full of test answers in the other, when the light came on.” Minu almost spit her mead out as she choked and laughed.

  “What did you do?” she managed to ask.

  “What could I do? I popped open the bottle, poured two glasses, and asked him if he was thirsty.”

  “Did he drink it?”

  “Yes. Then he beat me silly and almost expelled me.”

  “I’m surprised he didn’t expel you.”

  “Me, too. I’d spent years dancing that invisible line between funny and too far. That night I knew, without a doubt, I’d crossed that line.”

  They sat for a time, the mood suddenly changing. Chriso finished his punch and looked down into the empty crystal tumbler as if wishing it held something stronger. “Minu,” he started in a serious tone, “I want you to consider sending an application to the University of Plateau.”

  Minu wanted to smash her goblet to the ground. Instead, she finished her drink and spoke as evenly as she could manage, though her anger was raging like a beast. “And what would you have told your father if he’d come to you like this after your graduation?”

  “He did.” Minu’s head came up, and he stared at her in mock surprise. “You’re shocked? So was I. He took great pride in his status as Chosen, even though he no longer served and was missing a foot and a hand. He strode around like a knight from the Chaos Era, demanding to know how I could want to be anything other than Chosen.”

  “Exactly!” Minu agreed.

  “Because it isn’t like a fairy tale,” he said with acid in his voice. “More than once, I’ve wondered if I made the right decision.”

  “But how could you? You’re the First Among the Chosen! There have only been four others; it’s better than being Council President! There’ve been dozens of those, and most people hate them.”

  “Politicians,” Chriso snorted. Minu nodded. “Am I saying it’s not worthwhile? Of course not; I’d be lying if I did. But Minu, you’re a girl. No, that’s not right. You’re a young woman. There’s more to life for you than a future of violence, fear, and unending hardship.” His face softened somewhat. “Your mother would have wanted grandchildren.”

  Minu blushed bright red, turning away to hide her embarrassment. “That kind of stuff can wait.”

  “You’ve never even had a boyfriend.”

  “You don’t know that!”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Her cheeks burned. “There’s more to being a Chosen than fighting and dying,” she said with less than complete conviction. The look he gave her brought back the night he’d come home with the scar.

  “Yes, a lot more. You also have to watch your friends die on worlds a thousand light years away, unable to do anything about it.”

  They sat in silence for a long minute while Minu thought about what to say. Chriso spared her. “The Trials are a unique experience, Minu. They change you in ways you spend the rest of your life trying to understand.” Minu remained silent. He looked at her for a long moment, then sighed and put a strong hand on her shoulder. “I won’t forbid it, of course. I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. I only want you to know that I’ll be just as proud of my daughter if she goes to college as I will be if she’s a Chosen.” Minu looked at him for any sign of dishonesty and could see none.

  The seconds ticked by, and Minu heaved a sigh. “I’m taking the written test tomorrow.”

  “I know,” he said and brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. “Good luck.”

  “Luck is not a factor,” she replied in a good imitation of his favorite saying. He laughed and shook his head. “I miss mom,” Minu said quietly.

  Chriso glanced longingly into his empty tumbler. “Me too.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter 2

  June 10th, 514 AE

  Old Road, Tranquility, Plateau Tribe

  Minu maintained a steady pace as she jogged up the narrow path. The afternoon summer sun made her red hair flash like burnished copper as sweat poured off her. Now that they’d graduated, most people her age were busy chasing each other around, kissing in dark corners, and dreaming about a place of their own. Many would be going on to college. She snorted, her green eyes flashing. They weren’t the children of a First Among the Chosen. She had grander plans in mind.

  At the switchback ahead, a farmer was trying to coax his reluctant mule into making the treacherous turn. The beast’s ears were back, and it was eying the precipitous thousand-meter fall on the other side with wide-eyed terror. Minu cut the corner before she reached the man and his fearful mule, jumping from rock to rock to climb the two-meter stone wall. The farmer glanced up at her and gave an apologetic shrug toward his animal. For her part, Minu was surprised to see a farmer using the ancient roadway. Since they’d installed a cable car network ten years ago, they only maintained the road for emergency use. She waved to show she wasn’t upset and jogged onward.

  Her calves burned with fatigue as she continued down the road, leaving the now braying mule behind. Twice a week for two years she’d climbed this road. The first time she’d only made it to the third switchback. This time she made it to the top, and in record time.

  “I think I’m ready,” she said as the trail leveled out, and she passed the historical markers. There wasn’t a child alive in Tranquility who didn’t know the story of Fort Wilson, built to stop the Kloth from sneaking up the road she’d just jogged on.

  Even after the long run, her breathing quickly slowed when the path leveled off. In a moment, she passed through the remnants of the original 500-year-old wooden fort where restoration work was still underway, and into the large grassy park. Everywhere she looked, there were families and kids running and playing, no doubt owing to the lovely afternoon weather. Everyone knew the rainy season was only weeks away and wanted to get in one last outing.

  “Hey, Minu!” a friend from school yelled. She was playing a pickup game of baseball with other girls her age. “Wanna join us?”

  “No thanks, Maggie,” she replied and ran onward. Minu knew they wouldn’t be upset. Everyone knew she was dedicated to her goal.

  In another minute, she left Founders Park behind and turned onto Ridge Road, which, as its name suggested, ran all the way around Plateau. For centuries, Plateau had supported the four small villages of their tribe. Eventually, as farming became more successful in the valley below, housing overtook the farmland once necessary to support the villages, and the sprawling city became known as Tranquility. She’d noted the significance of the name as a young child. The history of Earth was an important part of thei
r education.

  Earth. To Minu, it was nothing more than the name of the place her ancestors came from, a planet destroyed by a meteor 500 years before she was born. It held a deep sentimental place in the hearts of her people, but it wasn’t home. Home was here, on Bellatrix. The teachers called it Gamma Orionis, and it was 240 light years from their home world. The star was so bright, the scientists on Earth had ruled out the possibility of any of the surrounding worlds supporting life. Shows how little they knew!

  As a young girl, Minu had learned their world orbited its intensely powerful, blue-white primary star in a distant, yet surprisingly fast, orbit that took 258 days to complete. If their planet had been in Earth’s solar system, it would have been orbiting outside Saturn. The equatorial regions were harsh deserts so scorched they were nearly uninhabitable. Scientists had studied the world since the refugees first arrived, and they’d still drawn no conclusion as to its unusual origin, beyond the fact that it ‘shouldn’t exist.’ Exactly how they came to that conclusion was a mystery to her. It had something to do with a life-bearing world of this sort, in a star system so old that heavy metals were very rare. Blah, blah, blah.

  Now, jogging at a leisurely pace along Ridge Road, she was having to dodge more and more foot traffic. Electric trucks rumbled by, along with occasional, nearly silent, EPC-powered ground cars. She reached East Street and turned toward the center of town. In the near distance, towering buildings dominated the skyline.

  Running here was out of the question. People choked the streets, making their way home from work. She heard the unmistakable clattering of a trolley approaching and pushed through to the curb. Minu jumped as it passed, landed lightly on the side rail, and grabbed a copper handhold. The conductor leaned out from the front and gave her a dirty look for boarding between stops. She winked at him. Of course he knew who she was, so he just shook his head. She rode the trolley almost every day, and the same man had been the conductor for as long as she’d been alive, probably longer.

  The trolley was nearly empty on its return route to the city center. Because the entire plateau was circular and slightly raised at the center, the cable car system was a logical innovation as the town grew. They’d used wood to make the trolleys because collisions with trucks were all too regular to justify the huge cost of steel.

  The trolley screeched to a stop and discharged a few people venturing into the city center. The conductor hopped down and walked toward her. Minu withdrew a copper tenth-credit and flipped it to him. He caught it deftly and dropped it into his leather fare bag, giving her another half-hearted stern look before going on to collect fairs from the new passengers now boarding. She turned to see who else was heading into the city and immediately regretted it.

  A black-haired man sat talking to a boy Minu’s age. They stuck out among the crowd of brown- and blond-haired folk, their meticulously-tailored clothes giving off a decidedly foreign feel. The glittering jewelry they wore told anyone who looked that the wearers were rich and not local. No one in Plateau wore jewelry unless it was a festival. The boy looked at Minu, and she groaned inwardly as he beamed at her.

  “Daughter of the First,” he said in the typically too loud and slightly slurred speech of the Rusk Tribe, “Fancy seeing you on public transportation.”

  “Hello, Ivan,” she said simply.

  “How is your father?” the man next to Ivan asked. Viktor Malovich knew quite well how her father was. The First wielded considerable power in the government of Bellatrix. Viktor controlled a powerful consortium of mining operations in the southern hemisphere, where the Rusk Tribe had settled after the destruction of Earth. Rumor had it that he took his first mine in a nasty little battle between his family and the owners. The Rusk had conquered the two tribes deposited near them hundreds of years ago. They would have done the same to the rest of the world, if not for the equatorial desert and the military tenacity of the Plateau Tribe and its allies. Dean Portman had not mentioned those details at their commencement because a few of the students were Rusk.

  While Minu’s father didn’t sit on the ruling council, his word held powerful sway among its members. More power than some believed it should hold.

  “He’s fine, sir,” she replied with as much civility as she could muster. Years ago, construction of a training complex was proposed. Viktor made a very favorable bid to have the center constructed in Rusk territory, on a piece of property he just happened to own. Minu’s father spoke out against this choice, principally because the only functioning off-world portal was in Tranquility. The council noted his wisdom and built the training center in New Jerusalem territory, only two hundred kilometers from Plateau. Viktor had never forgiven Minu’s father and had tried many times to have him deposed as First Among the Chosen. “I’m surprised seeing you on a trolley as well,” she said in a bored voice. “I would suspect someone as powerful as you would have an expensive Concordian-made aerocar.”

  Viktor made a face and scowled at her, letting Minu know she’d struck home. Concordian-manufactured flying cars were among the greatest status symbols around. But they were also horribly expensive, extremely extravagant, and mostly earmarked for public service use because of their unbelievable versatility. No doubt Viktor Malovich had done everything in his power to obtain one of the coveted vehicles, with no luck.

  “Our private helicopter landed at the aeroport a few minutes ago,” Ivan shot back, “but with all the rabble going home to their mead and soup, necessity forced us to take this disgusting trolley.” Viktor smiled and patted his son on the head, much like you’d pet a well-behaved dog. The trolley clanked its way up the final hill, and the center of the city came into view.

  “The conveyance my father takes is considerably more versatile than a helicopter,” she said and turned to look at the city center. They followed her gaze to the Temple Plaza where, as everyone on Bellatrix knew, the off-world portal sat. When they turned back toward her, they found she’d leapt from the moving trolley and was walking toward the plaza. “Have a nice day,” she yelled over her shoulder. She glanced at them and saw Viktor watching her, stroking his long, black goatee, while his son Ivan watched her go, a strange look on his face. She shivered and suddenly felt dirty.

  A few steps later, she forgot Ivan and his nasty dad. The squad of ceremonial guards at the entrance to the Temple Plaza paid her no mind. They were renowned for their ability to ignore everyone who approached. The round-the-clock guards were what the teachers called an anachronism. There hadn’t been a fight over control of a portal on Bellatrix for almost two centuries.

  The Temple Plaza sprawled over twenty-five acres of prime Tranquility real estate. When they’d broken ground on the plaza, less than a hundred thousand humans had lived on the planet, and only a small fraction of those lived in the wood and stone buildings nearby. Now, Tranquility itself had a population over a hundred thousand, and the tall brick buildings crowded close to the pristine groves and lawns of the Temple Plaza. Minu remembered childhood picnics on those lawns and chasing howlers through the trees. She thought wistfully of her mother, but quickly pushed the memory out of her mind. How many years would pass before the pain went away?

  Straight ahead was the immaculately-constructed brick quad at the center of the plaza. Beyond that was the newest structure, the Chosen Tower, where the Chosen had their offices, and many lived during their service. Its dualloy and glass surfaces contrasted starkly with the much older brick and wood plaza buildings.

  To her right was the original Hall of the Chosen, the meeting hall of the planet’s ruling council. It was an ornate, ancient structure of rare, local wood and brick. Her destination was to her left, the Portal Temple.

  Arguably the oldest standing building on the world, it was constructed shortly after the first colonists escaped Earth. Volunteers maintained the simple wooden building, with its wide eaves and shaded benches. She trotted over to the green-painted steps and climbed them two at a time. An elderly man was on his hands and knees, silently sc
rubbing the wood planking. He looked up and smiled without stopping his work. Minu returned the smile as she pushed open the heavy, ornate wooden doors. Like a lot of people from Tranquility, she’d helped keep the building in good condition. Her father called it a labor of love.

  Inside the ancient exterior was an ultra-modern facility. Dualloy walls and transparent moliplas panels divided the interior space into several offices, waiting areas, and most importantly, the portal room, itself.

  The silently-waiting portal of iridescent force fields rested in the middle of the room, gently illuminated by subdued lighting. It hadn’t moved from its resting place since the first human set foot on Bellatrix. It was the passage by which her people had arrived on this world. Although fourteen other portals were scattered across the planet, this was the only one that worked for general off-world transport. There was a second, live portal two hundred kilometers away at the Chosen Headquarters in Steven’s Pass, but it was for Chosen use only, and she’d never laid eyes on it.

  “Minu, what are you up to?” asked a familiar voice. Minu turned to the portal operator’s desk with a huge smile. The voice belonged to none other than Alex Jovich. The elderly man smiled at her, his sparkling blue eyes framed by hair long gone gray. He was likely a very strong man in his youth, but age was catching up with him.

  “Chosen Jovich!” she exclaimed as she ran to him. He stood to catch her in a hug while keeping one eye carefully on his console readouts. He was no more than a centimeter taller than she, with the build of a squat, slightly balding weightlifter. His piercing blue eyes regarded her critically as she ruffled his thinning hair.

  “Chosen Jovich, am I now?” he said in a stern voice. “Am I no longer Uncle Jovich?”