Star Minds Next Generation: Kay-low

By Barbara G.Tarn

Ten years after Star Minds Next Generation, Kay-low tries to carve his way to galactic stardom in the music business.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Unicorn Productions
• Release date: Apr 24, 2015

Barbara G.Tarn

Barbara G.Tarn had an intense life in the Middle Ages that stuck to her through the centuries. She prefers swords to guns, long gowns to mini-skirts, and even though she buried the warrior woman, she deplores the death of knights in shining chainmail. She likes to think her condo apartment is a medieval castle, unfortunately lacking a dungeon to throw noisy neighbors and naughty colleagues in. Also known as the Lady with the Unicorns, these days she prefers to add a touch of fantasy to all her stories, past and present – when she’s not wandering on her fantasy world of Silvery Earth or in her Star Minds futuristic universe. She’s a writer, sometimes artist, mostly a world-creator and story-teller. Two of her stories received an Honorable Mention at the Writers of the Future contest. She writes, draws, ignores her day job and blogs every other day.

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Star Minds Next Generation

KAY-LOW

by Barbara G. Tarn

***

Barbara G.Tarn copyright © 2015

electronic edition by Unicorn Productions

April 2015

***

Table of contents:

1. EARTH 2033

2. BANDS

3. THE MANAGER

4. THE IDOL

5. JAY-LEE

6. SELINDA

7. A WEDDING

1. EARTH 2033

"Anvedi che robba, oh! Daniele exclaimed, staring at the main screen giving an aerial view of Rome as they approached the surface of the planet. Look how it changed!"

Kay-low could feel Daniele's excitement at finally setting foot back on his home planet. Chantal, Laura and David crowded around, excited – Chantal for the homecoming, their offspring because they saw the home planet for the first time.

Kay-low snorted impatiently. Here he was on the New Shermac Pride with his father and inseparable Ker-ris, Laura's family and the rest of the band in the lounge, with Dadina and Wim in the pilot seats, headed for Gaia for a couple of shows.

I know it's your first visit here, but I'm very fond of this planet too, Kol-ian transmitted.

His father couldn't read Kay-low's shielded mind, but he should have kept the bored physical reaction to himself. He knew his father was as fond of Earth as Daniele and Chantal were. Heck, even Wim and Dadina had already seen it – very short visits some ten years earlier – and they were happy to be back! Why exactly, Kay-low couldn't figure out yet.

Good for you, he retorted. I came here only because Laura so wanted to do this.

Kol-ian grinned. I know, playing her parents' home planet was her dream, and you all humored her.

I wonder how the locals will like our band's name. Kay-low scoffed and met his father's eyes.

Italian Ignorance was the chosen name. Daniele hadn't minded – he still considered himself quite ignorant about the Star Nations – but maybe the Italians wouldn't like that name. True that it was in Intergalactic, but by now the official Humanoid common language was taught in Gaian schools as compulsory second language like in the rest of the Star Nations. Besides, online translators had surely informed the Earthlings of the real meaning of those two words.

Still, the venue in Rome was fully booked for the show. Probably because it was the first band to grace the planet and they had one song in Italian. And one in French for the Paris show, just to be on the good side of the French as well.

They might throw rotten tomatoes at you, if that's still the tradition. Kol-ian grinned and Kay-low snorted again, rolling his eyes. Stupid Earthlings. Why must his first shows off planet be on that godforsaken world that was still struggling to fit in the Star Nations?

Where is the place where you used to live? Chantal asked as Daniele zoomed in on the details of the ground.

Should be somewhere down here... Hey! What's that awful thing they built in that parking lot? And where is the Ministry of Finances?

Demolished at the beginning of the century, Kol-ian informed Daniele. He'd been toying with his own laptop, with Ker-ris looking over his shoulder. Kay-low could only imagine their telepathic conversation from their dreamy expressions. And that new obscenity is called Fuksas's Cloud.

Yikes. Daniele grimaced in disgust. What is it for?

New convention center.

"Why, the Palazzo dei Congressi wasn't good enough? Cazzo... so much history and now this crap!"

Doesn't look too bad next to the fascist architecture, Chantal commented.

It sucks, Daniele snapped. I look forward to seeing how they ruined Paris!

The French are more careful with their history, she replied with a smile. Blame it on the Italian Ignorance!

Ha ha not-very-ha! Laura said. Bad joke, Mom.

Sorry, honey...

Kay-low thought it was actually a very appropriate joke. Earth's air had been cleaned and the first spaceports had been built. It was now on the official routes, but it was still quite behind. They were trying to preserve their culture and traditions, but didn't always succeed.

Kay-low wasn't interested in manuscripts, like Shan-leo, or history or any of that stuff. This world was just another place where he could play his guitar and be on stage with his band. Although for a first show out of Marc'harid, he'd have preferred a more civilized planet. But Laura had cajoled him into it and he had grudgingly agreed. She even wrote the two songs in the local dialects to convince the band they'd be welcomed.

Laura was his girlfriend and the lead singer, and she was very pretty in her stage clothes. Laura had a crush on him since their teens, and at seventeen they'd become a couple. Not that he was in love – or even in lust – but it was better than being alone.

And he'd been alone for most of his childhood. As the only child of Bess-lin Meraini, he'd been kept in a gilded cage with no friends until Shan-leo had managed to convince his fiery mother to forgive his father.

It had taken him a couple of years to adjust to the extended family that lived in the former Imperial palace and get used to non-telepath friends. At fifteen he'd even moved to his father's, but the freedom hadn't lasted, so eventually he'd relented and toned down his rebellion, giving Laura what she wanted.

Now, at twenty, he wasn't completely happy with himself. Kay-low didn't have his cousin's gifts. He couldn't mind link, so he wasn't interested in a telepathic lover. He'd stopped cutting his hair in his teens and it now reached mid-way down his back. He'd dyed it blond and since he didn't have genetically reinforced skin, he'd had some tattoos done on his arms and shoulders – sort of emulating Wim who now wore shoulder-length hair. His right arm was decorated with a garland of blue stars from the wrist to the shoulder, while his left arm had flames going up from wrist to elbow and from elbow to shoulder with red stars interspersed through the orange fire.

"You look like a metallaro," Daniele had commented the first time he'd seen Kay-low bare-chested with his brand new tattoos. Kay-low knew Daniele didn't like the hard rock bands that had sort of inspired his looks – the alien Humanoids version, slightly different from what Daniele remembered from his years on Earth – but Laura loved long-haired guys.

Kay-low's rebellious behavior was the exact opposite of Shan-leo, who even during his wildest years had been much quieter. Yes, his cousin had lost his arm in a flying car accident, but Kay-low had done much worse. Drugs took down all his mental shields, so he'd stopped using them, and since his mother refused him a flying car, he happily drove his friends', racing them when nobody was looking. He was a much more reckless driver than Shan-leo, but had managed to remain whole until now – probably because he wanted to be able to play guitar and become a mega star.

The relationship with his father was as conflicted as every other relationship in Kay-low's life. He felt inferior to all his Sire relatives and didn't want to deal with them. He hoped going on tour with his band would rid him of them, but his father couldn't pass up the chance to go back to the planet where he'd spent four years of self-exile. And Shan-leo and his family were on the Haiduc, but everybody else was on the bigger ship, including