The Blood of Balnakin — The Beta Earth Chronicles: Book Two

By Wesley Britton

Unlike any adventure you've ever experienced in Star Trek, Star Wars, or any of your other favorite Sci-Fi sagas, in The Blood of Balnakin, Tribe Renbourn travels to a new continent, where even stranger adventures await. A vengeful island ruler captures them at sea; the revered Mother-Icealt of All-Domes shares prophecies and secrets that will change the planet; three of these prophecies are fulfilled, as the tribe is forced to reconcile with the country of Balnakin still seeking vengeance for the Bergarten disaster; and a heart-wrenching death trade results in the murder of one beloved wife and the unwanted salvation of another. Will Malcolm Renbourn and his family survive the surprising consequences of those prophecies?

Transport to BearManor Media, where the exclusive ebook edition of The Blood of Balnakin is now within range.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BearManor Media
• Release date: Mar 14, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386262565

Book preview

Part 1

I   Expansions and Shadows

Lorei: True said, I aware of only a few other seers on our world who share the same unbidden visions of Olos that I have known from birth. This foreknowledge be as much a part of me as my blindness and my nimbleness with tools and threads. I certain my gifts be part of a tapestry of destiny that will, one day, cast Sojoa light over many mysteries.

Till then, how explain I the dream-visions of a blind woman, visions filled with the invisible breath of the all-powerful Olos? How make I haunting revelations clear to those who need color contrasts or sharp outlines or contoured shapes to understand perception? How confess I my three visions which I kept within my womb and shared not with my own tribe? I will try.

Since claiming my portal to the Mother at our visit to the stone mazes of Alma, my sanctified rock had turned cold as ice when preserving its power, burning hot when giving alarm. No such sensations filled it in my Samlan Blan rooms. Still, its touch filled me with fearful images that ruled my dreams. By night, in my quiet bed, I saw a moment when our tribe encircled the horrible gash in the earth, the thing they called Crater Bergarten. I sensed us, hand-in-hand, humming as a tribe around the hole in the Mother, which the country of Balnakin cried was blood on our hands. Then, a tall, long-haired, beautifully shaped woman crawled across a floor toward me. Her features blurred under rivers of tears. She was brown-skinned and I feared her.

Then, in unusual, vivid, stark, textured images, I sensed a male Balnakin Brown point a chron-dart gun at me. He clenched the trigger. A strange metallic odor and searing heat bathed me. His face of rage melted into a perfect round tunnel from which a small dart drifted toward my forehead. I heard a shriek but certained not whose voice cried out. I sensed Mother Olos was exacting a price for our role in the Bergarten catastrophe.

When true dawn warmed my bed and I felt the light of Sojoa on my pillow and linen-squares, I knew these haunting dreams would have meaning not in the foreseeable moons. So, I shared them not. So, it was me, Lorei Cawl Renbourn, founding sister of our tribe, who resisted the will of Olos and shrouded my foreknowledge from my family. I would one day need beg forgiveness for this.

In my defense, please know that, during our early Samlan Blan moons, my tribe was bathing in the healing after our flight from Rhasvi to the Old Continent country of Kirip. Did we not deserve a respite from deep troubles after all we had endured? I knew now was the time for building new foundations and preparation. Now was the time not for sharing fearful if inexplicable dreams. Time enough for Balnakin torment to reach out for us again when we were ready. Until then, I bore the fear within myself.

Malcolm: During our first Kirip moons, I felt like a trapped fish swimming in aimless circles around a comfortable aquarium. Well, a noisy aquarium. An aquarium for a red-tinged light-skin alien in exile. An aquarium for a blind man in a country where he didn't know his neighbor's language. An aquarium, where I heard, all around me, running and voices and things moving as my wives, children, help-hands, and guards shaped our new existence. In this aquarium, my head sometimes seemed an airport control tower, my thoughts always sorting through sounds to decide what should land, where they should go, and when.

For example, walking down our private third floor hall each morn, I'd trace the hand-railings along the wall, then pause and throw my togs into the slots that dropped laundry to the ground-floor washers. I avoided the squat Grim-roam robots that meandered around sucking up dirt and dust from our floors and air. Each day, I stop by the large center room with mats on the floors and walls. There, I heard Doret and our Alpha Guards teaching everyone the uses of elbows in combat in Kingrol moves, how to kick out lights from inside the trunk of a four-wheeled trans — should any of us find ourselves tossed into one — and the value of running when your opponent isn't armed. Even our staff learned these skills, as well as Loes, Morei, and Malbet, who were old enough to practice wrestling and yelling instructions to each other in their secret language of Alphan English. But I merely listened. For I was forbidden from these practices of loud kicking, swinging, poking, rolling. My wives had other ways of exercising me. Most involved Brailling naked women.

Outside, I would have been lost in my meanderings if not for the footpaths of stone leading to our sea-walk in our large, back grassy area between the forests of spiny, prickle-cone trees and the cool breezes brushing over Moransea Lake. Around me, I heard the creaks of the wood swings by the water, the clear sounds of dropping tree seeds and dead branches, the cries of wing-feathers, the night growls of bronze lake-toads. I heard the lapping of gentle waves on our beach, the rustle of saw grass. To my right, I heard the squawking of Yil Rimudas's chickens out past Elsbeth's turtle pens and composts marked by her chimes and bells. On quiet days, I could sometimes hear the clicking and tinging of the generators on the wind-poles closest to the living area. I could sometimes hear the engines of our patrollers on the water when they moved to discourage other boats from sailing too close to our part of the shore. Occasionally, I heard the crunching boots of our armed Alpha Guards striding on the land. It was hard to hear the quiet, padded feet of the six-legged, growling Rors that accompanied the guards, the short-eared dog-like beasts ready to lurch if someone without the Renbourn scent appeared without warning. But when the guards, or anyone else, pushed their way through the thick foliage surrounding the cleared area, I heard the dry crackling of Popi-limb plants. And, if I turned my head, listening to the main road up the incline in front of our Samlon, I heard the laughs of women and children picking cherries while avoiding the pricks of tree scarabs.

In our first moons, I feared to step too quickly in any direction. Without my cane and the loud directions called out by adults, Morei, Malbet, and our older young ones, I might tread on one of Elsbeth's huge, hump-backed, hard-shelled Bolis turtles that might have escaped her pens to avoid becoming a part of a pea, bean, yam, and anything-else-green stew or tea. Believe me, I'm not complaining. At Samlon Blan, nothing was likely to get my Fire Alarm chirping, the patch I wore on my chest to alert us should my weakened heart go beyond its limits. There was no reason to ride my damnable Starship, the delightless wheelchair I sat in for public occasions. Instead, if one were to choose a home comfortable and nurturing, a home distant from the eyes of a hungry planet, no aquarium could be better than our Samlon Blan.

Joline: When we fled from frightened Rhasvi to our Samlon, Tribe Renbourn looked forward to new beginnings, a fresh start allowing us to better intermingle into the wider world. It happened not as we hoped. At first, the high ceilings, generous rooms, covered porches, wide halls and staircases seemed to swallow up everything we owned in our third floor sleeping quarters and special chambers. Our tribe and hands, who lived on our second floor, barely needed one-third the space. In those days, our ground floor's greeting and dining halls were still musty, dusty smells in empty, echoing chambers of dark green and brown tones before we began filling the space and deadening the hollowness of the hard floors. At first, some walls showcased painted murals on the wood and stone, but were so old the images were colorless, chipped, flaked, muted with portraits and vistas lost to time. We covered them with bright, reflective tapestries hiding some perhaps interesting history. We covered the once ornamental, now dull and broken, floor tiles with soft carpets and rugs. Tall shelves now filled with countless books looking like stacks of ill-matched bricks. We had but begun to add large rust and amber colored tables for dining, trophies for display, desks, seats, and machines for our public offices lining the right wall beyond the entry arch.

In those days, we still marveled looking up at our three-level Samlon looming like a creature of wood, rock, and stone. A natural part of the land. Surrounded on three sides by forests and our private side of beautiful Maronsea Lake, the Samlon would draw all eyes to it no matter who lived inside.

In some ways, I told Husband, we occupants are but decorators of this place, mere mortals whose presence is tolerable if unnecessary.

In short time, the curly-haired Legem of Moran, who Malcolm said would be called a Mayor on Alpha, made clear we intruders were both unnecessary and intolerable, at least in the opinion of the local Kiripeans. At first, he had been a face of deep smiles, his long, thin beard looking like a greased tail flowing to his naval. The Legem was puffy with resolve as he brought plans for the next equinox festival that was to be held, as it had been for countless seasons, on Samlon grounds. His chin remained high but the smile faded as the new captain of our Alpha Guards sat with the Legem in our dining chamber and explained such festivities now possibled not. Not only was the safety of the only alien from another planet of priority, a new building sat by the entrance of our property that contained extremely confidential records of a very unique bloodline. Who could come and go would now be tightly controlled. Crowds now impossibled.

A dissatisfied Legem departed with loud, powerless threats. He quickly learned his country's leaders had indeed promised these Renbourns a sanctuary from any and all potential threats. For short time, we thought not more of him. Then, the Legem returned with smiles not but with a purplish face screaming that the Alpha Guards in the forest were forbidding hunters from coming too close to our estate. As he pounded on Alnenia's desk, we could tell him not, but we too saddened for this need. Back in Rhasvi, in the cold winter snows after Crater Bergarten, I'd stood on our Hearthstone Sojoa porch watching first the Rhasvin Guardians and then the secops — the armed security officers — sent by Sikas Ricipa, laying ground-wires, erecting night beamers, and hiding traps in the fields and woods to warn us of unbidden intruders. We all learned to scan the electronic maps of the land around us revealing every movement of human, child, or beast in the suddenly cropped short grasses. Once, we'd been surrounded by these fields alive with colorful seed buds and long flowering arms reaching up to drink Sojoa light. But, we'd been warned, such covering was too perfect for crawling reptilian intruders wishing to strike out at a tribe many felt should vanish like the Bergarten martyrs. Here in Kirip, for short time, we enjoyed a near bluff overlooking the Moransea where Husband first speared Doret. Then Pharisee balloons and propeller whirlies in the sky made us fearful to even relax there, full clothed or no.

So, we were as unhappy as the Legem who angered his people could no longer bear chrons, bows, or knives anywhere on Renbourn property. He angered that two patrol boats now floated in the waters by our shores and all knew the boats contained scanners to watch what happened below. He angered he was permitted not to see for himself what all our precautions were. Poor Alnenia, her belly growing with her first. She was now our household manager while we others were involved in so many doings.

I, for example, was often off on winger tours of many cities and locations smiling in V-films wearing Qere's Al-Beta garb and playing with the new Alpha device — the zipper. Lorei and Doret spent much time traveling to religious domes and centers for the Tribe of the Unsighteds. Sad said, they were the pair who most tried to make friends in Moran. But, to use a Malcolmism, the sight of a famous blind seer and a short mutant seemed to freak out the simple folk. Moran was a region of plain, practical people wearing plain, practical togs. Moran had no halls for performing thespian troupes or traveling musical ensembles. Such were discouraged by local Icealts who, instead, every few days struck the impressive, echoing mournful Dome-gongs that reminded all that worship time was nigh.

Of course, my sisters went nowhere without a conspicuous Alpha Guard. Such protectors scanned faces for Pharisees who had been relishing collecting unhappy opinions about us in Moran. Elsbeth would have been the most likely of us to charm our neighbors, but Elsbeth was more than busy at home, attending to the children, the fields, and animals in the area behind the Samlon. So, it was the Rimudas children who traded with Moran's merchants while Yil's girls kept hopeful eyes open for Kiripean spears.

So, it was left to Alnenia to explain, again and again, our regrets for our needs. I certain you saw, she told the Legem, the flying balloons and whirlies of newsers in the skies seeking colcars here?

More than those! the Legem bellowed. Fleets of the same, fleets of Helprims, your constant city merchandisers! Streams of the uninvited to our once peaceful region!

Fair said, the healing Helprims and our merchandisers, Alnenia replied, are no trial for your people. The helprims live and labor in their own building. They trespass nowhere in Moran other than to purchase goods in your shops. We control them not. Any problems you have with the Alpha Project should be taken to them or their masters in Munchen. Oja's merchandisers have built their own small village of ovals, out of the way. They, too, add accounts to your marts. If you know of a way to discourage the newsers, oh ho, expect our full cooperation in ridding us all from this, yes, plague be too kind a word!

In response, the Legem returned the next moon with new policies drafted by the town leaders. He presented us a map of the Moransea and pointed to where new buoys would now float. Beyond these lines, the Legem sneered, Renbourn boats are welcome not. All others remain free to enjoy all they see. But if any alien trespass occurs, expect costly penalties!

True said, unpleasant as these restrictions were, we all enjoyed the day when Elsbeth excitedly rushed inside the Samlon to tell all to look out our windows. Our lakeside neighbors, tired of the intrusions of the flying Pharisees, had declared war on the newsers. Racing around on their motorized boats, they shot projectile harpoons into the hot-air balloons. We all laughed to see the balloon wreckage now floating on the water. After several of these plummeted into the lake and their soggy crews were forced to swim ashore, at least these slow-moving annoyances disappeared from the sky. In short time, we smiled to see masts on Moransea boats boasting sails and flags made of salvaged balloon skins. Malcolm wanted to celebrate our neighbor's victory by smuggling pravines to them.

Our Alpha Guard captain shook her head. They'd just fill the empty bottles with vile fluids and fling them back to us from catapults on their boats or some like mischief.

She smiled. Just like the games they play on our land borders. They sneak into the forest and leave behind hidden, spiny Wazil vines that stick to Ror paws. Nothing sounds quite like an infuriated Ror! Or they throw rotten Fypp seed pods at our people that give off a nasty stink. She laughed. As long as all they're doing is playing at this sport, I see nothing to worry about. Keeps your guards on their toes and often spending more time in bath-shells washing off Fypp smell!

Alnenia: While the sometimes playful resentments of our neighbors was one issue for us, a more serious worry beamed on the labors in the Alpha Project in their building off the way. It's probably strange said not, but the Project was a place we knew well not. Of course, they had their own special security concerns. On the outside, the Project looked deceptively unremarkable, like any ordinary office building with a second floor of living quarters. While the walls were partially covered with orange-tinted Sojoa sheets, no one could look in or out. For they were but part of an outer layer façade laid over solid metal-and-stone walls any Moransean harpoon would bounce off of. They had their own electronic jammers to ensure none of their correspondence or conversations could be intercepted. The Project had their own armed Secops who kept in communication with our Alpha Guards.

Inside, half the first floor was the large sterile clinic and comfortable conference room we did know well. The other half contained secret laboratories protected behind thick, smooth metal walls and doors that required special keys and codes to open. The almost cave-like echoes and the sanitary odors of this chamber, I certain, filled Malcolm's cran with memories of Shaprim Kharg's Bergarten institute of experiments. The rest of us understood few of the machines like the particle-scopes, filter funnels, and the spinning multiple-bowl centrifuges that separated blood and fluid matter into their component parts.

Along one wall were a series of small booths, where scientists transferred substances in controlled conditions as both time and temperature could ruin the potency of blood samples. On another wall, a large, illuminated picture of Malcolm's DNA was surrounded by many identifying numbers and terms that indicated what the scientists had apparently matched with similar ladders in Betan males or Husband's offspring.

All our children had their own pages of detailed skills in which the Helprims were seeking to distinguish Alphan from Beta characteristics. What was different about alien physiology untainted by the Plague-With-No-Name? Could such immunity be given to others? And were their things in Alphan fluids that could cure other diseases beyond the Plague?

These Helprims, no surprise, were most interested in the merging of two species and had begun a complex chart of all our sons and daughters, the true bridges between two earths. In Betans we've tested, Helprim Sanon told us as she pulled up slides on her table-top displayer, our own blood defenses reject most Alphan matter as, well, alien and dangerous. The reverse is also true for most Betan fluids mixed in Alphan samples. Other components react not at all and we wonder what they might add to or detract from a recipient. But why do your children thrive with no such consequences? Certain said, their, ah, viability begins at conception in the wombs of their mothers. In the silence that followed this pronouncement, we knew the unstated accusation Sanon voiced not. They wanted Malcolm’s namna. They wanted to study Alphan sperm uniting with Betan eggs. They wanted to look in their scopes and watch cell clusters form. We feared they wanted to impregnate women chosen by the Munchen Collective whose children we would never know. This happened not. One spear was always drained bone dry before it entered this clinic.

Still, every few arcs, Malcolm and the children strolled up to the clinic room and laid on tables where tubes could draw blood and other samples for both chillers and the research into alien and Al-Beta biology. We could see the disappointment when the Helprims would realize Malcolm's blood levels were high enough not to pull more than a small vial. When only one man is a donor, samples were extremely limited. We did happy when they learned Malcolm's blood had components not given to his offspring that seemed to be protectors against unbidden diseases. So, serums derived from Malcom's fluids were crafted and injected into our children as this vaccination was deemed safe and wise.

To reduce the spreading of any possible Betan germs, the Project also built quarantine rooms on both our second and third floors. There, sufferers from seasonal contagions could rest in quiet and hopefully not share their pains with others. If the Project Helprims had their way, Malcolm would stay inside the Samlon, surround himself with air-filters and water purifiers, eat specially prepared foods, wear monitors sending signals they could evaluate on their equipment, and especially avoid possible pollutants from our trees, land, and lake waters.

Some of their desires Malcolm found bizarre, as in their wish he wear disinfecting bio-suits, helmets, or mask and gloves when he was in protected environments not. So, a sighted wife always went along with Husband or our offspring to ensure the Project tried not to sneak anything past a blind alien. I admit, no children on our planet were so closely observed. We saw many charts and cut-away colcards of their innards showing youthful development, all seeming as normal as any Betan, best we knew. I could watch little Sikas growing inside me. I could look up at the screen and see hazy, ghostly, watery images until the Helprims pointed out his body parts. I could have watched that screen all day.

Joline: Sad said, with Moran, the Alpha Project, and seemingly every day a new challenge, no wonder we made serious missteps. But some decisions were beyond prophecy, intuition, and our special needs. For example, one special morn meal set so many wheels in motion. It began when I shared a strange request from Dotesr Oja Bolvair, my mentor, the woman who'd made me a displayer, the woman who brought Alnenia to our tribe. The friend who possibled all our current plans. While Oja preferred a private home-life in the city of Mange with her fellow female long-nose, the charming, tentative, and timid Bli Swellrad, the Dotesr wished a child. A child given from artificial-fathering. While such was unusual not, especially for other long-noses and women in her privileged strata, what she asked of me troubled us. Like many others, she wanted an Alpha-child, hopefully a male who could survive the first threatening year of the Plague-With-No-Name.

Malcolm: Joline's morn revelation certainly surprised us all. I hadn't expected such desires from the Dotesr, but I'd heard endless streams of requests from the Alpha Project. I knew they wanted children from various blood-lines in scattered places they could control. But this was different. A request from a friend and benefactor.

I leaned forward, picked up one of the wrinkled chicken-strips that were supposed to simulate Alphan bacon — pigs existing not on this world — and shared my thoughts. I'm not sure about this. At all. I feel like I'm just a dispenser some days, a pump of cells and juices. Would Oja promise to keep the fatherhood of any children secret? I'd hate for the Project to get wind of this.

Munching