Man Of Two Planets

By Judith Rook

Borto Claibrook-Merjolaine, born and raised on Circe, the planet with a mind, is the only man of his generation to become a warrior. As he learns combat skills on the neighbouring planet of First Home his mentor, Hal, detects a dark creature hidden deep inside Borto’s personality. Coming from Circe’s own shadow, the being adds extra strength to Borto’s normal Circean abilities.
Also living on First Home, Borto’s sister, Tethyn, realises that she must go to find the source of a great danger which is threatening both Circe and First Home. Another planet farther away in the galaxy has learned about First Home and is preparing an invasion force.
Against the wishes of her beloved man Lewis, First Peer of the High Forest family, Tethyn asks his greatest adversary, Darland Courvenier, to take her to meet a man from the enemy planet so that Circe can learn about the advancing peril and make plans to defeat it.
Circe is also in danger from First Home. Darland and his close friend and lieutenant, Vaire, have begun to realise that Circe is a very special planet, possessing strange powers. They want to learn her secrets. Vaire goes to Circe to discover what he can about her, at the same time drawing Tethyn’s best friend, Rayanna, the woman he has come to deeply desire, unwillingly closer to him.
Returning briefly to his home planet, Borto finds that contraband weapons have been hidden on her surface, infecting the planet with the negative force they carry. As he helps to defeat the arms smugglers the thing that Borto has been dreading happens and his new powers are revealed. But Borto learns that what has happened to him is right. Even as a changed man, he can remain true to himself and go confidently into the future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Judith Rook
• Release date: Aug 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310785054

Judith Rook

Judith Rook was born and raised in rural Yorkshire in the UK. The nearest city was Bradford, the great centre for wool processing, but she remembers fields running up to moorland much more clearly than mill chimneys. Judith’s early writing was done in old accountants’ ledgers which had blank sheets interleaved with the ruled pages. She wrote on the ruled pages as well. Not thinking of becoming a writer, Judith wrote whatever she felt like writing: stories, poems, reflections. Then life intervened and her imagination went underground. For some time, she worked in education and wrote articles and reviews about music. After a few years, Judith began to write fiction. Recording ideas that had been bottled up for a long time, she thought she had become an author. When rejection notices came in, she joined two writing groups, developed her technical skills and learned how to write stories for other people. Judith is a compulsive reader. Sci-fi is her favourite genre, then come the great classics, followed closely by fantasy. She is fascinated by developments in human space exploration and reads a great deal of contemporary cosmology. Judith also admires good crime writers and one day she may try her hand at thrillers or crime stories. As a young woman Judith emigrated to Western Australia where she lives now. From time to time she stirs herself to rally around important social issues and has been known to take to the streets in support, so long as there are good cafés along the way. Periodically Judith turns to short stories. She finds the challenges of short story writing refresh and strengthen the techniques which she uses in her novels.

Book preview

MAN OF TWO PLANETS

Published by Judith Rook at Smashwords

Copyright 2015 Judith Rook

ISBN: 9781310785054

Other titles by Judith Rook

Planet Woman

The Three Ways of Desire (Writing as Alison Dere)

First Steps for a Hero

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Cover by Vila Design

Warning:

This work contains scenes of a sexual nature, and is written for adults only (18+).

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

About Judith Rook

What Readers said about Planet Woman

Connect with Judith Rook

CHAPTER 1

"Are you sure of this?" The First Peer of the Haute-Forêt family turned to his head of security.

From the other side of the desk, the craggy guardsman nodded. Mentor Hal has confirmed the presence of an independent being.

An independent being?

A second personality, sharing the same body.

Impossible! The tall, saturnine man, dressed in the working uniform of a First Home starship commander, looked out of the window again. Below lay the plaza of the Haute-Forêt holding, where wide planted spaces bordered open areas, busy with the affairs of the day. His eyes rested on the purple domed roof of a building hidden behind a high wall on the other side of the square.

It can’t be possible. You tested him yourself.

I found no second personality. Only a natural, untrained ability. We have all seen it.

What about his sister? Would she know?

The guardsman himself probably will not know.

Do you think Circe would know?

First Peer, you met the planet. I did not.

Silence followed.

She will know… How are the young women settling into their new lives in the city? Has anything… similar… been detected among them?

No, First Peer.

Only the man. Ifan, what has she sent us?

A natural warrior, from a planet which does not foster warriors.

The First Peer returned to the desk. "Circe holds so much, Ifan. I saw such a small part of it. All of us, the greater and the lesser families—the whole of First Home—must move very carefully so far as Circe is concerned. She has made the contact. We must not destroy it.

I need to speak to the man. Will you bring him across tomorrow? Particularly, I must discuss the matter of Constanta with him, so dress gear.

On the following day Bortrand, first heir to the Claibrook-Merjolaine House of Continuity, established a thousand years ago during the first years of human settlement on the planet Circe, waited in his commander’s centre. They had called him from weapons training, told him to get into dress uniform and arrive at administration reception as quickly as may be. So here he stood, ignored by everyone, wondering what it was all about.

The thought of sitting never entered his head. Security Commander Ifan of Brock was an accomplished and hard man who, a warrior himself, knew all about soldiers, and held the attitude that all soldiers were as hard as he was, happier on their feet, ready for action, rather than sitting in a chair.

Borto wouldn’t have minded sitting in a chair. His training session had been gruelling, which was nothing new. At the end, if he had completed it, he would have been physically finished, every muscle worked out, his breathing and heart function heightened to what he could just bear.

Then he would have been taken through the routines which would have brought him down carefully and precisely back to normal body condition. But the training had been cut short, and the only winding down he had been able to manage was during a quick shower and the march across to the centre. But he had started the descent and, thank Circe, his body was not trembling as it might otherwise have been.

The door to the inner office opened. Commander Ifan appeared, also in dress gear. So, there was a situation somewhere, a formal situation, but why it should involve guardsman Claibrook-Merjolaine instead of one of the others, one of the more senior guards, Borto could not imagine.

The commander jerked his head in Borto’s direction and the guardsman followed. There was a transport waiting. One of the tough, heavy machines First Home went in for, and which made the vehicles of Circe seem slender and delicate by comparison, although they were in fact extremely strong.

They were going out of the barracks domain. Borto had not been out of the barracks since he arrived on First Home four weeks earlier.

Before then, he had been on the deep space vessel of the First Peer of the Haute-Forêt family, going through a strange period of adjustment to what had happened on another spacer, one belonging to a rival First Home family where, for the first time in his life, Borto had found himself fighting to the death. He had avoided killing. That would have cut him off for always from Circe, but the experience had disturbed him deeply.

During the following two weeks on the spacer, making for First Home, he turned the problem over and over in his mind. He would always be grateful to Commanders Ifan and Carter Brock who could have, but didn’t, make him join the rigid discipline of the guardsmen who had been part of the First Peer’s diplomatic mission to Circe.

Instead, they allowed him to do more or less what he liked, so long as he attended and participated in the twice-daily exercises and patterns sessions and played his part in the maintenance of the shipboard barracks, although he suspected he got more than his fair share of the acutely boring tasks.

Why had he been so attracted to the military life, when everything he might do as a soldier could help, in some remote way, to bring about the ending of someone else’s existence? It was not any sort of life for a Circean, but it had attracted him so strongly that he had entered it willingly, eagerly and, it seemed, with the planet’s approval.

An answer, of sorts, came on his final day on the spacer. He had finished the evening exercises and patterns. Sitting in a corner of the change room, he remembered how those patterns, although not in the least understood by him at the time, had helped him to survive during the deadly confrontation with the enemy’s warriors.

In the same moment, he heard Commander Ifan’s voice rumbling behind him. Whether he was speaking to Borto or to someone else, Borto never knew, and he never wanted to know:

For the great questions, there is no complete answer. A man is a fool if he thinks he can find one. A man is not a fool if he lives as closely as he can to what he feels to be right.

That night, Borto slept as he had slept on Circe, and on the following day he entered the Haute-Forêt barracks on First Home, was enrolled as a member of the fifth platoon and was taken immediately into the full life of a guardsman, but one who was still almost a recruit and had an enormous amount to learn, especially in the area of weapons training.

From his seat in the back of the transport, he stared curiously at his surroundings. They were moving through what appeared to be a small town, with many dwellings, most of them surrounded by high stone-built walls, with roofs of semi-circular design showing above. There were enterprises supporting a community; shops for example, and he spotted a vehicle maintenance centre. There were leisure facilities; he saw an open-sided building with tables and chairs occupied by both men and women, and they passed what he easily recognised as a sport complex.

Across this more open space, Borto saw in the distance the magnificent structures of Ixia, the capital city of the whole of First Home. Circe had nothing like this. Circe was modest in the matter of human habitation. No one had ever seen the need for imposing buildings.

People encountered architectural marvels when they visited the allocations, the wonderful Houses of Continuity, established during the first years of settlement. But on the whole, Circean humans lived on one level, close to the surface of the planet.

Ixia was the matter of dreams. Many of the buildings soared upwards to an unimaginable height, apparently defying physical limitations. Some spread widely from a central column, like huge trees; some were like the twisted strands of the genome, while others were massive stacks of eccentrically placed boxes. Most were made of a translucent material which caught and held the light, and even in the day the city was unearthly, remote, not a place for occupation or dwelling. But Ixia held places for eleven million humans, more than a quarter of Circe’s entire population.

Over the whole city, and visible today as a shimmer in the air, arched a vast energy field. Protection, Borto had been told, from an increase in galactic radiation, a shield for the vast piles of technology on which the entire planet depended.

But Ixia was not their destination. Above the roofs of the houses, Borto began to see the walls of a higher structure; off-white, interrupted by wide swathes of green and other colours, falling from natural growing areas built irregularly into the façade of the building.

Sister’s domain. The commander indicated a house hidden behind another high wall and showing a domed roof of a rather nice shade of purple, one of the colours of Circe. As they passed the open gate, Borto saw a vehicle parked in the forecourt.

So, this was where his sister, and her best friend, were living. Since his arrival, Borto had not seen either Tethyn or Rayanna, but he knew they had been given a house in the Haute-Forêt holding to keep them safe from Darland Courvenier, the First Peer of the Courvenier family, whose own holding was a considerable distance away, on the other side of the city.

Beyond Tethyn’s house, the interior road opened into a wide plaza serving the high structure. The building was a centre of some sort, with a wide triple door through which people were coming and going. Well, even a small town had to have a mayor’s office and civic administration rooms. Borto had been in many of them on Circe as part of his job as an agricultural planner, but this one was different; more elegant, more serious.

Past the entrance, they turned down another side of the building to an underground parking area. The commander got out, marching towards an opening in the wall opposite. Believing he had not been brought there in his dress uniform to sit doing nothing, Borto followed.

There were three elevator doors, one of which the commander opened with a hand imprint. This took them upwards to a busy reception space, and a door requiring eye identification before it let them into a large but quiet office. There were three men dressed in spacer uniforms sitting behind desks, and another who was waiting for them.

Commander, this way please. He ushered them through a door set in the middle of the wall.

In the room beyond, Lewis Brock the First Peer stood at the window, looking towards the house which held Borto’s sister. He was a man in his late thirties, some six years older than the new guardsman in terms of simple age, but in experience and responsibility, thought the Circean, you could add another fifteen.

From their first meeting in his parents’ house on Circe, Borto had never felt the First Peer was in any way his near contemporary. Lewis was different; he had taken on a responsibility placing him beyond his contemporaries in experience, in thought, in ability to make necessary decisions, in everything that set a true leader apart from his fellows.

First Peer! said Commander Ifan, with a parade-ground salute.

Commander.

Borto had the sense not to say anything but to salute as best as he could in the crisp, formal style displayed by the commander. He did not quite manage it, but a few weeks of practice against years of experience… He hadn’t done too badly.

The First Peer nodded to him and sat behind his desk. The commander took a chair to the side, leaving Borto on his feet, wondering desperately what he should do next. Certainly, not take the initiative, so he waited.

Commander Brock? Another man joined them from the back of the room.

Great Circe! Commander Carter Brock as well, head of the second arm of the Haute-Forêt family, the First Peer’s cousin, the man who hoped to attach Rayanna Hardwick-Bering to himself as a permanent genetic partner, although he would be having difficulties, if Borto knew Rayanna.

And Borto did know Rayanna, having once had half a thought his sister’s best friend might become his Circean wife one day, although her super wealthy father had dismissed the prospect as not being worth thinking about, despite the fact that Borto had top status on Circe as the first heir to one of the Foundation Houses.

There they were, the three heads of the Haute-Forêt Family, all comfortably seated, while he stood at attention, gazing into mid-air, waiting for someone to say something.

Guardsman, said the First Peer, stand at ease, and you may speak as you need.

Thankfully taking the easier stance, Borto continued to wait, still looking at a point above the First Peer’s head.

You are finding it difficult to settle to the life of a guardsman.

There it was; straight down the middle. Typical of what Borto had already observed about the First Peer, except when the older man had been performing his rôle as the envoy from First Home to Circe, which is when Borto had first met him.

Difficult, sir, but not impossible. I believe it will happen, given time.

It was only what he thought. In time, he would become a true guardsman and probably a good one too. After all, he was entering the military life later than anyone else, and he had many changes to make. But Circe had sent him.

Commander?

True. In time. But on the way, he will put too much of himself to the side.

Borto gritted his teeth. The commander was right. During his training Borto constantly denied the full expression of parts, the Circean parts, of himself. Sometimes he even consciously closed them down.

But the opposite was true in the exercise and patterns sessions, when it was a matter of fighting technique development. Then he was fully present, every part of his body and mind engaged and satisfied, and it was this which he clung to the most.

Do you wish to continue in the guardsman training?

Sir, I do. I have taken the oath, and I will stay with it.

The First Peer smiled, his dark, olive-complexioned face lightening for the moment.

I had expected nothing less. Security Commander, you have my permission to vary the approach to this guardsman’s development as you suggest. We will review progress in two months’ time.

Commander Ifan nodded, took a record tablet from a pocket and made a note.

Vary his development? What did that mean? But Borto’s attention was brought back to the immediate moment.

Now, guardsman, the First Peer leaned back. There is another matter—the matter of your claim to the person of my sister, the High Lady Constanta Brock.

Ah, thought Borto, here it comes. The reason for the dress gear.

He had been expecting some sort of confrontation with the First Peer over this matter ever since he arrived on First Home, but nothing had been said. Now he understood the presence of Commander Carter Brock. If anything happened to the First Peer, Commander Carter would become Constanta’s guardian, and Commander Ifan was oath-bound to protect the persons of both the First Peer and his sister. Borto had to answer to three very hard, very interested, men indeed.

He wished the First Peer had not given Constanta her full title, but there was no avoiding it. Lady Constanta was very highly placed. In real terms, she was completely out of his reach. However, on the enemy’s starship. Borto had formally claimed Constanta’s hand in some sort of partnership, because he had felt strongly Constanta should never end up in the control of a foul monster like Darland Courvenier.

At the time, the fact did not enter his mind, that his move would frustrate the Courvenier attempts to blackmail the First Peer into concessions which could have brought down the entire Haute-Forêt family.

It had been incredibly presumptuous of him, only made possible because the First Peer had once allowed him a single dance with his sister. But he had made the most of the privilege and now he was the legitimate claimant of her hand, probably going against all of the First Peer’s plans for his sister, once she attained her majority in a year’s time at the age of twenty-three.

Yes, sir, said Borto woodenly. How could a simple guardsman answer a family head on such a complicated matter while standing at ease before his desk?

Will you now relinquish your claim?

For the sake of appearances, Borto pretended to consider. He thought he wasn’t in love with Constanta; in fact, he was rather sure love and he still had to meet, but he held a strange, unaccountable regard for the young woman.

He wanted her to be happy and he had a strong suspicion that her life, once she left the protection of her brother’s holding, might be anything but happy. He had an equally unaccountable feeling she might be happy on Circe.

With due respect, sir, I think I will not relinquish my claim, although I imagine you would prefer me not to press it at the moment.

To his complete surprise, the First Peer laughed, looking at the other two. There, gentlemen! What did I tell you? Refusal, but a refusal so very diplomatically expressed. The First Peer laughed again, but the other two frowned.

What I would prefer now, Sieur Claibrook-Merjolaine is for you to be seated and to become the first heir of your house, so we may discuss this difficult situation properly and sensibly. There is a chair behind you. Please…

Not looking at the commanders, Borto took a chair.

So! You have made a legally correct claim for the person of my sister. Now it is time for you to provide us with information concerning the material grounds which you will offer to support your claim.

Borto stared at the other man blankly.

Come, my dear sir, you cannot believe a claim for a person desired by all our first families can remain simply as a matter of a chivalrous impulse of the moment?

The First Peer paused and regarded the guardsman. However, that impulse rendered the greatest service to me and to my family, and it will not be forgotten.

The memory of his father’s rare displays of formal house leadership, taught Borto the correct response. Rising to his feet, he bowed. The impulse came from the sincere respect I bear to you and to your family. It was followed with no expectation of future consideration.

All three High Forest leaders also rose and bowed to the Circean man. It was a splendid moment, and Borto felt he might do anything for these people who treated him with such dignified courtesy… anything, except give up his claim for Constanta.

Now, said the First Peer, "let us be seated again and consider the commercial aspect of my sister’s disposal, distasteful though it might appear to a Circean mind.

"You cannot have a full understanding of the genetic partnering options we follow on First Home, but I ask you to believe that in most cases they are established with the happiness and well-being of the people involved as the primary concern. The High Forest family does not share its ladies among the other houses. We place them permanently in the family which appears best suited to their character and personality. The family responds with acceptable material recognition, and the other houses are satisfied, if sometimes envious.

From my own experience, I know you will be able to provide my sister with all the material support she will ever need, but what are you prepared to pay for her? What can you offer me? What contracts can you propose between your family and mine? What future benefits for my family will result from Constanta joining your family? What guarantees of arms support and non-aggression are you able to provide?

Borto blinked in bewilderment and glanced at the other two men. Both faces were solemn, but he thought he saw a crinkling around the corners of Carter’s eyes. They were playing with him, hitting him hard with all the processes involved in setting up a high-level breeding contract on First Home, expecting to unbalance the inexperienced and naïve suitor with unfamiliar and hopefully frightening expectations.

Things were simpler on Circe; an agreement that it would be a sensible idea for person A to marry or genetically partner person B because they had fallen in love and would be happy and do good work for the planet if they began to share their lives.

There was a brief silence. Let the young impulsive man consider the real world, the world tied up in contracts and agreements. Let him think about what he would be getting into. Let him think again about relinquishing his claim.

Please excuse me, First Peer, and I’m sorry if this is impertinent, but do you in fact need any of the things you mention from me, from my family, from anybody?

The enquiry, presented with complete innocence, caused Commander Carter to sit up and look sharply at his cousin who, still leaning back in his chair, was now regarding Borto with interest.

It is impertinent, yes, but… Great Home! Why can you not give me someone to speak for you? Where is your intermediary?

My father, sir, but of course he is on Circe… My sister would speak for me. Perhaps not a good move, but it was done, and Borto waited.

Yes! said the First Peer, in an exasperated explosion, flinging himself out of the chair, to look again through the window at the purple dome on the other side of the plaza. Yes, your sister would speak for you, but she might speak things which I, as First Peer of this family, would not want to hear.

From the corner of his eye Borto saw Commander Carter grin at Commander Ifan who stared impassively into the space in front of him.

The First Peer returned to his seat. Why did you ask such a curious question?

Well, sir, it seems to me neither I nor my house can offer anything you mention, but I think there is something I can put forward which none of the other first families could provide.

What can you suggest, that we do not have already? asked Commander Ifan.

Sir, do you really want to know? In his dealings with the stolid farmers of the Circean hinterland, Borto had learned to give them time to think, and in this situation, he was happy for the First Peer and the commanders to take all the time they needed.

A few moments passed. You are almost as bad as your sister. There was amusement in the voice. Yes, I do want to know what you can offer this family that it does not have already. Commanders, how curious are you?

Curious enough, cousin, said Carter.

Curious, grunted Ifan, but guardsman take care.

Enlighten us, if you please, Sieur Claibrook-Merjolaine. On the basis of your suggestion we may be able to discuss your claim more positively. What is your offer?

Access to Circe.

From the complete silence filling the room Borto knew he had said, if not exactly the right thing, at least a very interesting thing.

Sieur, I ask you to expand the idea. Then I will send you across the square to visit your sister while I discuss the matter further with my commanders. What do you mean by access to Circe?

Borto took a deep breath. What he said now would be important.

"First Peer, Commanders. Like everyone else, I was amazed when my father told me Circe had sent a message to First Home asking you to send us a diplomatic mission with a view to setting up formal trade links.

"I mean, we’ve been fine for eight hundred years, trading just with the other mind planets like Euridice and Sappho. Why would Circe suddenly need to set up contact with First Home? But she has always been perceptive and she considers the future more carefully than the other sentient worlds.

She told the planetary council that we should get ready for change. Inviting your mission was her first move, and I don’t think she expected you to return here, leaving everything the same except for some new trading arrangements.

The First Peer, who had been the First Home envoy, nodded. "All who came with me were strongly affected by the experience. The pages have asked to return to your beautiful planet during a vacation period.

No, Sieur Bortrand, you are right. Because of the diplomatic mission, our two planets will draw more closely together, but what do you mean when you offer my family access to Circe?

"I offer a real experience. An understanding of how she operates, how she gets along with humans.

The First Peer’s eyes searched his face. What authority do you have?

"Sir, I have been closely involved with Circe since I was fifteen. I have lived in our house allocation. I have received instruction from the planet. In my work, I follow her constant directives. I am close to her.

Now Circe has sent me away for a time. She has sent me into the military life, and she’s done so because she has a plan. What the plan may be, I don’t know, but when I offer a deeper knowledge of her ways exclusively to your family, I strongly believe Circe will approve.

Commander Carter stood. First Peer, the implications are tremendous! Are we ready for this?

For a few moments, the First Peer stared at his commanders. Then, turning back to the guardsman, he said: Now, Sieur Claibrook-Merjolaine. Will you please visit your sister, and will you ask her to speak to your planet to seek confirmation of what you have offered?

Excellent idea, thought Borto, getting up. As he saluted the First Peer he saw Commander Ifan making for the door which, against all regular protocol, he opened for his guardsman. But it was only to enable the commander to send Borto on his way with a rather frightening look, promising all sorts of consequences if, for any reason, Borto failed to deliver.

CHAPTER 2

Tethyn glanced up, as a figure appeared in the open doorway. You’re off?

Yes, and I hope I’ll come back all in one piece. You might have to hold dinner. I could be crawling home.

Rayanna Hardwick-Bering, Tethyn’s best friend from childhood and her companion in the house within the High Forest holding, was leaving for a late afternoon training session at the studio Lady Seaton opened for those individuals who needed special attention.

Her mid-brown hair was caught neatly at the back of her neck, revealing the full oval of her slightly freckled cheeks and determined chin, and her body was clothed in the loose training garments Lady Seaton favoured.

As well as being the companion of Lady Constanta Brock, supervising her life and guiding her through the pitfalls of first family politics, Lady Ondrea Seaton was also the defence director for all the High Forest women, which included their guests.

She had decided recently that Rayanna was ready to learn the basic patterns of the house system, and she had arranged for Constanta to teach them to her. So Rayanna’s lessons were to be in the late afternoon, when Constanta returned at the end of her school day.

The defence director was also the temporary supervisor of the lives of Tethyn and Rayanna during their early settling in period, watching and advising them as they began to adjust to First Home, both within the holding and more widely within the city. Neither of the young women resented this. They both realised their particular circumstances presented the High Forest family with difficulties; they felt the need for a mentor and guide and were grateful when one was provided for them.

Lady Seaton was not a foolish woman. She understood that two females, both some seven years older than Constanta, highly independent females who, coming from a strange planet, quite unlike First Home, called for methods different to those she used for her main charge.

In the case of Rayanna, Lady Seaton had seen the physical restlessness which had characterised the Circean woman ever since she was a young girl, and she provided more exercise opportunities than Rayanna might have chosen for herself.

Sports complex! Running! In thirty minutes! Rayanna had exploded early in the morning, having been awoken by a contact message. Why doesn’t the woman give me a timetable? I’d follow it!

Yes, you would, but you’d lose interest. I don’t know how she’s worked it out, but Lady Ondrea realises she’s got to keep you guessing. And anyway, aren’t you keeping well on it?

Well enough, I suppose, but what about you? It’s all gym and swimming. What’s happened to the defensive arts?

She says I’m not quite ready. But honestly, Rayanna, the gym workouts and swimming are best for me. They remind me of Circe…

Despite her love for Lewis and her need to be with him, Tethyn still had roots deeply fixed in Circe, and sometimes the desire to return home was very strong indeed. But she had made a promise to spend time away, learning about how humans lived on First Home, gathering information to send to Circe, who was busy creating the structure of a plan she had yet to reveal.

Soon, Rayanna would be doing the same, but first she would have to return to Circe to become permanently linked to the planet so she too could send information back almost instantaneously, across a distance which took a starship three weeks to travel at meta-light speed.

Well, I’m off. At least Constanta can’t be as hard as Lady Seaton… can she?

Tethyn heard her friend’s steps as she crossed the courtyard and disappeared through the gate. Lady Seaton would not allow anyone to drive to her classes unless they lived more than a half hour’s brisk walk away, and the whole system certainly did seem to keep the High Forest women healthy and well.

But there was more to life than systematic exercise and physical well-being. Tethyn sighed. She was getting tired of waiting. She did not know what she was waiting for; but since arriving on First Home, since the excitement of getting established in the house Lewis had given them, since meeting the elders and other people of note within the family, since the whole arrival thing had quietened down, she had become aware she was waiting for something.

She missed her job. On Circe, she was a locator, one of the few people who went out into the uninhabited places to find where the planet’s ideas emerged in their material form; to free them, if she thought they should be freed, and to bring them back for other people to assess and decide how they could or should be used.

It was interesting and fascinating work. She remembered once being drawn to what seemed to be a new animal which had emerged under the cover of some bushes. Her helping parthobots had opened the undergrowth and she could see it clearly, still attached to the planet.

The size of a sheep, it had four paired legs supporting a cylindrical body covered in soft hair and two small upper limbs which could have been arms. She approached carefully, holding the sharp knife she would use to cut through the attaching membranes, and the eyes opened. They were small, almost completely black with a rim of pale green, and they had looked at her once before bare lids covered them again.

The creature lay quietly, still attached to the planet, waiting to be separated. But Tethyn backed away. The total disinterest in those strange, alien eyes should never come into the ordinary life of the planet. She left it, signalling to the parthobots to let the bushes fall back. Within three days the creature would disappear, absorbed once again into Circe’s substance.

Tethyn found the experience disturbing and although she knew she couldn’t ask Circe about it, she wondered what part of Circe’s mind had generated the animal and why the planet had formed it into almost-being. In the survey camp she talked to Rayanna, her fellow locator, about the strange event. As usual, Rayanna was matter-of-fact.

It was probably a nightmare or something. Humans dream, why shouldn’t planets do the same? The difference is, humans can’t do much about their dreams but Circe can bring her dark creatures up to the surface. You did the right thing and left it alone.

It had been a plausible thought although Tethyn felt the creature had not come out of a nightmare; but she agreed with Rayanna. She had done the right thing.

That was one of her more unusual experiences. Most of her discoveries were simple things, for example a new type of toadstool. These she would free in the special way she had been taught. She would pack the new item carefully into a container, create a detailed record for the Council, and send it by parthobot carrier to the city of Bygard where it would be analysed for its potential usefulness.

Locators were drawn to the almost-things by an instinct, and her locator’s