Freedom's Scion

By Francis W. Porretto

As they pass from mortal life, Armand and Teresza Morelon, foremost of all the residents of the wholly ungoverned world of Hope, lay a charge upon their granddaughter Althea: to break the lightspeed barrier, travel to Earth, and determine why no radio emissions from the cradle of Mankind have reached Hope since the Spoonerite Hegira. It shapes the young polymath’s life from that moment onward.

Althea spends her young adulthood playing Hope’s equities market, amassing a fortune for her mission. At 30 she falls in love with Martin Forrestal, a genius of another kind. The two are soon married.

Jacksonville is in flux. Armand Morelon had facilitated a mass relocation from the Hopeless peninsula, where Hope’s undesirables had sheltered, to the Jacksonville region. Douglas Kramnik, patriarch of one of the relocated clans, seeks payback for the long-ago diminution of his clan to outcast status. First, he seeks to marry Althea to his son and clan scion Barton. When Morelon matriarch Charisse declines the offer, his resentments swell. They culminate in an attempt to thwart Barton’s betrothal to Althea’s cousin Nora, which elicits an intervention by Althea herself.

Charisse tries but fails to dissuade Althea from going to the stars. Her failure couples to her desire for power, and she begins to scheme. Her attempts to become a local baroness are revealed through a discovery by Patrice Kramnik Morelon of irregularities in the clan’s finances. It costs Charisse her position, but doesn’t end her quest for power.

After Althea and Martin have tested Freedom’s Horizon, a ground-to-orbit spaceplane, Martin presses her with his desire for children. It proves catastrophic: the child is stillborn. The birth leaves Althea in lasting agony. She and Martin are estranged for two years. They reunite after an intervention by Barton and Nora, but the tensions between them have not been dispersed.

Hope's progress has emphasized biotechnology. Hallanson-Albermayer Corporation develops a medipod capable of healing its owner of virtually any ill. Althea and Martin become the first customers. Althea’s medipod provides her with cover for a telekinetic repair of her damaged nervous system. She’s guided by her “dead” grandfather Armand, who has taught her the use of her psi powers, as great as his own.

Althea and Martin establish an orbital lab on the Relic, the planetoid-ship that ferried the original Spoonerites to Hope. Groundside, Charisse abandons Clan Morelon and her husband Chuck without warning, and isn’t seen again for years. Althea soon discovers a way around the lightspeed limit, and a power source suitable for propelling a starship.

When Althea’s starship Liberty’s Torch is ready for its maiden voyage, she finds an unexpected ally in her desire to leave Martin safely behind: Barton Kramnik Morelon, who rose upon Charisse’s resignation to the Morelon patriarchy. Between them, they persuade Althea’s husband to remain on Hope for the three years of her journey to Eridanus cluster, signals from which hint at intelligent life.

At Eridanus, Althea is greeted by representatives of the Loioc, a humanoid race whose males have been deliberately rendered nonsentient, supposedly to put an end to violence among them. It’s their intention that Althea do the same to the men of Hope. Althea escapes their plot and destroys the space station the Loioc had used to suppress interstellar travel, but is infected with the nanites the Loioc women use to suppress the development of intelligence in men.

Althea returns to the Relic, hoping that her medipod has removed the nanites from her body, and discovers that in her absence, Hope has been visited by the supreme evil the Spoonerites fled Earth to escape: warfare.

To be continued in Freedom’s Fury, the concluding volume of the Spooner Federation trilogy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Francis W. Porretto
• Release date: May 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301735457

Francis W. Porretto

Francis W. Porretto was born in 1952. Things went steadily downhill from there.Fran is an engineer and fictioneer who lives on the east end of Long Island, New York. He's short, bald, homely, has bad acne and crooked teeth. His neighbors hold him personally responsible for the decline in local property values. His life is graced by one wife, two stepdaughters, two dogs, four cats, too many power tools to list, and an old ranch house furnished in Early Mesozoic style. His 13,000 volume (and growing) personal library is considered a major threat to the stability of the North American tectonic plate.Publishing industry professionals describe Fran's novels as "Unpublishable. Horrible, but unpublishable all the same." (They don't think much of his short stories, either.) He's thought of trying bribery, but isn't sure he can afford the $3.95.Fran's novels "Chosen One," "On Broken Wings," "Shadow Of A Sword," "The Sledgehammer Concerto," "Which Art In Hope," "Freedom's Scion," "Freedom's Fury," and "Priestesses" are also available as paperbacks, through Amazon. Check the specific pages for those books for details.Wallow in his insane ranting on politics, culture, and faith at "Liberty's Torch:" http://www.libertystorch.info/And of course, write to him, on whatever subject tickles your fancy, at [e-mail]

Book preview

Foreword

Freedom’s Scion is the sequel to Which Art In Hope, which I published at the end of 2010. If you haven’t read the earlier novel, I strongly recommend that you do so before continuing on with this one. You’d expect the author to say that, wouldn’t you? But wait: there’s more!

I’d originally intended that Which Art In Hope would be a stand-alone story: no sequels, spinoffs, movie tie-ins, commemorative mugs, keychains, action figures, or stained glass suncatchers. However, auctorial intentions have this way of being reshaped by reader feedback. The great mass of emails I’ve received suggesting, demanding, or begging for a continuation of the Spoonerites’ saga has made it plain that there’s a hunger for more of that most unusual story about a planetful of people whose ancestors resolved to leave the State behind forever.

In all sober truth, I’ve wanted to continue the story myself, for a number of reasons. I just needed a shove. So here we are.

What strikes me most powerfully about this tale is how sharply countercultural its themes have run. Given the amount I’ve written about the importance of a conscious theme to good, memorable fiction, perhaps you’d assume that I had them all clearly in mind before I first set my fingers to the keys.

You’d be wrong.

Other prominent science fiction writers have delved into the possibilities of a society that’s resolved that there shall be no State. However, none of the ones with which I’m familiar address the sociodynamics of such a society: the forces that would shape its development, with special emphasis on those that would tend to tear it from its founding premise. For me, that’s the really fascinating thing about anarchism. You see, it’s been tried, with varying degrees of longevity and success, many times in the history of Man. Yet there are no anarchic societies left on Earth as I write this foreword.

Well, except for one: the whole of the human race.

The States of Earth exist in an anarchic relation to one another. Each has its own regional code of law, which might differ markedly from all the others. Despite several thrusts at the matter over the centuries, there is no super-State to enforce a uniform code of law over them all. More, they view one another as competitors in many different areas; their populations and institutions are often in sharp economic competition with one another. Thus, they are often at odds. They resolve important disputes among them through negotiation or warfare.

Yet individuals manage to move among them with a fair degree of facility and (usually) little risk. Cross-border trade is commonplace, in some places torrential. Though wars are frequent, they seldom result in major alterations to the overall political pattern. The uber-anarchy of Terrestrial society exhibits more stability than one would expect from two hundred well armed, quarrelsome States, each of which perpetually schemes at snatching some advantage at another’s expense.

No, I’m not going to lay out a comprehensive theory of political dynamics that would explain why the current arrangement of States-in-anarchy has exhibited prolonged stability. That’s a job for persons who’ve made such things their life study. I prefer to write fiction. Moreover, I can guarantee you that, if those savants were to present the world with N theories about the matter, N minus one of them would be wildly wrong...at the very least.

But to be memorable and entertaining, a story must embody a plausible causal model of human relations. A novel that’s premised on a pervasive planetary anarchy, an arrangement so distant from what we of Earth endure, must offer the reader a vision of its workings that he can accept with only a modest suspension of his skepticism.

To explain the phenomenon of consistent archism-within-anarchism over the millennia, we would need a minimum of two forces: one that draws people into archist societies, another that prevents those societies from a final coalescence. In pondering the matter, I asked myself: Given a completely anarchic society for a starting point, where would the process most likely begin?

This novel is the result.

Francis W. Porretto

Mount Sinai, NY

April 28, 2013

Prologue: Unember 17, 1287 A.H.

Clan Morelon awaited the passing of a giant.

Althea Morelon was sitting on the old masonwood sofa in the hearthroom of Morelon House, her father Cameron's arm around her, drawing what comfort she could from the fire blazing in the man-high hearth, when her mother Valerie appeared in the archway. The two of them rose as she approached.

We saw Tad Leschitsyn leave, Cam said. Is Armand...?

Not yet. Soon, Valerie said. Her face was puffy from hours of weeping.

Then Grandmere won’t be with us much longer, either, Althea said.

That’s her expectation, Valerie said, but we’ve never really been sure about it.

Teodor is, Mom, Althea said. That’s pretty good authority.

She detached herself and went to stand by the windows. A light snow was falling. It glittered against the darkness in the floodlights fixed to the outside walls of Morelon House. Little had accumulated so far, but the deep chill and thick clouds foretold a heavier fall to come and a significant depth by morning.

Life without them doesn’t even seem possible.

Though not officially part of its leadership, Armand and Teresza Morelon had been titans of the clan. Armand’s sister Charisse, who ran the clan’s businesses and controlled its finances, had seldom made a move of importance without first consulting with her elder brother. Teresza had taken Elyse Morelon’s place as the clan’s public face among its neighbors, and had become one of the most sought-after mediators and counselors on Hope. They had been the first persons ever to return from the Hopeless peninsula. After the still-mysterious Chaos and the rebuilding it necessitated, they had supervised the reintegration of the Hopeless with the rest of Hope society. No one on Alta was more respected. No member of the clan had ever been more revered.

Althea’s mother loved them with a frightening intensity. Valerie would unhesitatingly sacrifice any other consideration to render them assistance, regardless of the reason. Not that Armand or Teresza were frequently in need of assistance. As overpowering as they could be, more often than not their influence on the household was indirect. They didn’t exactly hold themselves apart, but it was plain that they cherished their time alone with one another—that the company of others was of much less importance to them.

Given Armand’s decision to decline the Hallanson-Albermayer longevity series, and Teodor’s explanation of the unbreakable linkage between Armand’s life and Teresza’s, it seemed a logical consequence of their mutual devotion.

I can’t imagine that he wanted to die.

—I didn’t.

What? Grandpere, is that you?

—(humor) Indeed it is. Don’t let on. I haven’t done this in a lot of years, and I’m hoping everyone has forgotten about it.

I hadn’t.

—I know, Al. You’re about to get something of a surprise. A bequest, a big one. Let Teresza tell you about it as if you had no inkling, and try not to let it bowl you over.

Okay, but why—

—Partly to prepare you, and partly to explain. I didn’t want to die. It was just something that came with the job I took.

What job? You’ve never—

—It wasn’t something I could talk about, dear. Trust me, I’ve been employed full-time ever since the Chaos, and it sort of required that I let this happen.

I don’t understand.

—I didn’t expect you to. I just wanted to tell you that I love you, and that I’ll always be here for you.

Huh?

—This isn’t the last time we’ll talk this way, Al. Only my body is dying. The...best part of me will go on for a long, long time to come. And it...I will remain able to communicate this way. I hope that doesn’t upset you.

Grandpere, how could it? But why shouldn’t the rest of the family know?

—I’ll explain after the funeral. Can you wait that long for it?

I guess so.

—Then go upstairs with your mother. Terry is waiting for you.

The psionic conversation ceased. Althea composed her face to sobriety and made for the hearth. Her parents stood there exchanging murmurs.

Valerie said, Your grandmother would like you to join her for a moment.

Althea nodded, and the two of them ascended the stairs.

* * *

Teresza was standing by her and Armand’s bed. She turned toward Althea and Valerie as they entered Armand’s sickroom, smiled wanly, and beckoned Althea toward her. Althea glanced at her mother, who nodded and nudged her gently forward.

Armand and I have left you something, Teresza murmured. There are no conditions or stipulations on it. It’s yours to do with as you please. But I...he wanted to leave an idea for you to ponder. You know about Project Omega, of course?

Althea nodded.

"It’s now been nearly fourteen hundred years since the last intelligible transmissions. They continue to scan the galactic disk, of course, but when there’s no signal to interpret, there’s no way to reach a conclusion. Which means that we won’t know what happened unless someone actually goes there to find out.

You have great and versatile gifts, dear. I suggest you put them to two things: physics and finance. Our bequest to you is only a start. You’ll need much more. But you’ll have time to amass it, and to crack the lightspeed barrier that compels us merely to speak into the night and strain to hear an answer. If you do that, when the time comes, you’ll be the one to solve the riddle of Earth. Will you consider that, when we’re gone?

Althea looked down at the husk that had been Armand Morelon and soon would be no longer. Did Grandpere really want that for me?

Among other things, dear. Mostly, he wanted to watch you become what you are. In that regard, his wildest dreams have been fulfilled. Think about it, please?

I will, Grandmere.

Her grandmother pulled her close, kissed her, and nodded toward the bedroom door. She and Valerie exited and descended the stairs in silence.

* * *

Cameron awaited them in the hearthroom.

End of an era, he said.

More than you know, Cam, Valerie said. Where are Charisse and Elyse?

He shrugged and drew her into an embrace. She rested her forehead against his chest.

Morelon House wore a cloak of stillness utterly unlike its habit on a normal winter evening. Armand’s impending demise had propelled the entire clan into somber, silent reflection and remembrance.

Mom, Althea said, do you know anything about this bequest?

Valerie turned toward her and nodded. It’s already in your room.

Should I...?

Of course. She returned to hiding her eyes against her husband’s massive chest. Althea left them silently and scampered up the front staircase to her bedroom.

On her bed was a small, weathered wooden box with a hinged lid. The Morelons had used such boxes to convey heirlooms from parent to child for many generations. She sat beside it, lifted it into her lap gingerly, and tilted back the lid.

The box contained three items: a bank passbook, an old leatherbound volume, and a small lavender-tinted envelope.

Althea ran a fingertip delicately over the cover of the leatherbound book. She’d seen it before. It was incredibly old, and much too fragile to handle casually. Teresza had cherished it beyond all her other possessions, and had devoted considerable time, effort, and money to reproducing its contents for distribution. Something like a cult had formed around it.

I know Grandmere wanted me to read it, but...not just now.

She picked up the little envelope and puffed it open. Two small photographs fell out. One of the photos was plainly of Armand and Teresza in their youth, standing before the door of Morelon House with their arms around one another and smiling brilliantly. The other was of a woman she’d never before seen, apparently of late middle age and badly worn by the passage of time. She turned it over to find a few words of text on the back.

Nora Desjardins, 1173—1221. Valerie’s birth mother. Taken 4/23/1216.

A tremor went through her. She’d known for many years that Teresza was not her biological grandmother. After she’d begun to inquire into the many differences that set her apart from the rest of the Morelon clan, Armand told her of Valerie’s origins. He said that Valerie’s mother had given her to him and Teresza to raise because she wanted only the best for her infant daughter. But they’d been fated never to meet: the harshness of life on the Hopeless peninsula had foreshortened her biological grandmother’s life.

She slipped the photos back into the little envelope, picked up the passbook, opened it, and gasped.

It was a record of an account in her name at Jacksonville Surety. It contained five million dekas.

Rothbard, Rand, and Ringer!

—Now imagine how stunned you would be if I hadn’t prepared you a wee bit.

Uh, yeah. I think I see the finance part, but how does it tie in with physics?

—You don’t expect to build a starship out of parts lying around the kitchen, do you?

Hm. I guess not. So this is seed money?

—Exactly. This will jump-start your investing activities, equip your early labs, pay for your Hallanson-Albermayer treatments, and keep you eating while you finish preparing and begin your researches. Even to get up to the Relic, you’ll need a lot more.

Is that the first step?

—It’s just a guess, but I think so. There’s still some uranium ore in the Relic. More than enough to power an orbital lab. You’ll need an orbital lab to crack lightspeed, and the Relic itself should provide you with a lot of the stuff you’ll need for a deep-space vessel. But you have to get up there first.

You really want me to do this, don’t you, Grandpere?

—Really and truly, Al. As far as anyone knows, we’re alone in the galaxy. Omega hasn’t heard a peep from Earth for nearly fifteen hundred years. Someone has to find out what happened to our homeworld, just in case whatever happened there could happen to us. Thing is, you might need billions of dekas to invent and build a ship. And it has to be a superluminal ship. The Spoonerites rode the Relic for more than half a millennium to get to Hope. I don’t think you want to be out in space that long.

Uh, no. Okay, got any suggestions for a plan of attack?

—Of course! Finance first, make the pile we’ve left you into a much bigger pile. That will take a while, so be patient and don’t take too many big risks. Then do some basic research. Then build yourself an intrasystem vessel using conventional drives, get up to the Relic, build yourself a serious lab, and get to work on a superluminal drive. Once you’ve got that, you should be able to parlay it into enough money to finance the construction of a starship.

Sounds good. Wait a minute: what about energy and reaction mass for propulsion?

—(humor) Did you think I was going to leave you with nothing to do, Al?

I guess not. Grandpere, what makes you so sure the lightspeed barrier can be broken?

—For now, let’s just say I have a good reason. Now if you’ll excuse me for a few days, I have some dying and a funeral to get out of the way. I’ll be in touch afterward, I promise.

Are you that sure you’ll...be back?

—Count on it.

I love you, Grandpere.

—I love you too, dear. One more thing: there’s a note inside the cover of Teresza’s book. You can leave the book for later, but you should read the note now. Then go help your parents cope.

I will.

The psionic communication lapsed. Althea laid the passbook back in the box and lifted the cover of Teresza’s book with a fingertip. It crackled faintly as it turned. Beneath it was a folded slip of notepaper, just as Armand had said. She slid it out and unfolded it. It was covered in her grandmother’s fine, careful hand.

Dear Althea,

Please don’t grieve for a long time. Armand and I have always known that this day would come. We’ve never feared it. In a way, it’s the only proper fulfillment of our lives.

There are some things Armand has never spoken about to anyone but me. It’s time you should learn them. They’ll have an impact on your future no matter what you decide to do with it. But I advise you to keep them to yourself, at least for the near term.

First, the death of the body is not the death of the individual. It just opens a door into another plane of existence. I’ve known that for many years. I learned it from the little book I left you. But getting people to open their minds to the possibility has been harder than I ever imagined. These past few years, I’ve left the job to others. I hope you’ll read the book and give it some thought. It will help to explain a lot.

Second, Armand has already had some experience with life beyond the body. When the Chaos struck, he allied himself with another entity, a planetary intelligence he calls Idem, to fight it back and restore the world. That alliance forced a merger on them, transforming their separate identities into a single fused unit. Ever since then, he hasn’t really lived in his body. He’s maintained it as a sort of vacation home, mainly to keep company with me. There are a few other people who know about Idem, but no one knows about Armand’s merger with it, except you and me. I suggest you keep both those things to yourself.

Third, we’re confident that you will learn how to break the lightspeed barrier for a reason: Idem says so. Idem is billions of years old. It remembers things about the universe that no one else has observed. It told Armand that the laws of physics haven’t always been what they are today. Armand asked whether they could be changed by a conscious agency with the right techniques, and Idem said yes, at least temporarily and in a limited area. That’s the idea you should start your researches from.

There isn’t anything more, except to tell you one more time that we love you and are unbearably proud to have you for our granddaughter. Valerie and Cameron are just as proud. Love them for us.

In having loved and been loved by you, I believe I have touched the future of Mankind. You are the best of us, the true hope of Hope and whatever might lie elsewhere. Live long, be well, and travel far, dear.

With all our love,

Your grandmother,

Teresza Morelon

Althea refolded the note, slipped it back into Teresza’s book, gently lowered the lid of the heirloom box, and wept.

====

Part One:

The Economic Means

Chapter 1: Quartember 2, 1300 A.H.

Charisse frowned at the refrigerator-size steel box that stood, lights blinking and fans whirring, beside Althea’s desk. What on Hope are you going to use that for? she said.

Althea grinned. Fear not, Grandaunt. It won’t bite. I wanted it to simplify my record-keeping. I’m tired of shuffling papers.

The Morelon matriarch appeared unconvinced. "So you’re going to commit all your records of over fifty million dekas’ worth of holdings to a machine?"

Althea nodded. Over time. I’m looking forward to getting rid of the clutter. She scowled at the massive filing cabinets that lined the interior walls of her office and hampered her movements, then gestured at the computer’s scanner. That will help.

Charisse snorted and shook her head. Well, it’s your money. I hope you’ve made adequate provisions for backup and security.

Althea chuckled. So do I. But I await the proof of the pudding, as they say. She grinned mischievously at her grandaunt, one of only four persons on the Altan continent who controlled more capital than Althea. Let me know if you’d like me to show you how to use it.

Charisse snorted. "I don’t need a machine to remind me that I run a ten-square-mile farm. Or to heat my office to equatorial levels. She started toward the door, stopped, and looked back at Althea. Do you think you’ll be coming to worship at sundown?"

Althea grimaced and shook her head. Charisse nodded in resignation and left the little office. Althea waited for the door to close and sat to begin the exploration and exploitation of her new toy.

For anarchists, we sure can be a bunch of reactionaries.

The emergence of a large-scale small computer industry on Hope had been long delayed by a simple consideration: until only a couple of decades back, there had been essentially no market for such things. Even after ten years’ development, the number of persons who were at all interested in what computers could do for them was far fewer than Althea had guessed beforehand. As a result, the machines were bulky and expensive, the software that made them usable was just as expensive, and the cost of service, in the event a computer owner should need it, was likely to make him scream in agony.

It was the one investment Althea had made that hadn’t returned her at least a sevenfold profit. Yet she stood by it: in part out of confidence that it would eventually pay a handsome return; in part out of a degree of stubbornness that regularly caused her kindred to smirk and cluck at her.

I’m gonna have to get good with this thing. I wonder how long it will take.

That’s the nice thing about the Hallanson-Albermayer series, though. There’ll be time. Earth isn’t about to vanish from the galaxy, and the Relic isn’t about to fall from the sky.

—And you know this...how?

Huh? Oh, hi, Grandpere. How are things in the core of Hope?

—No real news, unless you’re fascinated by magma. It’s a quiet neighborhood. How are things on top of the crust?

Same old, same old. Charisse burned the eggs again this morning. Agatha’s Victor has started teething. The Leschitsyns are talking about starting a subsidiary on Sulla. You know, stuff.

—You really shouldn’t let Charisse do breakfast, you know. She’s lethal enough at dinner time.

She hardly lets anyone else into the kitchen, Grandpere. How are we supposed to stop her?

—Eggplant.

Huh?

—Have a bunch of you gang up on her and demand eggplant for dinner. Preferably breaded and fried. Charisse hates having to fry eggplant. She might never cook again.

Hm. That would leave Cecile and Dorothy in charge of all those implements of destruction. I’m not sure the cure would improve on the disease.

—Always a risk in the Morelon dining room, Al. How are your investments looking?

Pretty good. I think it’s almost time to start on Lab One.

—Glad to hear it. But be careful with your liquidations. Too much dumped onto the market too fast could start a run.

A what?

—A run. A panic. People sometimes get funny when they hear about big sales of the equities they hold. If enough other holders start selling because they’ve heard that you’re selling, the value of your stocks could drop off the charts. They’d recover over time, but that wouldn’t do you any good, having already sold them.

Oh. Gotcha. So sell slowly, thinly, and carefully, right?

—Exactly.

Grandpere...

—Yes, dear?

Once I’m established up on the Relic, will we still be able to chat this way?

There was a long pause in the exchange.

—I don’t know. The Relic is way up there. We’ll have to try it and see. But there are a few steps between that one and now, so why worry about it just yet?

Good point. Grandpere, I hate to be a wet blanket, but...

—Yes?

I’ve got work to do. A lot of work.

—(humor) I understand. Till later, then?

When I go for my run, okay?

—Certainly, dear. Go get rich. Strike that: get richer.

(humor) I’ll give it my best.

* * *

By midday, Althea was thoroughly sick of the computer. It did everything it was supposed to do, but the tedium involved in feeding it had thoroughly frazzled her. She thrust herself back from her desk, thought briefly about lunch, and headed to her bedroom to change into her running gear.

Spring had come early to Alta. The winter's snows had melted entirely. The Jacksonville environs was bursting with life and color. The air was pleasantly breezy, just warm enough for running in a T-shirt and shorts. It was a pleasure for Althea to close the doors of Morelon House behind her and launch herself into her daily run.

She loped easily down the path and into the tree-lined corridor that led to the bank of the Kropotkin River. She increased her pace gradually, careful not to overtax her tendons, so that by the time she reached the river's flattened western bank she was moving near to a sprinter's speed. As her feet touched the synthetic track she'd had laid there, she bore down all the way, legs pumping with all the power in them. The miles flew past, one after another, as she pushed her body ever closer to its limits.

Few others had seen Althea run. She preferred it that way. No one on Alta, and few powered ground vehicles, could keep pace with her, regardless of distance.

She exulted. As much pleasure as she drew from her investing and analysis, this was the chiefest of her joys: making full use of the extraordinary physique with which she'd been graced by heredity and Teodor Chistyakowski's mastery of genesculpting.

The genesmith was uncommonly modest about his contribution to Althea's superlative strength and speed. She'd asked him repeatedly about what genetic surgery he'd performed on her zygote. He'd said only that he'd corrected a couple of alleles that would have caused her some minor skeletal flaws. He never mentioned anything else. Whatever the balance between inheritance and skill, the result was a body more capable than the Morelon clan had seen in all its centuries on Hope.

My bio-grandmother couldn't have been a complete loser.

—Of course she wasn't, Al.

Oh, hi, Grandpere. But you didn’t know her terribly well, did you?

—As a person, no. But I can tell you this much about her: four days after Valerie was born, Nora already loved her enough to be desperate for her to have the best home she could arrange for...even if that meant she’d never see her daughter again.

That’s love, all right. I wish I could have known her.

—Understandably so. She spent less than ten minutes talking to me, and as she limped away, I said to myself, there goes the bravest woman I’ve ever met.

Braver than Grandmere?

—(humor) Well, maybe not. But brave. And tough. And clear-headed about what she could and couldn’t do for her newborn daughter. I’m sure if—

Whoa. Hold up, Grandpere. We’ve got company.

A very tall, powerfully built young man stood just off the track a few hundred yards ahead, staring fixedly at her. She braked carefully and brought herself to a standstill a few yards away from him, breathing easily.

Welcome to the Morelon family farm. Can I help you?

Ah...

She smiled pleasantly. You do know where you are, don’t you?

Actually, no, I don't, he said. I’m new to the area. I was just trying to learn my way around when I saw you. He seemed mildly befuddled. Do you always run like that?

She nodded. As often as I can. Usually every day. She flowed forward and stuck out a hand. Althea Morelon.

He took it. Martin Forrestal. My thanks for your welcome, especially as I had no idea where I was. He produced a gentle smile, and Althea’s heart leaped.

He was handsome, to be sure, but Althea had known many handsome young men. He was well-spoken, but that was no more unusual an attribute than his physical attractions. Yet something about him was unusually appealing. He had more than just good looks; he had presence, the quality that draws and holds the eye even against the contrary inclinations of the viewer. He was as tall as her father Cameron and