The Third Earth

By Wesley Britton

Immerse yourself in an extraordinary universe revealed by the most original storytelling you'll ever experience. "Science fiction, yes, but so much more."

 

For twenty years, Dr. Malcolm Renbourn and Tribe Renbourn faced adventure after adventure, struggle after struggle on Beta-Earth.

Now, Renbourn and five of his Betan wives are forced to cross the multi-verse once again, this time to the strange world called Cerapin-Earth.  After startling and frightening physical transformations, the altered Renbourns meet two new kinds of humanity. One is the dominant pairs who can share thoughts and sensations at the same time. The other are the nams, single-bodied people the pairs deem defective mono-minds. As a result, nams are exiled from the overpopulated cities of pyramid hives.

Tribe Renbourn must join the outcasts and teach them they are as worthy of love and acceptance as any unkind pair. But helping the nams learn how to stand up for themselves ultimately leads to a catastrophic war. At the same time, Cerapin scientists plan another multi-versal jump that must also end in a costly disaster. Along the way, two sexy spies complicate everything.

On a world where technology is worshiped like a religion, how can the nam rebels overcome the superior armaments of the pairs with their primitive weaponry? While this conflict brews, Tribe Renbourn explores what it means to be human in ways they never expected. Will their epic end like it began, forced to sacrifice themselves to save a doomed city?

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wesley Britton
• Release date: Nov 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215824412

Book preview

Table of Contents

Introduction

The Renbourn Tribe of Beta-Earth, 1741

Chapter One: Arrival

Chapter Two: First Steps

Chapter Three: Education and Escape

Chapter Four: Burtolbur

Chapter Five: Of Classrooms and Cerapin Nights

Chapter Six: Music and the Return of Elsbeth

Chapter Seven: Flight to the Land of the Nams

Chapter Eight: The Calm Before the Storm

Chapter Nine: The Boiling Pot

Chapter Ten: The Whirlwind Comes

Chapter Eleven: Blood on the Bridge

Chapter Twelve: The Secret Cave

About the Author

Introduction

Twenty years before my second transference, I had stood on the same exact spot where I was later forced to return, except the first time around I was on Alpha earth. Second time around, I was on Beta.

Twenty years ago, I had been an unhappy history professor on Alpha-Earth before I was drug to Beta-Earth where I became the blind alien. For fifteen years, I was a captive, slave, fugitive, an exile, an outcast, and I wasn't alone. I had my Betan wives and children and we were constantly seeking a secure and permanent home. When I accepted the title of Duce of Bilan in the country of Alma, we thought we had finally achieved a true sanctuary. Then came the devastating religious civil war.

As a result, an exodus of many ships followed Tribe Renbourn as we sailed away from the war in Alma and looked for a new home. Planning to only rest in the island country of Hitelec and sail on, everything changed when my wives Lorei and Doret visited the cave dwellings of escaped blue-slaves. There, our spiritual pair learned the blues worshiped the spirit of our former sister, Bar. They also learned they were prophesized to take a mystical journey and become spiritual-Mothers in Hitelec. So, without delight or pleasure, the rest of Tribe Renbourn agreed to stay on the island along with hundreds of our followers, all weary from the long sea voyage.

Our years in Hitelec could have been more pleasurable if not, once again, for the will of a throne. A dying Queen feared all the immigrants from Alma would show allegiance to the Renbourns, not her Royal House, so she arranged a bonding between me and her second daughter, the lovely and vivacious Elena Richelo. Such family joy was corrupted when Queen Noy died, and her eldest, the petulant and resentful Bet, took the crown. Bet not only wanted Renbourn support for her pointless power grabs in the region but had her mother's third husband, the invasive Gant Thanq, try to kidnap Renbourn children to ensure that support.

After the failure of that attempted abduction, resulting in the death of our longtime secret guardian, Noriah of the Willing-Horse, Bet was forced to abdicate the throne and leave Hitelec. This meant that my wife, Elena, was now Queen. I, the blind alien, was now the Consort-Liege of a country Elena renamed the United States of America.

During these royal family jousts, Sasperia Renbourn and the hated Collective of amoral scientists finally joined forces and discovered the cure to the Plague that had cursed Beta-Earth for as long as history had memory. At long last, the curse was over and Tribe Renbourn seemed able to rest in a permanent home and enjoy setting roots.

However, in a secret vision quest, Lorei and Doret left their bodies and joined Bar in the spirit realm. The three of them traveled to a third Earth called Cerapin, which they learned was to be the next planet to learn about the multi-verse. Returning to their physical forms, the living sisters learned they now shared each other's consciousness. Lorei gained physical sight in one eye, Doret gained part of Lorei's mystical gift for foreknowledge. Both had to learn how to coordinate the movements and wills of two minds in each of their bodies.

While our spiritual sisters reveled in these mystical revelations, what they brought the rest of us was torment and pain. They told us on the twentieth anniversary of my crossing over from Alpha-Earth that six Renbourns would return to the spot of the former Crater Bergarten and travel to the third Earth. Naturally, I had to be one of the travelers. Lorei would be another, half of her consciousness staying with High Priestess Doret Renbourn on Beta-Earth. Alnenia and Kalma not only had to come, but they would be transformed into a dual-bodied Cerapin. Joline would come, joining herself with the spirit of Bar, and gentle Elsbeth would never let me go anywhere without her.

After twenty years, I was forced to leave all my children and much of my family behind on my second Earth to accommodate the deities of the multi-verse and their unknown divine plan. After twenty years of being pushed around by the goddess Olos of Beta-Earth and the force of her many predestinations in my tribe's lives, I knew I had no choice in what was to come. All I had built, I had to leave for others. Gratefully, my children had a legacy unmatched, at least, on two Earths, but I would not see their victories, their trials, their quests.

Instead, I and five of my wives had to return to the very spot where it all began. Twenty years after my second life began, we came to your Earth, and the story begins again.

Before I start these tales, I must confess several things that may surprise readers on whatever planet you sit. After my decades on Beta-Earth, I naturally came to speak and write in the patterns of the Beta-Earth dialect of the language of Alma. Sometimes, I will sound like an Alphan; sometimes my words will read as if skoled on Beta-Earth paper. I know full well that no Cerapin speaks with Betan cadences, but I often give them the grammar of my second Earth as I'm not writing transcripts of all the conversations in this confession. I never learned how to write in the Cerapin script. On top of that, describing the words and actions of Cerapin pairs sharing double-minded voices is often a challenge when choosing pronouns and verbs. For example when Kalnenia El and Kalnenia Le are both speaking as one, do I refer to them as she or they? Is the proper verb was or were? Well, I hope I struck the right balance with clarity and preciseness.

I may not, as Alphan poet Walt Whitman would put it, exactly contain multitudes within myself, but I am now a man of three Earths, so I give myself permission to express myself using all I have learned.

Dr. Malcolm Renbourn, the former Duce of Bilan, the former Consort-Liege of the second United States of America, now offers his final confessions.

Members of the Renbourn Tribe of Beta-Earth, transported to Cerapin-Earth, 174.09.29:

Dr. Malcolm Eric Renbourn. Birthed: March 29, 1975, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, United States of America, Alpha-Earth. Beta birth year: 1690? Correlation to Beta moon and day: Unknown. Doctorate in American History, Shippensburg State College, 1998. Captured and blinded in Bergarten Institute of the Science of the Species, 1720. Became Duce of Bilan, Perrsisle, Oyne and Biol, 1732. Became Consort-Liege of the second United States of America, 1738.

Lorei Cawl Renbourn. Birthed: Near Rofvig, Rhasvi, 1690.13.2. Bonded to Renbourn tribe: Home of Centel Loes Teaub near Rofvig, Rhasvi, 1721. Mother: Loes (son) 1722; Morei (daughter) 1724 (both born at Hearthstone, Rhasvi); Denos (son) 1731 (Island Bilan). Blind from birth, Lorei is blessed with gift of foreknowledge. Founder, Tribe of Unsighteds.

Elsbeth Caul Renbourn. Birthed: Near Rofvig, Rhasvi, 1692.5.65. Bonded to Renbourn tribe: (Same as her birth-sister, Lorei Cawl). Mother: Bethmal (daughter) 1722; Malbet (son) 1724 (both birthed in Hearthstone); Holjo (daughter, born Samlon Blan, 1730), Dona (born Island Bilan, 1734). Expert botanist.

Joline Sonam Renbourn. (merged with Bar Tine Renbourn in transfer) Birthed: Icatah, Aufrei, 1699.11.43. Bonded to Renbourn tribe: Wellneee, Rhasvi, 1721. Mother: Jolcolm (son) 1723; Moline (son) 1725 (both born at Hearthstone); Qere (son) 1727 (Samlon Blan, near Maron, Kirip)). Attended School Wellnee from 1719 to 1721. Published poet and displayer of Al-Beta garb.

Alnenia Ricipa Renbourn. (merged with Kalma Salk Renbourn in transfer) Birthed: Deff, Rhasvi, 1698.2.33. Bonded to Renbourn tribe: Hearthstone, Rhasvi, 1723. Graduate: School Himmini, 1722. Mother: Malnenia (daughter) 1727 (Hearthstone); Sikas (son) 1728 (Samlon Blan); Malnenia (daughter) 1730 (Samlon Blan); Epidon (daughter, Island Bilan, 1733)

Manager of family accounts.

Kalma Salk Renbourn (merged with Alnenia Renbourn in transfer). Birthed: 1695.34.3, Bergarten, Balnakin. Bonded to Renbourn tribe: Bergarten, Balnakin, 1730. Mother: Lius (son) 1733 (Island Bilan). Overseer, Renbourn international accounts.

BarTine Renbourn Sofig. (spirit merged with Joline Renbourn in transfer) Birthed: 1696.3.33, Archal, Balnakin. Property of the Country of Balnakin. Graduated: Wostra Stadsem for Literate Assistants, 1720. Freed and bonded to Renbourn tribe in Wellneee, Rhasvi, 1721. Mother: Becky (daughter) 1723 (Hearthstone, Rhasvi.) Divorced: Dellmire, Alma, 1727. Died by murder: Dellmire, Alma, 1730.

1

Arrival

In the beginning, I was the most ordinary of human failures on a planet I later called Alpha-Earth. The most important moment I experienced on Alpha-Earth was the moment I left it and was captured in a device that dragged me across the multi-verse to Beta-Earth. All I left behind was my mother's grave, my father's grief, my energetic dog, and little else. I had an old car, a part-time job as an adjunct history professor, and a usually empty bed. If the gods needed a human instrument for their grand design, I was the least obvious of all candidates.. .and the least willing.

Later, I described that wrenching moment:

Unexpectedly, mysteriously, in a flash, an acrid, pungent flash, the air changed around me. Gravity shifted. The space around me expanded strangely. I could no longer see. I felt a scorching white light. Every cell in my body exploded, stretched, every hair on my skin turning into a field of burning wicks. In that wall of fire, every bone, muscle, and tissue of my body disintegrated and then, somehow, remolded.

Twenty years later, in exactly the same geographic location, I experienced those sensations all over again, but there were differences. When I came over from Alpha-Earth to Beta-Earth, I had no idea what was happening to me. When I came over from Beta-Earth to Cerapin, I unhappily knew what was coming. The second time around, I didn't come through the dimensional barrier alone. Five of my Betan wives also had to make the journey.

The most important difference was that the first transfer blinded me. It took away the sight I'd known for thirty years. For the next two decades, I saw absolutely nothing. After the second transfer, my rubbery, jerky, awkward body slid to the floor, and I noticed something special: I could see again!

Strange said, the first thing I saw was the floor beneath my face. Is that white tile? Light brown? I'd forgotten colors. As I lay on the cold metal — at least I assumed it was metal — I could barely move. Just to turn over and look up took time. A painfully bright yellow light glowed down at me. I felt and saw the body of a woman crawling on top of me. My blurry, confused eyes slowly brought her face into some form of focus. Oh, it had to be Elsbeth! She had been standing next to me in that circle back in Bergarten, so it had to be her. She seemed drenched in hot, white light, and I knew what dangled before me had to be her long brown hair. I wasn't sure if I was actually recognizing it with my eyes or accepting what my mind was telling me what those things had to be. For twenty years, I hadn't known what brown was. Was it memory of long lost colors I was perceiving, or was I piecing together descriptions I've been hearing all these years?

I shook my befuddled head as my blinking and blinking new eyes tried to bring coherence to the face people had been telling me was so plain. Plain! Whatever my odd vision was doing, I'd never seen anyone so beautiful in all my life!

Elsbeth looked into my eyes, and her own brown orbs widened with pleasure.

You can see! Husband can see! She turned her head and again called out to our company, Husband can see again!

I reached up and explored Elsbeth's face with my shaking fingers. Tears ran down my cheeks. So long ago, Elsbeth Cawl had been a poor and simple farm girl, a tiller of the fields certain she'd never bear children.

Then, Elsbeth and her sister Lorei had joined the Scratchers of Freedom underground. Planning to help shelter runaway slaves, they instead hid a fugitive blind alien in a little cell beneath their little farmhouse. That first night, Elsbeth had drained so much fear and pain from a very anguished and very ill alien by pulling a very surprised stranger as deep inside her as she could. After that, I can't count the days and nights Elsbeth soothed my tormented heart simply by her gentle and devoted presence. Not just me. Elsbeth could soften and melt away so many hard and harsh emotions in anyone around her merely by being her loving self, and here she was in this place because she would never let her husband be anywhere without her.

It's absolutely perfect, I said, that my first sight is you!

She beamed and looked at me even closer. You look as the first day we met! Your beard, your hair, have lost their gray, their whiteness of age! You have much hair again! Your skin has no wrinkles, your color be flushed with youth!

I puzzled over this revelation and wondered if my muscles would soon show any sign of restored vigor. Our lips were pressed together, and then she rolled off me, as I began to try to sit up.

I managed to prop my back against a slick wall, holding Elsbeth tight against me. We were next to a transparent glass wall that surrounded us on three sides. The yellow light I'd noticed before pointed at us from the top. Everything seemed to bathe in bright light. I didn't know how much of this shined from above or how much resulted from what was happening to me. My pupils felt watery, heavy, and dilated.

I turned my head to the right, knowing Joline had stood beside me there on Beta-Earth. As my vision seemed to be clearing, at least for short distances, I saw Joline lying on her belly, her face turned to give me a lop-sided smile. While I had known what would happen to her, what I saw was still a shock.

On Beta-Earth, Joline Renbourn was world-renowned as quite a beauty. Her fame partly drew from her towering figure, a heritage from her upbringing in the cliff-dwellers in the ice-country of Aufry. I had spent many nights delightfully playing with her ridiculously long legs. In this pyramid of glass, I couldn't tell if she still stood on tall limbs, but I could see in her face just how much she had been transformed.

Before we had come to the Bergarten chamber for the transference, Joline had been told she would be joining her consciousness with her bond-sister and my former wife, Bar Tine Renbourn. Ten years before, Bar had been murdered in Dellmire by the brother of Kalma Salk, the brown-skinned woman prophesized to be the wife who would reconcile my family with the country of Balnakin.

For ten years, Bar's spirit had watched over us on Beta-Earth, but her essence also voyaged often to the planet we had just come to. In one vision quest, she had brought the spirit-selves of Lorei and Doret Renbourn to Cerapin, showing them the world that the six of us must come to so Cerapin would become aware of the multi-verse. As a result, Bar knew the language most of the rest of us didn't.

In many ways, Joline and Bar merging together seemed weirdly appropriate. Joline and Bar had become my wives together at the same time in the same ceremony on the same day when Bar had been freed from her so-called Balnakin rehabilitation. In our Wellnee home, while Lorei and Elsbeth tended to household duties, Joline and Bar sat together with me on my office porch helping turn my Alpha-Earth stories into articles and books for Betan readers.

They became fast friends and had much in common. Joline's parents had exiled her from her cliff home because her father thought her a mere nuisance and burden with no prospects. All her life, Bar had been a blue-skinned Balnakin slave with no will of her own until she found the courage to help send me on the road to freedom, sacrificing herself to face the vengeance of her brown-skinned masters.

After the hideousness of the Bergarten disaster, when a third of a major city vanished in a horrendous explosion, Bar became a tormented soul. She fled our family to try to escape the memories of that awful day. The only one of us she kept in contact with was Joline.

Despite Bar's self-imposed exile from us, she and Joline had even more in common. Joline became known for her books of rather graphic erotic verse. Bar's creativity came out in her sculptures and ceramic objects. After her death, Bar's spirit was very much Joline's special guardian angel.. .until now.

Her new face was now divided as if she was half Joline and half Bar — Jolbar. The right side of her head had obviously belonged to Joline, with her emerald-green eye and her straight light-blonde hair reaching her chin. The left side had belonged to Bar, with her puffier cheek, her inset blue eye, and her buttery, flowing blonde mane. On Beta-Earth, I'd heard that her skin had an enamel smoothness. I now saw this description made sense.

Now, Jolbar’s right half of her lips were thin, the left fuller. Her eyes looked not coordinated. Her right one was glassy as it stared at me. The Bar eye seemed to be looking off to faraway places.

After a few moments of soft groans, Jolbar tried to focus both eyes on me and say, Hello, husband. With your new eyes, meet your new wife — well, wives. I guess we shall be Jolbar Sonam Tine Renbourn. We no doubt look as strange as we feel. We can't get the strength to stand up.

I know the feeling, or the lack of it. Maybe it's just any strength I can't manage.

Jolbar nodded, and withdrew into herself. Likely, she lacked the energy or the will to talk further. She rolled over on her back, holding her hands up in the air. She twisted and flexed her fingers, the Bar half of her no doubt exploring sensations she hadn't felt since her murder. She must have been curious about the differences she saw and felt, her Joline hand long and slim, her Bar hand smaller and a bit more pudgy.

My wonderstruck eyes moved past Elsbeth on my left to look at her birth-sister, the once blind prophetess Lorei Cawl Renbourn. Like me, she was sitting against the glass wall. For the first time, I could see how the Cawl sisters were so different, at least in appearance. Unlike the curvy Elsbeth, Lorei was long and lanky. Unlike the rough-skinned Elsbeth, Lorei's skin was clear, creamy, smooth. She had been known for her grace, elegance, and the nimbleness of her fingers with needles and thread, especially when she sewed children's clothes and toys.

The most obvious difference was her distinct eyes. One looked sharp at me, the other seemed dead in its socket. That was because, like Jolbar, Lorei, too, had a dual consciousness, a duality she had been sharing with Doret Renbourn for several years. Half of Lorei's mind and senses were back on Beta-Earth, housed in the tiny frame of the mutant dwarf who had become the Mother-Icealt of All-Domes. Likewise, Lorei's body now carried part of the essence of Doret in this very room. So the eye that looked sightless and opaque was really the eye of a sister sitting wherever she was on Beta-Earth. This meant Doret Renbourn could witness everything Lorei saw.

Again, I thought the joining of these two souls was perfectly appropriate. From the beginning, Lorei had carried the breath of Olos inside her, her gift of prophecy a dominant force in nearly every aspect