Homeworld: Beacon 3
Page 26
Those first conflicts born of misunderstanding seemed a long time ago now. Garrett, in his eighties by the time Zael’s work was completed, had seen his book installed within the flux, available in cloudform to all who wanted to read it. Felicity’s mother, Elaine, had lived to see Prana’s restoration almost completed but had never achieved her wish to walk on her mother’s homeworld. She’d insisted she was fine with that, but Felicity had detected a lingering sadness she would have given a lot to be able to dispel.
By the time Felicity was born she’d had no need to hide her beacon skills behind a human façade, as Elaine had with her work as a media psychic. Although sometimes, Felicity thought her mother really did possess psychic abilities, with the way she always knew when Felicity was doing something she shouldn’t. Not the easiest of parents to grow up with, but her mother’s intensity had been tempered by the warmth and humanity of her father, Timotea Rooke.
Then there was Cate Rossi. Twelve years younger than Cate, Felicity had grown up with the mental link between them that all the beacons shared. In their case, the link had deepened into love and later marriage. Cate disliked traveling away from Earth, but she’d be watching from their home in Hawai’i, Felicity knew. They’d had twin daughters between them, their abilities a rare mix of listener and watcher, so the journey continued.
Zael had never had more children, privately mourning her son for the rest of her life. Instead, she’d called the Prana her children and they referred to her as Mother Zael. Felicity looked around the huge gathering, a lump clogging her throat at what she was privileged to witness. Garrett would have been proud beyond measure, although he’d probably grumble that after a lifetime of writing science fiction, the book most likely to endure was a simple historical account of his own experiences as he and his fellow beacons helped to restore the Prana to their home planet.
*
“You should have won that prize, Kam,” Akia said.
The adept inclined his head but his eyes twinkled. “Somehow, I can’t see The Role of Nano-Engineering in the Redesign of a Planetary Ecosystem capturing too many people’s imagination. I wrote it as a record for you, not for popular acclaim.”
The Kelek captain looked gratified until Kam added, “Aren’t you glad you kept me alive all those years ago?”
She gave a harsh laugh. “How many more times are you going to remind me of that day?” A day when she had killed him – in one reality, anyway.
The argument continued as it had for almost a century and both knew it wouldn’t be resolved now, if ever. Dark clouds briefly rolled over their heads, a reminder that talk of death had no place in the flux, where an overload of negative energy had almost destroyed the Restoration before it began.
Where she and Kam existed now, Akia couldn’t really say. Time and dimension had no meaning in this strangest of places. Since leaving her life on Prana and committing her energy to the flux in her eightieth year, she’d lived forward and backward, rewriting outcomes until even she no longer knew what was truth, if indeed there was any such thing.
As she watched Elaine’s daughter conclude her speech, Akia thought of Garrett, only to find him there beside her, responding to her teasing about the award with a dismissive smile. He still wrote, of course, but for himself now. And for his wife, Amelia, who’d made the discovery that the Indigenous people of her country, the Mayat, were descended from the first Prana to reach Earth.
Like the Kelek’s awareness of their true heritage, the Mayat’s knowledge of their history had been lost during the centuries of separation from the homeworld, but they’d never lost the Prana skills that had been gradually reinterpreted as Mayat mysticism.
Was all of history a causality loop, Akia wondered, imagining the universe as a kind of Mobius strip, flowing endlessly back on itself. And did the question really matter as long as there was growth, discovery and, above all, peace?
Acknowledgments
With thanks to the brilliant designers at Bombardier Global Express for showing me (with diagrams) how I could launch a space shuttle from atop one of your magnificent planes.
About Valerie Parv
Valerie Parv is one of Australia’s most successful authors with more than 30 million copies of her books sold worldwide. Her books have been translated into 26 languages and have also been made into manga. Valerie now ventures into science fiction romance with her Beacons series. Her backlist includes romance, romantic suspense, movie scripts (one currently in pre-production), short stories in major magazines and presenting at national and international conferences including RT Book Reviews, New York and RW America.
Valerie is the first Australian author to receive a Pioneer Award from RT Book Reviews. The State Library of New South Wales collects Valerie’s literary papers. An Australian Society of Authors Medal recipient, she holds a master of arts from Queensland University of Technology. Valerie has served as an Australia Day Ambassador for the past decade and was made a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2015 Queen’s Birthday Honours List for significant contributions to the arts. Valerie Parv is represented by The Tate Gallery in Sydney and enjoys connecting with readers on Twitter @valerieparv and Facebook. You can find out more about Valerie at www.valerieparv.com.
Also by Valerie Parv
Birthright: Beacon 1
Starfound: Beacon 1.5
Earthbound: Beacon 2
Continuum: Beacon 2.5
First published by Momentum in 2016
This edition published in 2016 by Momentum
Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
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Copyright © Valerie Parv 2016
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Homeworld: Beacon 3
EPUB format: 9781760302092
Mobi format: 9781760302108
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Edited by Kylie Mason
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