After the Starman Flying

By David Scott Silva

It’s the 26th Century—an age when the children of humanity sail the known Galaxy on billowing tall ships powered by dark energy. The Terran Union, an alliance of worlds banded under the leadership of Earth for mutual trade and defense, just ended a disastrous conflict with one of its own: the Rus Federacy—a feudal society of genetically altered descendants of the former Russian Empire.
When a mysterious alien power known as the Gree invade the worlds of the Union, it falls to Xia, the Jovian commander of the starship Black Meadow, to prepare her crew for the battle her superiors on Earth refuse to believe is coming. To help her in the coming fight, Xia recruits Alexander Ilyin, an enigmatic young officer of Russian descent, whose years living among the Rus forged him into a soldier and tactician without equal in the Vanguard.
On the other side of the brewing conflict on the planet Jin is Kemiel, a highly respected military officer whose traumatic war experiences leads him to question his tyrannical government’s new alliance with the Gree. Joining him in his brewing disenchantment with his people’s leaders is his bodyguard Malea, a deadly warrior and champion of the oppressed women of her world. When Kemiel and Malea launch a violent rebellion to save Jin from disaster, Beryl, Kemiel’s wife, must somehow find a way to keep her daughters alive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sharon Burton
• Release date: Sep 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310987373

David Scott Silva

David Scott Silva is a science-fiction novelist and poet. Born and raised in Los Angeles, David spent twenty years before creative fiction writing as an award-winning newspaper and magazine reporter, editor and columnist for the Los Angeles Times and Southland Publishing Co.David lives in Riverside California with his wife, University of California, Riverside Adjunct Professor Sharon Burton, and their animals: Australian shepherd, Gus, and Italian cat, Marley. He is currently marketing his first science fiction novel, After the Starman Falling, part one of a planned trilogy.In December 2013, David was diagnosed with terminal kidney cancer. He died in April 2016, at home with his wife and animals.

Book preview

From 4 April 2540 issue of the New York Union-Observer: Rus Commence Migration to Terran Planet: Alarmed Vanguard sends flagship juggernaut to Nevas blockade.

In a move that dramatically escalates the threat of military confrontation between the Terran Union and its most important economic and strategic ally, the Rus Federacy on Friday launched the first convoys of civilians and soldiers from Clhanistan on the mega-planet Jin, bound for the Union planetoid called Nevas.

The development silenced assurances by Union President Joseph Nelson that the promised exodus was an elaborate bluff by Rus Grand Duke Arkady to secure more favorable peace terms with the Jin Nation by forcing the Union to involve itself in the negotiations. The Rus and Jin ended a nine-year civil war in 2538, after the former promised to leave the planet the two peoples had shared for nearly four Terran centuries. Just two weeks ago, Nelson publicly accused Arkady of evoking historically entrenched fears of marauding cosmovoins—the elite, space-faring fighters of the Federacy’s Armed Services. That remark prompted a swift rebuke from the White Palace.

"This is not a game of Amerkeen poker," Rus War Secretary Leonid Shchetinin countered, using the Rus pejorative for American. It is about the survival of our country, our culture, our people. [Nelson] must know that, while we desire only peace with our Terran cousins, we take nothing so seriously as our long-term national interests. We will not be dissuaded from this course. Please, Mr. President, let there be no mistake, no miscalculation of will. The sons and daughters of Mother Russia are coming home to Vroparclhan.

Shchetinin referred to the Rus’ historical name for Nevas.

Opposition to the Grand Duke’s annexation request has grown steadily since Arkady proposed it as a way of ending the bloody, and seemingly intransigent, Rus-Jen War.

It seemed, at first, like an off-the-cuff proposal—an idea so uniquely abhorrent to all sides that no side could possibly accept it. Since 2139, Nevas had been dismissed as unlivable by nearly all Federacy subjects except a handful of Rus monks who maintained a religious commune there. Even were the planetoid a more desirable location, the notion of yet another mass exodus from their lands was immediately met with loud protests and caustic derision from voices throughout Clhanistan. On the other side of the divide, the Terran Executive Council has long held it would not countenance so much as a new colony on the planetoid by the race formerly known as Russians. Indeed, it was in reaction to an ill-fated effort by Rus religious separatists in the early 23rd century to establish an autonomous Christian state on Nevas that led to the creation of the Vanguard service branch.

But even the most vociferous critics of Arkady’s proposal were forced to take it seriously when Jin’s governing body, the Banner of Elders, accepted it, and as a show of good faith withdrew their troops from Clhanistan. Seemingly overnight, the plan went from material for the intergalactic comedy circuit to the kind of outside-the-margins creative thinking that solves seemingly intractable conflicts.

Still, Terran officials seemed almost constitutionally incapable of taking the Grand Duke’s plan at face value. Even when a formal annexation request appeared earlier in the month for vote before the Executive Council, Nelson administration officials continued to describe it as insincere. Friday’s events at last put an end to that belief. Daedal-Vision broadcasts on Jin showed dozens of flying castles—the legendary mobile fortresses of the Rus aristocracy—rising above the provinces of Clhanistan. Once in space, they were joined by more than 1,200 sovnya warships, tasked with escorting the ornate vessels to the Terran border.

In response, the Directorate ordered the Guard’s most powerful warship, the Goliath Heron-class juggernaut Black Meadow, to Nevas to establish a blockade. That move was swiftly condemned by voices on all sides, from the White Palace in the Federacy capital of Novoyograd to the Directorate headquarters in Brussels, on Earth.

How in bloody hell is a single juggernaut going to stop more than a thousand Rus ships from doing what they came to do? asked a senior Directorate official, who asked not to be identified by name. "Arkady must be jumping in delight. [But] for the crew of the Black Meadow, it’s a damned suicide mission."

Chapter 1

Qa’Addis

Capital City of Jin

It will be colder today, thought Beryl as she stood at the third-story window looking out on the Martyr’s Plaza. Colder than yesterday, and yesterday was so cold. It’s as if the Rus take the warmth with them as they go.

She had spent the night watching the news from the East—all night, the same story across the Daedal-Vision stations, but she could not take her eyes off the images all around her. The girls had quickly felt her mental absence and began quarreling, first quietly and then louder, trying to pull her attention back, until she called them over and made them sit and watch with her.

What are we watching? Jula asked.

The castles, she said. Look. The castles are about to fly.

But the castles didn’t fly, or at least not soon enough for the twins.

Nothing’s happening, Mother! moaned Raina.

And for the longest while, nothing did. Directly in front of the family was a three-paneled, split screen with static images of the minarets dominating the skylines of Novoyograd, Chitayol and Gafovovsk. Above them was nothing but empty blue. The off-camera reporters mindlessly chattered to fill time. It was day in Clhanistan, but nothing stirred except for the occasional sweep of flocks of golden fhasa. All eyes were on the castles.

Then, in Gafovovsk first, something happened. The reporters fell silent before a frightful roar, the minarets smoked and trembled, and then lifted. They rose above the business towers of the province. The minarets were followed by the castle that held them and the fiery engines pushing the great vessel into the sky.

They’re flying!

Yes!

The fortress ascended in a widening spiral, and when it at last vanished into the clouds, the camera cut away to Qa’Addis and the gathered crowd at the Wheel—the massive, circular building from which all power—government, military and financial—rose and fell. The gathered Jin gasped as if they could not believe it themselves, and then they cheered, shaking their fists at the night sky.

Beryl’s smile faded.

Why are they cheering, Mother? asked Raina.

She shook her head as if she did not know, but said, Because the Rus are leaving.

Where are they going?

Home, she said, which she supposed was partly the truth. Now go upstairs, loves. It’s time for sleep.

But it’s early!

Too early. Now, off.

It was not until the girls were rolled in their clutches that Beryl considered the futility of trying to shield them from reality. For the hatred her people felt for the Rus was reality. Jin was poisoned through with venom for the creatures of Clhanistan, the loathing spread from the highest to the lowest. Nowhere could she or her daughters escape it.

Beryl had never joined in the hate for the Rus. Her experiences taught her to keep a watchful eye out for psychoses among the masses. She was in Qa’Golmec when the merchants and factory workers collectively decided the city’s health and economic problems were the fault of its many street prostitutes. She’d seen how quickly intemperate whisperings in taverns could lead to women hanging from street lamps.

But she had at least believed she understood why the Nation hated. They hated what they feared, and they feared the unknown. Very few Jin had actually met a Rus, and those who had were almost exclusively soldiers who had their own reasons for hating. When, for that glorious but brief period between governments, the Nation’s new leaders spoke truthfully about the Rus, Beryl was elated. Only light, she believed, could chase away fear of the dark.

The leaders revealed how, four hundred years earlier, Jin’s scientists watched through space-borne telescopes the terrible war on Terra between the Rus’ ancestors, called Russians, and an alliance of enemies—a war that resulted in the atomic annihilation of the Russians’ largest cities. They watched as the fledgling Rus Federacy left the Sol system in flying castles equipped with primitive dark-line technology, settling on the planet Nevas because they had nowhere else to go. Then, for six standard years, the scientists and government officials of Jin watched openmouthed as the refugees from Terra battled the Nevas elements. When it became clear the Terrans would lose that battle, the rulers of Jin began a public conversation, at the end of which emissaries were sent to Nevas.

Come to our world, they told the Federacy’s first grand duke, Khalil Popov II. Jin is enormous, with its western hemisphere perennially tilted toward our home star and the East forever tilted away. So the West is warm, while the East is cold. We hate the cold, so the eastern half of our planet is virgin land. But unlike Nevas, it has natural resources and can be developed. Come settle there, free from persecution and interference, and we all will benefit from the fruits of your labor.

So the Rus came, ten million of them, and settled in the portion of the East the Jin called Clhanos ("Place of Snow and Ice"). It was the beginning of three hundred years of mutual prosperity. The Rus found Clhanos not nearly as cold as the emissaries had described. Water was abundant, and, with minimal effort, they swept away the permafrost from vast areas of land and cultivated the soil beneath for agricultural use. They exploited rich deposits of metal and mineral ore. What resources they did not have they traded for with gold, iron, silver and tin.

The Nation also benefited from the Rus’ industriousness, but the Federacy’s greatest contributions were of a different nature. One was political. Democratic republicanism had served the Jin well when they were a collection of loosely affiliated states, but threatened anarchy after they united under a single government. They looked to their new neighbors to the east and decided the Rus’ unique system of constitutional feudalism was a better way. Thus, the rule of the Barony was born, in the form of fifteen semiautonomous fiefdoms administered by fifteen governors, titled barons. Each was imbued with sweeping authority and tasked with only one duty to the Nation as a whole, which was to meet annual quotas of soldiers for the common defense.

The other great gift was martial in nature. Indebted to the Jin, the Rus defended them as though they were family. When, sixty-three years after the Federacy migration, a fleet of alien warships swept out of the Cursa system and attacked the cities of the Nation, it was the Rus cosmovoins who raced up in their freshly built sovnyas and drove the invaders back into their space. It was Jin’s first contact with the Eridanians, a race of violent bipeds that warred on every new civilization it encountered.

For generations, the people of the Nation and the Federacy peacefully co-existed, trading and exchanging cultural knowledge and even, after the briefest period of wariness, intermarrying. But, in the years just before Beryl’s birth, something happened to bring an end to all that. Oddly, no one, not even Jin’s new government, knew what that something was, though it was characterized by a radical change in mindset among the Barons.

The Rus weren’t the Nation’s faithful friends and allies, the Barons declared in speech after public speech. They were foreigners, aliens who stole more from the Nation’s bounty than they provided. The condemnations were followed by the expulsion of the Rus ambassador to The Wheel, the closure of the Nation’s embassy and consulate offices in Clhanistan. Trade with the Federacy was banned, Rus shops were closed or burnt out, and all marriages between Rus and Jin were declared null and void. Animosity toward the people of Clhanistan built, until, by the time Beryl was old enough to read, every monster, villain and evil spirit in the children’s books had been changed to Rus monsters, villains and evil spirits.

When, fifteen years ago, the Barony began sending teams of diplomats and troops to Clhanistan to help end the bloody civil war that had broken out there, it was over the cries of the people to let the factions annihilate each other.

Beryl had believed these disclosures would ease her people out of their destructive hatred for the Rus. But it was the opposite happened. The antipathy actually increased, the people grew even more steadfast in their bigotry. It was as if hate were a faith and knowledge merely a challenge to that faith.

"Whatever reason the Barons had for this, their work is done, Beryl realized. The disease has metastasized, and we have discovered we enjoy being sick with it."

The girls at last in their clutches, she returned to her place in the center of the room and watched the DV screen. Castle Chitayol was next to leave, followed by Castle Novoyograd, and then Castle Volkov. Each departure was punctuated by views of the Wheel and the cheering masses. Beryl watched until her eyes blurred and she could watch no more.

Now she stood at the window at dawn break, hating the cold and wondering what the night’s events would bring to her doorstep, to her family and to Jin itself. It seemed unbelievable, but she had seen it with her own eyes. The Rus were leaving. They were keeping their vow sworn four years earlier to stop the war. They were leaving Jin, and Beryl wondered what the Nation would do now with all that unfocused hate.

She closed her eyes and prayed to the forbidden gods.

Mother and Father, will we ever be warm again? I do not ask for me, but for my family. Family is first. Will we ever be warm again?

A gust of wind, the first of the day as the rising sun warmed the Valley of Jhorra, scattered leaves across the plaza and swept past her, so cold it made her tear. Beryl pulled the folds of her winter coat around her. But even this coat of fine Rus sheepskin, a gift from her husband brought back from the war, could not keep her from shivering.

She was old enough to remember a time when the capital of Jin was, as most of the West, warm year round. Qa’Addis was cupped like an egg in a crescent of foothills at the base of the Jhorra Ranges. For millennia, the high peaks spared the city the worst of the wind and cold. It was why the capital was built there, why every solar year, citizens of the northern cities removed themselves to Qa’Addis on the first day of Raust—the Season of Wind. The Jin hated the wind as much as they hated to be cold.

Then, in Beryl’s ninth year, forces of the Barony used atomic explosives to blow open a pass through the Jhorras, a crime that took less than five minutes. No explanation for why it was done was ever provided the people below, not that anyone had asked. No one on Jin questioned the Barons about anything.

Soon, a plague of stillbirths and cancers descended upon Qa’Addis. Beryl recalled an old woman whispering to her mother one evening that the affliction was the judgment of the gods, enraged by the scar upon their sacred mountains. A day later, the woman vanished, never to be seen again. Since her mother did not also vanish, Beryl was certain it was she who had informed to protect her family in case the remark had been overheard. Family was first. The Barons heard all.

But plague was neither the first consequence, nor the worst. That came with the first Raust after the demolition, when the winds rose from the Jhorra Valley, howled down the newly opened pass, and the people of Qa’Addis moaned as one. They shuttered their windows and piled fuel in their hearths but could not keep the cold out. Somewhere in the North Quadrant a fire broke out, spread before the wind and, before it was sated, consumed a third of the city. Thousands were killed, Beryl’s parents among them. She remembered the death wagons clattering back and forth across the Martyr’s Plaza. She remembered her parents’ carriage riding out to join them. She could not remember a single death reported in the media.

No one complained about the wind. But every Raust thereafter, the people of Qa’Addis picked up almost to a citizen and removed to Qa’Vissau, far to the south. Since many in the pilgrimage were government officials and their families, the Barons did not protest.

Beryl and the girls would be in Qa’Vissau now, basking in warmth, were it not for her husband. Kemiel was a top administrator at the Wheel’s Bureau of Initiatives, and the Bureau was too busy these days to spare him. He had urged her to go without him. "Don’t worry about me, Beryl, he said. I’ll be fine. Think of the children."

But Beryl was thinking of the children. For their sake, she needed to be at the estate against the day he did not return from the Wheel.

She looked across the plaza, toward the dreadful statue of Gu’lail. Her eyes tried to avoid it, but could not. It was erected a hundred years earlier in honor of Jin’s greatest living scientist—Gu’lail, who discovered a vaccine for Ceti influenza and in doing so saved the lives of millions. That achievement, the Nation’s gift to the Terrans as Jin were immune to flu, instantly elevated Gu’lail to the Barony’s pantheon of Favorite Sons.

It did not, unfortunately, quench his scientific curiosity. Not ten solar years later, Gu’lail made another announcement. His research had uncovered evidence that the Jin were not, as commonly held, the descendants of Qa, who Himself had emerged sword in hand from the primordial muck. They were instead the evolutionary product of zipani—a common species of insect.

The announcement was met with revulsion by the citizenry—zipani was a delicacy in the Nation—and with cool antipathy by the Barons. Gu’lail was dragged from his laboratory at the University of Qa’Edet, brought in chains to the capital and executed at the foot of the statue bearing his image. As to the statue itself, the Barons decided it made less sense removing it than to simply lop off its head at the neck and leave it standing, a warning against further scientific heresy.

No one complained about that either.

Beryl did not enjoy looking at the headless statue, but it could not be helped. It stood in the path her husband had signaled he would take on his return at dawn from the Bureau. Kemiel silently communicated his movements to her through a code system they had worked out together. A glass bowl moved to the right of the clutchroom dresser meant he would return from work at midday through the West Gate of the plaza. A shawl draped over the chair by the main entrance, as it had been the day before, meant he would return at dawn through the North Gate. They had many such signals committed to memory, some relaying a modicum of information, others volumes. They never discussed the system because that was the point. It was how they conveyed their intentions to one another in case someone was listening. On Jin, someone was always listening.

Beryl had to know at precisely what time her husband planned to return from the Wheel and from which direction he would come because she needed to know as soon as possible when he was late.

Mother and Father, please, let it not be today. A thousand blessings in your name, a thousand…

Bacul Kemiel emerged from behind the statue of Gu’lail.

She watched him trudge across the plaza, hands clasped behind his back unseen beneath his black robe, and she did not know whether to laugh or cry. He was alive, but to see him walk this way, head bowed as by the weight of his thoughts, was painful to her. Kemiel had not always walked so.

The day she met her future husband, it was his walk that caught her attention. She was selling vat meat from the back of a cart in the Qa’Golmec marketplace when he appeared, strolling through the crowd with his brother, Garal, to where she did not know. Beryl thought he walked like a prince of old. She watched him until he turned his head in her direction and she looked down.

A bacul, perhaps, or, worse, a balak. Don’t look—no good will come from looking. But she couldn’t help it—she looked again, but when she did, he was gone. And good for that.

The next day found her hunched over her cart, skewering pieces of vat flesh on sticks for frying, when a horned shadow passed over her. It was the prince, and he was smiling at her. She stammered a greeting, and, smiling, he asked for her name.

I’m Beryl. She returned to her work, thoughts racing.

What did I do? Is this the end of me? She looked up again and saw his smile had grown. Even through her fear, it began to irritate her. At last, she said, Excuse me, sir, but why do you smile at me like that?

He replied, Forgive me, my lady, I mean you no harm. But never have I seen so beautiful a creature engaged in so ugly a chore.

She looked at him and she couldn’t help it—she laughed. It was a remark they both would repeat hundreds of times, throughout their courtship, at their wedding and at gatherings with friends. "And then he said to me, ‘Never have I seen so beautiful a creature engaged…’ Always, the tale of how they met ended with Beryl sighing, And from that moment forward, I was his."

But they weren’t always easy, those moments going forward. She learned he was neither a prince nor bacul nor balak, but the eldest son of a wealthy inquisitor far from pleased with his heir’s choice of bride. Prosecutor Bayron wanted only the best for his children, and it was his opinion this moneyless orphan—this marketplace waif—would not do.

How could you know she is the one for you? he demanded of his son. You haven’t even quarreled with her! How could you possibly know she is the one when you haven’t even quarreled?

Bayron implored Kemiel to break off the betrothal. He took away his son’s air car, berated him in public, even threatened to have Beryl arrested and killed, but the boy would not relent. Finally, Kemiel called his bluff, saying that as he had so displeased his father, he had no choice but to forego his birthright and let Garal inherit the family’s fortune.

Welcome to the family, Daughter, Bayron whispered in Beryl’s ear as he hugged her at the wedding.

From the third-story window, Beryl watched her husband pause by the North Gate and look out toward the gap that was once the penultimate peak of the Jhorras. He’s been doing that for a month now. Whenever he nears the statue he stops and looks northward, as if expecting to see something. Why? There’s nothing up there but irradiated dust.

She could have asked him, but Beryl had learned never to question Kemiel about such things. His movements she could know—his thoughts were forbidden to her. That part of him that loved her was still accessible—she saw it in his eyes and felt it in his affection. But the rest was closed off, perhaps forever. When did that happen? When did I begin to lose him?

She knew the answer, of course. She could point to it on a calendar, if it came to that. It began with Clhanistan.

The Jin mission of mercy in Clhanistan was four years in progress when Kemiel left for service in the Land of the Rus. As with his marriage, the decision to go went against his father’s wishes. Bayron begged him to reconsider.

Have you any idea, the money I’ve spent keeping you in reserve status? the Prosecutor shouted when Kemiel told him of his enlistment. "The war has all the bor it needs! You’re not wanted in the Banners! Here is where you’re needed, Kem! Here, at home! Beryl, talk some sense into your husband!"

But Beryl did not understand. Of course the Banners needed her husband. Every wall in the city was papered with posters urging citizens of consent age to sign up and do their duty for the Nation. Everyone they knew had a relative in service. That Kemiel was a mere reservist was becoming an embarrassment—every non-active-duty Jin was in some form of reserve. Her father-in-law’s protests made no sense. Worse, they were treason. The war?

Father, please, lower your voice, she said. "Why are you so concerned? Serving in the mission in Clhanistan is safer than walking the streets of Qa’Golmec at night. Everyone knows this. The Rus welcome us into their homes. How can you expect Kem to earn a reputation for himself if he doesn’t serve?"

But it was as if he hadn’t heard her. Bayron buried his face in his hands, said, My son, we have always had our differences, and I admit to not always being right. But, please, you must listen to me now.

He reached out and seized Kemiel by the shoulders.

"Do not go to Clhanistan! If you’ve ever loved me, trust me now. You are making a mistake."

Kemiel reached up and removed his father’s hands.

Of course I love you, Father—stop making this about that, he said. Beryl is right. I can’t continue as merely the son of wealthy Bayron. I need to make a name for myself. Don’t you want that? Service in Clhanistan is the best first step. Reputations are being cemented. Fortunes are being made.

Kemiel ticked off the names of family friends—and enemies—growing richer and more powerful as they rose through the Colored Banners. The military controlled everything in the Nation, and especially the money. The difference in pay between a bottom-rung bor and a vaunted bacul was the difference between comfortable and fabulously wealthy.

"I must go, Father. Clhanistan is the next, logical step, and we should count ourselves fortunate this mission is at hand when we need it."

Ten days later, Kemiel bade his wife and father farewell, walked out onto the Martyr’s Plaza and took his place at the head of the Parade of Patriots—the daily march of recruits on their way to serve in the mission. Bayron had used his influence to ensure his son landed in Clhanistan a bat—an officer of intermediate rank—under the celebrated Vermillion Banner. It was the best he could do. He and Beryl stood at the gates of the estate and watched their beloved led away, arm in arm with two fancifully dressed Val, members of the all-female Vallia Maja, among whose duties was to guide the recruits to their transports.

He is gone, said Bayron, suddenly very old. We will never see him again.

Don’t be silly, Father, she said. He’ll be back in two years as if he never left.

No, he said. We will never see him again.

But Beryl did not notice. Her eyes and thoughts were mesmerized by the pageantry of her husband’s departure. He goes as if carried forth on the wings of angels.

Five years later, Kemiel returned from Clhanistan as if dragging heavy chains.

Bayron’s every word proved prophetic, though he did not live to see it. A year after Kemiel’s departure, the Prosecutor was felled by one of Qa’Addis’ many cancers that officially did not exist. Fading on his death clutch, he asked his daughter-in-law to hear his confession. Beryl closed the doors and windows and lay in the clutch with her ear close to his lips.

Bayron’s sins were many. He told Beryl of the mistresses he kept in every quarter of Qa’Addis, and asked her to see they were provided for. He told her he had never broken faith with the gods, and provided the location to a secret altar to the Family in one of the great house’s cellars. He told her he had, twelve years earlier, approached a friend—someone who knows of such things—about hiring an assassin to kill her, and that the friend convinced him to reconsider.

Forgive me, Daughter, he said. I was a fool.

I forgave you a long time ago, Father.

He told her everything she had been told about the Jin mission in Clhanistan was a lie.

Beryl looked up at him.

What do you mean? How is it all a lie?

Tears flowed from the Prosecutor’s eyes.

Clhanistan is an abattoir, he whispered. "I’ve seen the reports—it is an abattoir. Ours is no altruistic mission. Millions have died, and millions more will follow. We thought the Rus would bend before us, but they fight. We butcher them by the transport loads and still they resist. We besiege their cities and they bomb our bases. We execute prisoners and they strangle us in our sleep. It is a horror!"

She sat up.

I don’t believe you, she said. You just want me to convince Kemiel to come home. We would know if this were happening!

"How? How would we know? Think, Beryl. Why do the transports run day and night? Why are the walls papered with recruitment posters if all is going so well? Listen to me, Daughter…"

No! I don’t believe you. Why do say these things?

Because they must be said. Listen. A…decision…has been made. The Barony’s patience is exhausted. Plans have been laid. I helped lay them.

What decision? What plans?

His lips worked until he found the strength to say the word.

Genocide.

He reached for her and she recoiled from his hand.

Beryl, you must listen. I have looked into the faces of friends returned from Clhanistan and I did not know them. One does not swim through rivers of blood and emerge untainted. If my son returns…when Kemiel returns…he will not be the husband you knew. You must help him, Beryl. You must help him find his way home. You must not lose hope, no matter how terrible the days and nights that follow.

Beryl stood, pressed her hands to her face. Could it be true? Could Clhanistan be the hell Bayron described? It could not be true. Her husband had sent her messages—not many, only three, but they’d made no mention of horrors. He’d said everything was fine—no. He did not say that. The messages were so brief. "I am in the Vulka Valley, was all one read. I have been promoted to bal, read another. We will have more money now." She had wondered why he mentioned money when they already had so much. She’d wondered why the messages were so brief. Could it be true? It could not be true. If Kem were in hell…

She had helped send him there.

I have to reach him, she said, pacing. How do you do that? Bayron, how does one get a message to Clhanistan?

"No, Bayron whispered. Do nothing. Wait for Kemiel to return and do nothing to raise suspicion. Beryl, the Barony would kill you for speaking against the weather, and the war is our darkest secret. If you were so much as suspected of knowing the truth, both you and Kemiel would be dead in minutes."

"How can I do nothing? How could you do nothing, Bayron?"

I have been eighty years an officer of justice on a world without justice, he moaned. I perfected the art of doing nothing. Of waiting and praying for the gods to bring down a reckoning on those who have betrayed our eternal Jin. If you must do something, do that—pray, child.

I have never prayed in my life.

Then now would be the time to start. You’ll find my sanctum quite comfortable and completely soundproof.

So she went down to the cellar, found and pushed upon the wood panel he had described, heard a faint click followed by an almost imperceptible slide. She moved a stack of crates aside and saw the opening. She had to get on her knees to enter, but once inside she saw that Bayron was right—it was a comfortable room, warm and well-lighted, with a soft chair in one corner and a clutch in another for meditating. Opposite them was a teardrop-shaped table covered in blue cloth, and on the table were three candles—one shaped like a man, the other a woman, and, between them, a sexless child. She recognized them from the stories her parents had told her. Faith in the Family was forbidden throughout the Nation, but the myths remained.

She knelt before the altar, and the candles lighted as if by an invisible hand. Beryl did not know what to do next—the stories made no mention of prayer. Should she clasp her hands together? Should she bow her head?

Mother and Father and Child, help me, she said. I don’t know what to do. My husband is in peril and I am so afraid. Please tell me what I should do.

She waited hours for an answer, but all she heard was the sound of her own breath. When at last she returned to Bayron, he was dead.

Beryl was waiting for Kemiel at the door. She helped him out of his robe and hung it for him, unfastened his plate armor and lifted it off his shoulders and hung it. He unplugged the two silver wires connecting his force pistol to the control bracelet on his left wrist and handed the weapon to her, and pulled the sheathed dagger from its place at the small of his back and handed that to her as well. She locked them away in the weapons drawer. Only then did they embrace, horns touching.

The children? he asked.

Sleeping. Shall I wake them for you?

No. Let them sleep.

He walked into the dining chamber and she followed. On the squat table before the roaring hearth were two bowls of zipani stew.

I thought we might eat together before you rested, Beryl said.

That was thoughtful of you, he said, facing the fire, warming himself by it. "But I’ll not be resting yet. Balak Razier and a guest will arrive shortly to discuss some matters."

Razier? Her heart thrummed. Here? Is there a problem?

You fret too easily, Beryl. It is just work. With the Rus leaving, there is much to do. Has the hearth in my study been lit?

No. I didn’t think you’d be using it.

He nodded. I’ll see to it. You should sit and have some stew, my love. You look cold.

She joined him at the fire.

I watched you, she said. Just now, as you crossed the plaza.

I know.

Where are your bodyguards? Where are Malea and her aides?

I sent her with Alun to Qa’Golmec, where she’s needed.

You sent Alun with her? Was that wise?

How do you mean?

Because Alun loves her, you fool, and that will not end well.

Was it wise to send your two best officers away at the same time?

I don’t require so much protection now, Beryl—we’ve discussed this. I’m too important to kill, at least for the present. Our enemies know how closely I’m being watched.

You were being careless. The world changed tonight, husband. We don’t even know who our enemies are anymore. When you leave yourself vulnerable like this, it’s as if you want to be cut down in the street.

What I want is for you to stop this foolishness. Listen to yourself. How can you expect me to function when you’d have me seeing assassins in every dark corner?

I hate it when you tell me I’m being foolish. I watched you, Kem. You walk as if you carry the weight of the Nation on your shoulders. What is wrong? You can talk to me—I may even be able to help if you would just let me.

He turned away.

I carry nothing but my portion of duty, he said. Beryl, I don’t tell you what’s wrong because there’s nothing wrong—at least nothing of which we aren’t already aware. You used to trust me about such things.

Reviews for After the Starman Flying

[Barry Patterson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Although I don't go for interstellar war stories really, I found this an interesting, complex & well written book. It is a tragedy that the author has died so that we will never know how he intended to follow it up.

[Kristen Ward · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Just an excellent story. I want more.