Caelestis Series: Books 1-3 Plus Aelwyd: Home

By Louisa Locke

Mabel Yu is one of the ten Founding Families of the Paradisi Project who left a dying Earth to settle New Eden. Jaxon is Mabel's friend and a Reacher, the group of men and women who were responsible for the success of the Paradisi Project. Mei Lin Yu is Mabel's descendent who discovers a secret about her family and the native Ddaerans that will forever change her destiny. Silence is a sentient snowcat who bridges the divisions between Founders, Ddaerans, and Reachers.

These individuals will shape the future of humanity as it struggles to escape the failures that destroyed Earth and build a new paradise in a far-away galaxy.

The three books and the bonus short story in this boxed set are the first works in USA Today bestselling author Locke's Caelestis series, a coming of age, action adventure series that is part of the Paradisi Chronicles, an open-source science fiction world created by multiple authors.

This set includes:

Book 1: Between Mountain and Sea
Book 2: Under Two Moons
Book 3: Through Ddaera's Touch
Plus a short story: Aelwyd: Home

• Language: English
• Publisher: M. Louisa Locke
• Release date: Apr 6, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386989622

Book preview

Caelestis Series: Books 1-3

CAELESTIS SERIES: BOOKS 1-3

Plus Aelwyd: Home

LOUISA LOCKE

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Copyright © 2017 by Mary Louisa Locke

All rights reserved.

Cover design © 2017 Michelle Huffaker

All rights reserved.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Ddaeran Pronunciation

Between Mountain and Sea: Paradisi Chronicles

Cast of Characters

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

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Acknowledgments

Under Two Moons: Paradisi Chronicles

Cast of Characters

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

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Acknowledgments

Through Ddaera's Touch: Paradisi Chronicles

Cast of Characters

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

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Acknowledgments

Aelwyd: Home

Aelwyd: Home

Other Works by Author

Other Works in the Paradisi Chronicles

About the Author

Yu Family Genealogy

Excerpt of Tides of Acerba (Caelestis Series Book 4)

INTRODUCTION

In the early decades of the twenty-first century, the problems of climate change, epidemics, civil war, cyber terrorism, and nuclear proliferation have set Earth on a path of escalating disasters.

In the year 2025 AD, ten men and women come together to address these problems. These individuals each have enormous personal wealth that they made in a variety of commercial enterprises around the globe. What they have in common besides their great wealth is a deep pessimism about the future of Earth and an enormous optimism about space exploration as the only viable solution for the continuation of humankind. To that end, these men and women, who call themselves the Founders, begin the Paradisi Project.

The purpose of the Paradisi Project is the colonization of New Eden, a recently discovered planet in the Andromeda Galaxy that scientists deem capable of sustaining human life. The Paradisi Project harnesses the best minds on Earth to develop the scientific breakthroughs in interstellar travel and wormhole technology needed to transport the ten Founding Families to New Eden to establish a viable colony. Once there, their mission will be to ensure that this new colony doesn’t make the same mistakes that are destroying Earth.

By 2092 AD, the Paradisi Project has achieved its goals. With Earth continuing on its path to destruction, a fleet of ten ships are launched, each carrying 10,000 passengers––Founding Family members, their loyal employees, and the staff necessary to build a new civilization once their journey ends. What the Founders didn’t count on was that, even though they easily conquer the technologically backward natives they encounter when they first arrive, these Ddaerans have mystifying powers that will make them dangerous enemies.

Meanwhile, the Founders had left behind the SS Challenge, the 11th ship and the prototype for the rest of the Nautilus Fleet. The Reachers, employees of the Reach Corp, were promised passage on this ship if they retrofitted it for the long journey to New Eden, and as a reward for their role building the space elevators, stations, and ships that made the Paradisi Project possible, but when the time comes for their journey to New Eden, they face nothing but betrayal.

By the fifth generation of settlement, New Eden isn’t quite the paradise the Founders hoped for, and there are the beginnings of a movement to resist the ten Founding Families and the Council of Ten that governs the world.

Between Mountain and Sea (Caelestis Series Book 1) features Mabel Yu, one of the Founders who made the journey to New Eden, and her descendent, Mei Lin Yu, who, in 165 AA (After Arrival), comes to live at Mynyddamore, the ancestral home that Mabel Yu built in the first years of settlement as a place where Founders and Ddaerans, the natives that were already living on New Eden, could live in harmony. Here, Mei Lin discovers secrets about herself and her family’s past that will forever change her destiny.

Under Two Moons (Caelestis Series Book 2) is set in 167 AA, two years after the events of Between Mountain and Sea, and features Mei Lin Yu and her family and Ddaeran friends as they discover visitors from a distant past and a threat to Mynyddamore’s future.

Through Ddaera’s Touch (Caelestis Series Book 3) begins right after the conclusion of Under Two Moons, as Mei Lin works to forge an alliance between Ddaerans, New Eden citizens, and Reachers to resist their common enemies.

Aelwyd: Home is a short story that features Kammie, one of Mabel Yu’s friends who came with her on the long journey to New Eden. This story is set in the first months of settlement in the Yu’s New Hong Kong base, and details what happens in first contact between the Founders and Ddaerans.

For more information about the Paradisi Chronicles series, including maps of Caelestis, New Eden, where most of the action in these stories occurs, go to https://paradisichronicles.wordpress.com

DDAERAN PRONUNCIATION

Feel free to pronounce these words in your head any way you want. The Ddaerans won’t care!

Aderyn –– ah-DARE-in

Awelon –– ah-WEH-lon

Arwyn –– AR-win

Bleddyn ––BLETH-in

Ceridwyn –– ker-ID-win

Ceri –– KER-ee

chwibana –– choo-ee-BAH-na

Ddaera -– THIE-ra

Ddaerans –– THIE-rans

Derryth –– DER-ith

Dilys –– DILL-iss

Eurig –– IR-ig

Glynis –– GLUN-ees

gwynddoeth ––GWIN-thoyth

Hefin –– HE-veen

hen ddynion –– HEN-thun-EE-on

Hen Nain –– HEN NINE

llynog –– Shun-og

Mamgu –– MAM-gih

Meddalwyn ––Meth-ALL-winn

Myfanwy ––muh-VAN-wee

Mynyddamore –– munn-uh-tha-MORE-eh

Mynyddeira ––munn-uh-THIE-rah

Rhewllyd –– RHOO-shid

Rhew –– ROO

Tadcu –– TAD-kih

Tegwyn –– TEG-win

Tesni –– TES-nee

Ynyr –– Un-ear

Between Mountain and Sea: Paradisi Chronicles

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Copyright © 2015 by Mary Louisa Locke

All rights reserved.

Cover design © 2015 Michelle Huffaker

All rights reserved.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Yu Founding Family*

Mark––Founder of Mynyddeira branch of Yu Family

Muriel Wong––Mark’s wife

Mabel––their daughter

Mei Lin Wong (Nai Nai)––Mabel’s grandmother

Walter––Mabel’s husband

Michael––their youngest son

Betsy Kuttner (Hen Nain)––Michael’s wife

Tadcu Jie––their youngest son

Dr. Eleanor––Tadcu Jie’s wife

John––their son

Joanna––John’s wife

Albert––their son

Mei Lin––their daughter

Ddaerans at Mynyddamore

Arwyn––Headman of Mynyddamore

Ceridwyn––his wife and healer

Derryth––their daughter

Ynyr––Derryth’s husband

Dilys––their child

Mamgu––Dilys’s daughter

Ceri––Mamgu’s daughter and healer

Aderyn––Mamgu’s daughter and Captain of the Swift

Bleddyn––Mamgu’s son

Hefin––Bleddyn’s twin son

Tesni––Bleddyn’s twin daughter

Glynis––Mei Lin’s nurse

Tegwyn––herder

* Unless otherwise noted, all these people had Yu for their last name

CHAPTER ONE

Mabel Yu’s Diary

Three Months to Launch, Earth 2092 AD

For my fifteenth birthday, my father gave me this super sturdy voice-activated tablet. Said I could enter my private thoughts here and download my favorite books and photographs…to take to New Eden. He cautioned me that even for this stripped-down model the memory capacity is finite and that I couldn’t depend on there being anywhere to upload when the memory was full. Same with everything else—I have to really think about what I want to pack for the trip. Each of us only gets a small personal container since cargo space is so limited and everything we want can just be printed out when we get there. Ten thousand people are a lot to cram into one space ship. What I really want is to be able to bring my grandmother. But they say she is too old to come.

She raised me since I was a baby, and I hated leaving her behind when I came up to Nautilus Space Station four years ago. I miss her so much. I am having trouble remembering all of the Hakka words she taught me. There is no one up here who speaks that language—not even my mother. She doesn’t like it when I use Hakka words.

All my Yu cousins look down on my mother and me because of our Hakka ancestry. Yet our teachers say that in New Eden—where you were born, what you look like, how you practice your spiritual beliefs—none of that will be important anymore. We will all be Founders of New Eden.

I would like to believe that. But then why did each of the ten Founding Families build its own spaceship? Why are over half of the spots on those ships reserved for people related to those ten families? Why does each Family live in a separate part of the space station? And why did they start making Jaxon and all the other Reacher kids stay in their own section of the station last month so they can’t even attend school with us anymore?

It wasn’t that way when I first came to the Nautilus. Almost a third of the kids in my class were the children—some even the grandchildren—of the people who have been working for years and years for Reach Corp. They are the ones who built the space elevators, stations, and the ships. Most of them, like my friend Jaxon, have been up here longer than me and my stupid cousins.

Mei Lin Yu

May 22, 165 AA (After Arrival), New Eden

Mei Lin Yu straightened out her legs and was surprised to feel a sudden lifting of a warm weight that had kept the blanket snug against her feet. This odd sensory impression was followed by a soft touch on her face and the sound of someone or something scurrying away. A human medical technician? One of the robotic monitors? Puzzled, she opened her eyes and was even more confused when she saw that the wall next to her was constructed of rough plaster.

Definitely not her room in the Winston Yu Hospital back in New Hong Kong.

Had her parents actually taken time to come rescue her? Taken her back with them to whatever remote geological exploration site in the southern hemisphere of New Eden that they were currently excavating?

This slender hope crumbled when she remembered. Not my parents. It was Albert who’d arrived in her hospital room yesterday. Her insufferable brother who swept in and announced that he’d chartered a private helio––at great expense––to deposit her at Mynyddamore where the grandparents she’d never met could deal with her. Deal with me! Like it was her fault that the laser eye surgery went wrong.

She’d tried to tell the school nurse practitioner that just because the New Hong Kong Academy had an on-site clinic that did routine corrective procedures didn’t mean that she should get her astigmatism taken care of there. She explained that she hadn’t reacted well to laser surgery in the past. But no one ever listened to her. And when she sent an urgent message asking her parents to intervene, her mother’s response was that scheduling the procedure in a hospital would take too long and that Mei needed to be ready for the university entrance exam that was in two days.

That worked out well, didn’t it, Mother?

Two days later, while her classmates took the all-important exam that determined who would get into the best scientific research institutions in New Eden in the fall, she was lying in a dark hospital room with her eyes bandaged. The only reason she scheduled the surgery was that she’d done miserably on the prelim exams, and her parents, in their infinite wisdom, decided it was somehow her slight astigmatism that was the problem. Because how could it be that their daughter was just genetically defective when it came to science? Which was what Albert thought.

Albert––who’d obtained the highest marks of his class ten years ago when he’d taken the exam. Albert––who’d parlayed his double degree in business and physical engineering to become the youngest manager in MynyEnergy, the Yu’s energy business. Albert––who would eventually be expected to find a low-level job for her at MynyEnergy if she ended up going to one of the less prestigious colleges that her parents felt were no better than finishing schools for the mediocre. No wonder he was angry with her.

What else was new? He’d been angry with her from the day she was born, and her parents decided to send him off to boarding school a year early. At least that was what Glynis, her Ddaeran nurse, told her one Founders Day holiday when she was five and Albert was particularly nasty to her.

Glynis, more of a mother to her than her own mother, was the only one who’d hugged her when she left to attend the same boarding school. Yet three years ago, her parents didn’t even bother to tell her that Glynis died. Mei only discovered she was gone when the annual ecard she’d posted, wishing her old nurse a safe and happy solstice, was bounced back as recipient deceased.

Not surprising, then, that it was Glynis she yearned for during the first forty-eight hours in the hospital, when she worried she might lose her sight completely. Glynis would have held her hand and told her in her soft Ddaeran accent that everything would be all right.

The same Ddaeran accent spoken by the man who met the helio last night and lifted me into his arms.

She didn’t remember much after that. Darkness, a glimpse of Caeruleum, the larger of the two moons, rising over the man’s shoulder, and then the odd experience of being carried up stairs instead of rising in a lift.

Finally, she remembered being laid down and covered in an incredibly soft blanket that smelled oddly spicy. A blanket that she now pulled up over her head, intending to go back to sleep and hoping that everything that happened since she heard the idiot intern operating the laser say, Oh shit, was simply a bad dream.

When Mei woke again, the light in the room was considerably brighter, and she wondered what time it was. Without thinking, she blinked three times rapidly. Nothing. No screen telling her the day and time, outside temperature, or list of messages. She reached behind her left ear. No DOT or Data Optical/Auditory Transmitter to tap for audio messages. She recalled that the nurse had removed it right before her emergency surgery in the hospital to stop the hemorrhaging in her eyes. The surgery the doctor assured her would save her sight…if she temporarily refrained from using the CONTACTs or Continuous Optical Neural Transmitting Audio Computing Technology that every member of a Founding Family wore to access the Net.

No wonder Albert decided to send her out to the ancestral home in the western province of Caelestis––a region so backward that even her geologist father and paleontologist mother never visited there. He certainly wasn’t going to be stuck for the whole summer with a sixteen-year-old sister who had to rely on some antiquated mobile to communicate.

As if there was anyone who wanted to communicate with her. Her roommates from the Academy hadn’t even come to visit in the week she’d been confined in the hospital. No big loss. She found their constant on and offline nattering about the latest fashions, the latest celebrity scandal, and the latest scientific breakthroughs equally boring. How many times had she screamed in her head for them all to just SHUT UP and leave her in peace?

Be careful what you wish for.

She sighed and sat up, wrapping the soft blood-red blanket around her shoulders. She guessed anything was better than being stuck with her brother, and she was curious to meet her grandparents and see Mynyddamore, the strange compound they lived in at the western base of the famous Mynyddeira Mountains, which contained the highest peak in New Eden.

Albert told her that he came here once to visit before she was born. He thought it very odd of their grandparents and great-grandmother to live so far from any of New Eden’s big cities—the only Founder descendants living among the local Ddaerans––or Originals, which was what most ignorant people like Albert called the people who were native to New Eden.

While he’d actually sounded impressed with the ancestral home—saying it looked like some old Earth medieval fortress—she always figured this was more reflective of his age, which was eight when he’d visited. Adolescent boys, even now in 165 AA, seemed perennially fascinated by the old Earth games. This winter something called the Elder Chronicles was all the rage with the boys in her dormitory.

As she looked around, she remembered the picture on the Net she’d seen of Mynyddamore, which was supposedly constructed on the model of something called a roundhouse that some of her Earth ancestors lived in hundreds, if not thousands, of years earlier. She found the picture while working on the family history that everyone had to do in their first year of New Eden civics classes. No one got into the New Hong Kong Academy unless they were directly related to one of the ten Founding Families, so the teacher made it clear that a paper just telling about the initial ten Founders who started the Paradisi Project back on Earth wouldn’t be acceptable. Instead, she encouraged them to focus on later descendants or a minor branch of their family.

Not a problem, since Mei’s immediate family was descended from Mark Yu, the youngest and most minor son of the Yu Founding Family. This branch of the family eventually rose in wealth and importance, as Albert was always telling her. However, in the first years after arrival, their only interesting achievement was to peacefully settle the far western coast of Caelestis and build this very strange combination fort, home, and village.

She blinked again and then swore. She’d forgotten she couldn’t access the Net to see the picture or even her personal files where she’d saved the diagram of the building she’d created using a tricky architectural software. The diagram was what earned her an A on that paper. Closing her eyes, she recalled the drawing.

At least my memory isn’t defective.

She remembered that Mynyddamore, which was Ddaeran for between mountain and sea, was a large circular building surrounding an inner courtyard that housed another circular building and a square communal hall. The main outer building was four stories high, and the first floor had no windows on the outside (the wiki article she’d read said this was for defensive reasons). There were small windows ringing the second and third floors and much larger windows on the very top floor under a steeply sloping roof made of the solar tiles patented and manufactured by the Yu family.

Looking around the room, she decided she must be on this top floor because the convex, curved wall held two large windows that went from about chest height to near the ceiling.

She got up, trailing the blanket behind her, and saw that the wall itself was nearly a meter deep, providing good natural insulation, something every New Eden child was taught about in their beginning ecology classes. The window itself held only a row of vertical metal bars—no other barrier. This explained the frigid temperature in the room and the sharp salty smell she now identified as sea air. What would they do in the winter to keep out the cold…or the rain? Then she noticed the wooden shutters on either side of the windows that could be pulled across. This would keep out wind and rain––as well as any light––a gloomy thought.

There was a wooden stool under the window and a cushion on the deep windowsill, so she climbed up to get a better look out. Pressing her face between the bars, she had an unbroken view straight to the horizon where a cloudless pale blue sky met the extraordinary dark blue of the Sapphire Sea. She’d always thought the name was just a fancy of the first Founders, but today she realized they were being completely accurate—the water, glinting with sun beams, was the unique color of the precious gem.

She’d never seen anything so beautiful. Mei felt tears well up. What if the botched laser surgery had meant she had lost her sight forever?

When she’d first awakened in the hospital, eyes bandaged, she’d told herself that being blind would solve so many problems. She always felt like a freak on the inside anyway. Now it would just be obvious to everyone. Of course, her parents would have insisted that she get the artificial eyes that were supposed to be better than new—providing all sorts of enhanced features. Probably order them in standard brown so she would finally look like the rest of her family. But the compensation for even temporary blindness would be that no one would expect her to go on to Chandler University in New Seattle in the Fall.

But then I would never have seen the Sapphire Sea in all its natural glory.

Some moments later, Mei felt a presence behind her and twisted around. A round-eyed male gwynddoeth sat on the sill of the narrow window that looked out into the inner courtyard. She’d only seen photographs and vids of this animal who was native to western Caelestis and rumored to speak telepathically to Ddaerans. While about the size of the domestic cats bred by the wealthiest members of New Eden society, gwynddoeths were shaped more like the monkeys of old Earth, including prehensile fingers and toes and a long tail that aided in climbing.

This gwynddoeth’s body was brown, flecked with gold. His face was composed of a triangle of black fur encompassing widely spaced brown eyes and a short muzzle. Two rounded black ears peeked out from the light golden fur that encircled that face. The result was a countenance both wise and comical. He raised one hand as if to wave and then disappeared with lightning speed, leaving Mei feeling strangely bereft. Had he been the weight she’d felt at her feet while sleeping?

Wondering if he was alerting someone that she was now awake, Mei decided she’d rather not meet her unknown relatives in the wrinkled shirt and pants she’d slept in. She was relieved to discover that the door next to the bed led to a small bathroom that followed the basic design the Founders brought with them onboard their ships—a sink, toilet, and shower head in a tiled box. Something simple that could be printed out using raw materials at hand––in this case, the sand from the beaches of the Sapphire Sea and carbon-based graphene extracted from local trees.

This unit was probably over a hundred and fifty years old yet still functional, but Albert would have been livid if he’d been forced to use it––no spa jets, soaker tub, scented soap dispensers, or heated floors.

There was a rough thick towel and a bar of soap on the window sill, and she was glad to see there was glass in this window, which seemed to be the only source of light. What did they do at night?

She stripped off her clothes and showered, pleased to find the water was hot. Wrapping the towel around her, she went back to the room to pull out a clean set of clothes from her bags, which were set on top of an old battered dresser.

Albert had said something about having one of her Academy roommates pack everything up for her, and there wasn’t much in the bags but school uniforms—which she’d never have to wear again. Her parents gave her a small allowance each term, but she usually spent the credits on computer upgrades, software, and books for her personal tablet. She found some exercise pants and old cotton shirts that were her preferred casual clothing. She also put on her favorite green quilted jacket, since the sea breeze coming in the window was still cold.

Locating a tiny mirror on the door that accessed the inner courtyard, she started to plait her wet hair into one long braid, not having seen any drying devices anywhere.

The face that stared back at her from the mirror was unusually thin, accentuating its long oval shape and pointed chin. Her green eyes stared warily back from her reflection. She did have the thick black hair of someone of Chinese heritage, but the tiny wisps at her temple, which curled and glinted red, hinted at the genetic influence of her great-grandmother, Betsy Kuttner, the only member of her family tree who wasn’t of Asian descent. According to Albert, this ancient woman was still living here at Mynyddamore. Mei wondered if she would feel any special affinity with the woman who may have been responsible for both the physical and intellectual characteristics that made Mei an outsider in her own family.

A knock at the door caused Mei to step hastily away. She then froze from the familiar sense of panic she felt when she met a new person or a new situation.

The gwynddoeth appeared on the windowsill to her right, cocking his head so quizzically that Mei chuckled and the panic ebbed away.

Please come in, she said, and the door opened inward.

Standing in front of her was a girl just a trifle taller than her own five foot seven inches, who had, as most Ddaerans did, green eyes very much like her own. But unlike Mei, this girl’s eyes were round, her hair was short, light brown, and curly, and her skin was a healthy tan.

She wore a tunic and leggings the color of dark tea, and Mei, who normally found the idea of wearing something made from the skin of an animal distasteful, found herself coveting the girl’s knee-high boots, which weren’t at all fashionable but looked extremely comfortable.

My name is Tesni, and I believe you have already met Eurig, the girl said, nodding at the gwynddoeth.

The girl’s voice was low and musical, and while the Ddaeran accent was present, her English was quite precise. She continued, Would you like to come down to the community hall? My grandmother and your great-grandmother are there to greet you, and they have saved you some breakfast.

The gwynddoeth swung over, landing on Tesni’s shoulder, throwing his arms around the girl’s neck and staring intently at Mei, who nodded and said, Yes, not sure whether it was the girl or the gwynddoeth that she was answering.

Following Tesni out the door onto a covered walkway, Mei stopped, astounded by the internal circumference of the roundhouse. There must be a hundred rooms on this floor alone! she exclaimed.

Moving to the railing, she saw that the huge central courtyard was filled by a smaller one-story circular building surrounding a square two-story hall. The rest of the courtyard was paved over with stones and seemed to have all sorts of uses…with benches, brooms and rakes, pumps, wash tubs, clothes lines, and pots holding flowers and herbs. But no people. And no irritating sounds of adolescents chattering or teachers shouting to get their attention.

Mei sighed with pleasure.

Noticing the lack of sunlight on the courtyard, she looked up, expecting to see clouds. Instead, as her gaze rose above the roofline, she discovered a forested hillside that was so close that she could see the individual leaves on the trees. Craning her head back even further, she saw the Mynyddeira Mountains in all their imposing majesty, including a jagged snow-covered peak, rimmed in scarlet.

Tesni whispered, Watch. Serenhardd is about to appear.

Serenhardd was the Ddaeran word for Paradisi, New Eden’s sun, and Mei quickly shaded her eyes with her hand and watched, fascinated, as a huge red sphere slid from behind the peak, bathing the courtyard in sunshine and warmth.

How could Albert, even as a boy, have remembered only that Mynyddamore was like a medieval fortress? For that matter, why did her father and mother choose to devote their lives to studying the geological and fossil history of the boring mountain ranges in the southern sub-continent of Atra when they could have been here studying the most beautiful mountain on New Eden? And why do I feel so at home in a place I’ve never been before?

On the way to the community hall, Tesni first showed Mei around the kitchen, laundry, and the room where the wool from the local animal called a meddalwyn was spun and woven into the blankets, rugs, and clothing that provided a major source of economic support for Mynyddamore. Tesni explained that solar tiles on the roundhouse roof and nearby wind turbines contributed all the power necessary to run the machines used throughout Mynyddamore, including in the weaving room.

As Mei watched the men and women working at spinning wheels and looms, she was struck by the fact these Ddaerans, often accompanied by gwynddoeths, worked at tasks using machines and tools that she’d only seen in history vids reconstructing ancient life on Earth. Yet the machines they used were powered by the very technology that formed the basis of the Yu family fortune back on Earth and on New Eden.

Most extraordinary to her was that while the rooms they toured each held well over fifty people, they were very quiet. The Ddaerans worked silently, using facial expressions, nodding and pointing, and often lightly touching another’s shoulder or elbow, only occasionally actually saying anything.

Is there some rule against speaking? Mei finally asked Tesni as they left the weaving room. She was thinking about the study areas at the Academy where silence was the rule.

Why no, Tesni replied, looking puzzled. Most of these men and women have been working together since they were children, so they don’t need to talk much to get their tasks accomplished.

It wasn’t so much the lack of talking that felt different to Mei—but the quality of the silence. It seemed friendly, benign. In the Academy study rooms, students sat in rows, each staring at the invisible screens projected on their CONTACTs, using their sub-vocal settings on their DOTs, looking for all the world like simpletons who couldn’t read without sounding out the words.

And all of them pointedly ignoring my presence.

When she’d first come to the Academy at age eleven, she’d looked forward to meeting kids her own age. It had been lonely growing up at her parents’ remote digs, with no other children. What she hadn’t expected was that her classmates already had established a pecking order of friendships in the exclusive elementary and primary schools they’d attended. Mei, the new arrival, quickly ended up on the bottom of that pecking order.

The Yu family might have owned all of the country of Caelestis and made up the bulk of the New Hong Kong elite, but this city was also the capital of New Eden, so there was an unusual number of men and women from the other nine Founding Families living and working there. And they all sent their children to the New Hong Kong Academy. Once these children discovered that Mei’s parents weren’t important politicians or company executives, they stopped making any attempt to befriend her. It didn’t help that her Yu cousins who attended the Academy were, for some reason, equally dismissive.

She’d been hurt and confused that first year, but by the second year, she’d decided that being a loner suited her. If only she’d been able to truly be by herself. Instead, day after day she shared a cramped suite with three other girls, ate in a noisy cafeteria, and tried to get work done in one of those study rooms. She hated those rooms the most—where the force of damned-up personalities battered at her consciousness while rendering her invisible.

How many people live at Mynyddamore? Mei wondered out loud.

There are over six hundred rooms. But most of those on the top floor are empty or hold storage. As you can see, the majority of the rooms on the bottom floor are stables. About half of the population is either out on sailing vessels or up in the mountains herding the meddalwyn for weeks on end. But those working the fields will come back each evening. So I guess on a spring day like this, by nightfall there will be about a hundred and fifty people here, though in the winter, when fishing is too dangerous and we bring all the herds down from the mountain, we have nearly three hundred living here full time—and all the animals.

They were walking towards one of those stables where a man was leading out a meddalwyn. Its tiny head looked like a genetic mistake when paired with its extraordinarily large eyes and long muscular neck. As the animal came into full view, Mei stifled a giggle at the way the animal seemed even more of a mismatch, the size of its body magnified by an abundance of thick reddish brown wool and its long spindly legs looking like they would splinter under the weight of the whole animal.

She hasn’t been sheared yet, said Tesni. They don’t look quite so ungainly once their coats have been trimmed, and they really are very sure-footed. They have to be to survive the crags of the Mynyddeiras.

As the meddalwyn passed by, Mei noticed a younger Ddaeran standing beside a strikingly beautiful animal that must be a llynog, which like the gwynddoeth, she had only seen in educational vids.

The llynog looked very much like pictures of large canines in the textbooks about old Earth. Her—why do I know she is female?—long, pointed muzzle and erect ears were a dark chocolate brown, while the rest of her coarse thick fur was different shades of brown partially lightened by a silvery white undercoat. The bushy tail touched the ground. At the shoulder, the llynog must have been over a meter in height. Her head came up to the boy’s waist. The llynog turned her amber eyes to stare intently at Mei, who felt she had been judged and found wanting.

What else was new?

Eurig, who’d been silently riding on Tesni’s shoulder, burst into a soft chuffing, and the llynog blinked once and looked up at the boy next to her. Mei sighed softly with relief at no longer being the object of the llynog’s attention.

Come meet my twin brother, Hefin, Tesni said, leading her across the pavement, and his companion Rhew.

Hefin, who shared Tesni’s green eyes and brown curly hair, was taller, with wide, muscled shoulders and a very unfriendly glare that made him look more like his llynog than like his twin sister.

Tesni said, Hefin and Rhew will accompany your great-grandmother as she goes up in the hills later this morning. There isn’t a day that passes where she isn’t on the lower slopes of the Mynyddeiras. She says it is what keeps her alive.

Eurig chirped, and Tesni abruptly turned away from Hefin, saying to Mei, We need to go now. Your great-grandmother is getting impatient to meet you.

Mei hadn’t seen Tesni use the telltale tap of the hand behind the ear or the moment of arrested attention that went with using a DOT and CONTACTs. So how did she know her great-grandmother was getting impatient?

CHAPTER TWO

Mabel Yu’s Diary

Three Months to Launch, Earth 2092 AD

Now that we’re so close to launch time, my parents have moved on board the SS Nightingale, the Yu’s ship, because there is so much for them to do to get ready. Our quarters on the space station have been given over to some new arrivals. This means I have to stay with my Auntie Lei, who doesn’t seem to have any job besides making my life miserable. She is so fussy. I don’t want to use up my tablet’s memory telling it silly things like how my second cousin Walter snitched to Auntie that I was the one who knocked over her ugly vase, so I think I will go through the photographs I am storing and write something. To help me remember.

I will pretend that I am dictating letters to my friend Jaxon. Even though he’s two years younger than me, he’s more like family than my cousins. I call him little brother—with the emphasis on little since he’s about thirty centimeters shorter than me! He hates that. But he’s a lot more grown up than most of the kids my age. Has to be. His parents were both killed in the explosion on the Novux Sky lifter four years ago. Luckily, his only family is an aunt who also works for Reach Corp, so he wasn’t kicked off the station.

He’s got ginger red hair and green eyes, which makes him a lot more interesting looking than all of us black-haired and brown-eyed members of the Yu family. He says his hair and eyes come from an Irish great-grandmother. I’m not entirely sure where Ireland is. All those northern European countries just blend together.

He lives with his aunt, but she’s not even on the station half the time since she is helping finish off the Kuttner’s ship. You might say that is true for most of us now. I never see either of my parents for more than a couple of hours every ten days. And then, I can tell they are so tired I don’t want to bother them with anything.

My mom says it will be different when we get to New Eden. But Jaxon won’t be there then, either, because he and his aunt are coming to New Eden on the SS Challenge. It’s the oldest ship in the fleet—over thirty years old—and it needs to be rebuilt so it can make it safely through the long journey. My parents say the trip will take as much as two years, even with the short cut the wormhole provides.

Mei Lin Yu

May 22, 165 AA, New Eden

Come here, child, and let me look at you.

The woman standing in front of Mei was tall and loose-limbed, with coarse white hair that had escaped a braid and levitated around her face, emphasizing her skin, which had the appearance of aged parchment. The only concession to the fact that she was over a hundred years old was the elaborately carved cane topped by a bright red tassel that she held lightly in one hand.

So this was her great-grandmother, Betsy Kuttner, the woman who, according to family lore, had married Mei’s great-grandfather Michael Yu against her own parents’ wishes. The woman whose eyes, which were the color of new grass, explained why Mei’s own eyes weren’t brown.

Mei bowed respectfully, first to her great-grandmother, then to the old Ddaeran woman sitting next to her.

This called forth a chuckle from her great-grandmother, who said, Oh my, you have been properly brought up, haven’t you? I would like to introduce you to Tesni’s grandmother, the woman who runs Mynyddamore and who is my oldest friend. Like me, in the mists of time she had a formal name, but here she is simply known as Mamgu, which means grandmother, as I am called Hen Nain, great-grandmother.

Tesni’s grandmother smiled broadly, revealing the crooked and missing teeth that declared her a Ddaeran even more obviously than her watery green eyes. Unlike Mei’s great-grandmother, she was hunched over, the muscles and tendons that should have held her upright no longer doing their jobs. Mei was reminded strongly of her Ddaeran nurse Glynis, who stoically suffered the effects of aging that most members of the Founding Families refused to tolerate.

So, my dear, said Hen Nain, I am sorry that you had such a scare with your eyesight…I can’t imagine how frightening it must have been. But I am delighted all is well and that you have come to spend time with us at Mynyddamore. Now, sit down and have something to eat.

The breakfast was a thick, hot porridge, chewy with nuts and a tart dried fruit, accompanied by an odd-tasting milk that Tesni said was fresh from a meddalwyn. She explained that not just the wool they used for weaving but the cheese they ate and the milk they drank came from this herding animal.

The community hall, which occupied most of the entire two-story central building, was huge, with rows and rows of wooden tables and benches. One end of the room was being used as a nursery for small children, while a couple of older men sat at a table playing a game that Mei didn’t recognize, and nearby a number of women worked on a communal quilt. She was again struck by how quiet everyone was. The children didn’t even make much noise, although they were cheerfully playing some sort of game.

Light came from rows of windows near the ceiling, but each table also had some sort of lamp that Tesni said ran on fish oil, which seemed strange in a world where most small appliances ran on batteries that lasted years before needing to be recharged.

Much to her relief, what was missing from the room was any sort of electrical light, which she always found irritating. But what about when the sun went down? Everyone knew that Ddaerans had unusually good night vision, but how would she cope on those nights when neither of New Eden’s two moons was visible?

She dismissed this worry and instead concentrated on eating, suddenly finding herself ravenous after a week of perfectly balanced but bland hospital food. While she ate, she was entertained by her great-grandmother, who insisted Mei call her Hen Nain. She recounted the story of Albert’s visit to Mynyddamore, when her brother got into trouble by trying to ride one of the meddalwyns.

The poor dear didn’t give us any milk for a month, she was so traumatized. But I believe your brother was equally traumatized when the llynog assigned to that herd pulled him off the meddalwyn and held him down until one of the adults could come straighten everything out. Your brother kept yelling that the lion was trying to eat him! If I remember, the llynog was quite offended. Hen Nain laughed merrily.

Mei, her face remaining neutral, took a long sip of the milk. Inside, however, she was hugging herself with glee. Now she had something embarrassing to throw in Albert’s face the next time he made one of his wisecracks about her. She then glanced over at her great-grandmother, wondering if this was one of those little lessons that adults seemed to feel they had to give—the kind that were couched in some story about someone else’s wrong-doing but were clearly designed to warn you not to behave in the same fashion.

But her great-grandmother was just staring into space in some sort of reverie. She said, You know, your father spent every summer of his childhood here, rambling around the foothills of the Mynyddeiras with me. You would think he would have warned his son about the importance of not messing with a meddalwyn. But John hadn’t been back since he was eleven and was shipped off—as all good little Yus are—to the New Hong Kong Academy. Maybe he just forgot.

My father at Mynyddamore? This was all news to Mei.

But then, she didn’t remember either parent ever talking to her about their own childhoods—except to tell her how hard they had both studied, with the implication that she wasn’t doing enough. Once she left for boarding school, their instructions to apply herself more to her studies now included their expectation that, along with high grades, she would also make the social connections that would help her excel in a career in science, business, or as a very third best, government. She’d tried to explain to her parents how she was viewed by the other students, but they’d just accused her of being over-sensitive.

The gwynddoeth Eurig, who had been sitting quietly next to her on Tesni’s shoulder, leaned over and patted her on the cheek. Mei looked up, startled, and saw that the three women were looking at her with concern.

Her great-grandmother said, Tesni, why don’t you take Mei up and introduce her to her grandparents? I am sure they are anxious to meet their only granddaughter.

She then smiled and said, You do realize, Mei, that you are the only direct female descendant of Mabel Yu, the woman who designed and built Mynyddamore? Naturally, we all have great hopes for you.

CHAPTER THREE

Mabel Yu’s Diary

Three Months to Launch, Earth 2092 AD

Dear Jaxon,

I decided to pretend I’m writing to you in my diary. If you do the same, we can exchange our diaries when we both are on New Eden. That way we can get caught up quickly.

Here is the picture of my grandmother I told you about. I call her Nai Nai, although her real name is Mei Lin. I wish I had been named for her. The name Mabel is so…plain. She is standing in front of her house out in the country. See its funny curved shape? It’s called a roundhouse, and over a hundred and fifty people live there. Nai Nai said her Hakka ancestors built it hundreds of years ago out of packed earth. The walls are so thick I used to sit on the windowsill to read. Everything stays cool in the summer and warm in the winter because the walls are so thick. She said our ancestors knew about passive energy long before it became popular. Of course, as you always remind me, you’ve spent your whole life on the station, never going outside, so who cares? I bet you’ll care when you get to New Eden and have to live on the planet.

Nai Nai is my mother’s mother, and she was born at the beginning of the twenty-first century in that very roundhouse. But she lived for years in San Francisco, the city in the western United States that was wiped out by what she called the Big One. She taught Chinese studies at a school called Berkeley. That is where my mother was born. But Nai Nai went back to China thirty years ago when she was divorced—to take care of her parents. My mother stayed in the United States with her father. Nai Nai told me leaving her ten-year-old daughter—my mom—behind was the hardest thing she’d ever done. But that sometimes you just have to do what you have to do.

I think for a long time my mom was mad at Nai Nai for leaving her. After the Big One killed her father, my mother moved to Beijing to work for one of the Yu’s hydroponics companies in China. That’s when she met and married my dad. Soon after I was born, my parents traveled up to the space station to work. They weren’t allowed to bring a baby with them…so she asked my grandmother to take care of me. I lived with my grandmother in that roundhouse until I was eleven, only seeing my parents a couple of times a year. Mom said it was the hardest thing she’d ever done but that sometimes you just have to do what you have to do.

Mei Lin Yu

May 22, 165 AA, New Eden

Mei wasn’t sure what was more upsetting: the extreme brightness of the modern lab she was standing in that made her eyes water or the fact that her grandmother looked almost identical to her own father, with her short height, severely cropped black hair, and stern, cold expression.

Don’t stand there blinking…come on in.

She wished that Tesni hadn’t had an errand to do, leaving her to brave her grandmother alone.

Her grandmother, wearing the traditional white lab coat, stood next to a lab bench that held a number of mysterious machines. She removed a set of transparent gloves, threw them into a waste container, and without any additional preface said, I have spoken with your parents several times already this morning. They were distressed that you haven’t answered their texts or calls.

I’m not allowed to wear my CONTACTs, and I haven’t had time to unpack yet, so I don’t have my DOT or my mobile…Grandmother. Mei looked down at her feet. How is it that I am already in trouble?

Call me Dr. Eleanor. Too many grandmothers in the place, the older woman said brusquely. Then she reached over and took Mei’s chin in her long fingers, forcing her face up. Are your eyes hurting you? Let me look.

Mei stared back into her grandmother’s small, raisin-brown eyes. Wanting to forestall the inevitable comment about her own eye color, she said, It’s the brightness of the artificial light…but that isn’t new. I was given drops to take…Dr. Eleanor.

The lights in the lab suddenly dimmed, and her grandmother turned Mei’s head slightly to the right and then the left, peering even more closely at her eyes. Her grandmother’s CONTACTs must have had the special lens that could magnify objects. Whatever model she had, she definitely controlled the lights through them so they must have been pretty advanced.

After a moment, her grandmother took away her hand and stepped back, saying, Very interesting.

Mei, tired of being the object of scrutiny, turned and looked around, registering that the lab could have been in any one of the most technically advanced research facilities in New Hong Kong. It must have cost a fortune in credits to build it here, even if Mynyddamore had one of the major manufacturing 3-D printers tucked away somewhere on the premises.

She wondered why her grandparents retired to this remote area. According to Albert, they moved here ten years ago when they were in their early eighties and at the height of their personal careers. Her grandfather, Jie Yu, had been the head of the New Eden Environmental Preservation Agency and Dr. Eleanor was one of the leading geneticists on the planet. Health didn’t seem to be an issue, at least if her grandmother’s clear unlined skin and straight back were any indication. Although it was possible her healthy appearance was simply the result of very good restorative surgery.

Come here, I have your parents online, said Dr. Eleanor, who’d gone over to stand in front of a large holographic screen.

As usual, what Mei saw as she came up close was her father on one side of a split screen and her mother on the other. Their field labs were always in separate buildings, and Mei wasn’t sure she’d ever seen them together in the same room in the past five years, no matter what time of day they contacted her.

The mountains of Atra where her parents were working were eight hours ahead of Mynyddamore, so she said, Good evening, Mother, Father.

Her mother was the first to respond. In her usual chiding tone, she said, Mei, since you are there, Eleanor has very graciously agreed to oversee your studies. She will work out a schedule, and I want you to apply yourself so that you are ready for the make-up exam at the end of the summer. Your father has contacted a colleague at Chandler University, who will see what he can do to get the university to consider your application for admission at that time. Otherwise, you would have to wait until the winter term.

Mei started to reply, but her father, who’d been fussing with a rock on the bench in front of him while her mother spoke, looked up and cut her off. Your grandfather will get you a computer set up and will download your files since you can’t access them through your CONTACTs. But I don’t like the idea of you using some old mobile you could misplace. You’ll wander off and get lost the way you always did when you were with us.

Mei wanted to yell at the screen, When I was six, and it was only once, Father. But of course what she said was, Yes, Mother, Father. Thank you for your concern. Contradicting them never worked.

There was a pause, then their figures blinked out, which was their customary way of saying good-bye, leaving Mei to digest the unwelcome news that they still expected her to take the university exams and attend Chandler U in the fall. At least it sounded like she was going to get to stay at Mynyddamore for a while this summer…which was a whole lot better than spending it cooped up in the apartment with Albert.

Mei spent the next half hour answering her grandmother’s questions about what classes she’d had at the Academy and the problems she’d encountered in the prelim exams. So it was with great relief when she saw Tesni enter the lab with a tray laden with pastries and a formal tea set. She wondered if the teapot held one of the rare kinds of native tea leaves grown only up in the foothills of Mynyddeiras.

She wasn’t to find out, because as soon as Tesni put down the tray, Mei’s grandmother curtly dismissed them both, telling Tesni to take Mei to see her grandfather.

Following the Ddaeran girl back onto the circular walkway, where they were joined by Eurig, Mei wondered what Tesni thought about being ordered around like some kind of servant. But perhaps that was what she was, which would explain why she was being so nice about showing her around Mynyddamore.

One of her first roommates at the Academy, a member of a minor branch of the Quinn Family, had been nice to her as well. But Mei learned later she’d been told by her parents to exploit the friendship in the expectation that this would further her father’s career. When it became clear that Mei had no influence within her family’s energy company, the girl dropped her like a hot rock. At least Tesni’s brother, Hefin, hadn’t felt he had to be nice to her just because of who she was, so maybe Tesni’s friendliness was genuine. She hoped so.

Her grandmother’s lab, which had been created out of several of the small rooms that ringed the walkway, was located on the eastern side of the roundhouse that faced the mountain. As they walked to the right, Tesni pointed to the doors they were passing, saying, Next to Dr. Eleanor’s lab is her living quarters. Most of the rooms on this side are for storage. There are some guest rooms for those occasions when Dr. Eleanor’s colleagues come to visit. The western side of the building that faces the sea is where your grandfather has his study and living quarters, just to the left of your rooms. Hen Nain’s rooms are on the other side of your study.

I have a study? Mei had feared she would be expected to stay cooped up all day in her grandmother’s lab, under her scrutiny.

Yes, and the door opposite the bathroom facilities connects the two rooms. It’s pretty bare now, but that is where your grandfather, or Tadcu Jie as we call him, will set up any computing facilities you need. He built me a brand new system when I came home last fall from the Gunther Academy in New Beijing.

You went away to school? For how long? Mei quickly revised her first impression that Tesni was a servant.

Two years ago when I turned sixteen, which is the formal age of adulthood for us. Just for a year—to do the on-site internships I needed to complete my medical assistant degree. The rest I did online. Starting this winter, I will continue to study online for my advanced degrees in family and emergency medicine.

New Beijing was a city of about fifty thousand people located in the northern Caelestis plains, a heavily agricultural area. The Gunther Founding Family set up colleges all over New Eden to train those Descendants not directly related to the Founding Families and a few select Ddaerans in the health sciences so they would always have enough workers in their large medical facilities.

Mei looked at Tesni with new respect. Obviously, she was very bright or she would never have been accepted into the medical program at all. If Mei felt out of place during her five years in New Hong Kong Academy, how had Tesni survived her schooling as one of the few Ddaerans?

Tesni added, Most of us at Mynyddamore get our basic education online—and then we start to work with older siblings or our parents to train for our future careers. I am apprenticing with my Aunt Ceri, who is the healer for Mynyddamore.

Were you able to take Eurig with you? Mei was still thinking about how lonely Tesni must have been.

Oh, no. Tesni nodded but then changed the subject, saying, Here we are; go ahead and push that bell. It’s one of Tadcu Jie’s favorite devices.

Puzzled, Mei pushed a round metal button in the door frame and looked for a speaker, assuming this was going to activate an intercom. Instead there was the sound of chimes.

Tesni laughed and said, He calls it a ‘doorbell.’ Some old Earth gadget that he says is coming back in fashion in places like New Seattle.

The door was thrown open and the man standing there cried, Come in, come in, my little Mei. How delighted I am to finally meet you.

Her grandfather, Jie Yu, was tall and long-limbed like his mother, Hen Nain, but his hair was only lightly sprinkled with gray, and it hung over his shoulder in a long braid that went almost to his waist and was tied at the end with a leather thong. Unlike his wife, he looked his age—with the wrinkles and spots that were natural for a man entering his ninth decade. He had a thin droopy mustache that framed a smiling mouth and light brown eyes with a distinct sparkle to them.

As she walked into the room, she noted that he didn’t just look different from his wife; he had created a work space that seemed the exact opposite of hers. Her grandmother’s lab was all right angles, with smooth glass, steel, and graphene surfaces, and all the walls were a uniform bright white.

Here, the walls were covered by dark wooden shelves filled to the bursting point, and much of the floor space was taken up by two large, equally cluttered desks, as well as a chair upholstered in what must be material made of meddalwyn wool. The overall effect was that