by Kurt Johnson
Copyright © 2016 Kurt Johnson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without express written permission from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are 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. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Bruce E. Mitchell, Editor
Cover Artwork
Diogo Lando, www.diogolando.com
Editorial Work and Interior Design
Perrin Davis, Three Muses Creative, www.threemusescreative.com
Printed in the United States of America.
For Kiran
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FOREWORD
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
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Foreword
“Star clusters birthed new suns; red giants blazed their dying light; nebulas shrouded the relentless gravity of black holes.” So begins Kurt Johnson’s first novel, the story of a thirteen-year-old girl living 1,800 years after a galaxy-wide war between Humanity and the Convergence. Even though this “fiction” stretches credulity, Kurt is able to magically submerge the reader into that alternative reality and to assimilate its strangeness into the reader’s own consciousness.
What makes Raystar of Terra unusual is its seamless development of bizarre relationships, making them believable, even comfortable, by converting the weird “other” into the normal “another” and transforming “creatures” into loyal friends as well as fierce foes. Raystar, a wonderfully innocent teenager, is an outcast on the planet Nem’, yet she is also a talisman for humanity, someone who enables the reader to explore the unearthliness of her alien encounters along with the light-filled grandeur of her human potential. Raystar enables the reader to settle in, to get comfortable with the unimagined extremes of foreign worlds, outside possibilities…definable only in terms of themselves. I am reminded of that most famous of outcasts, Ishmael in Moby Dick, when he magnanimously said: “Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to perceive a horror, and could still be social with it—would they let me—since it is but well to be on friendly terms with all the inmates of the place one lodges in.”
Raystar lives on a farm with her father, mother, sister, and her own synthetic attendant, a remarkably human artificial intelligence. She understands that she, as a human, is an exception on Nem’, but certainly not exceptional in the grand scheme of things. She is dwarfed (literally) by enormous creatures much smarter, swifter, and more awe inspiring than she. However, part of her quest for identity is to discover what unique powers she does possess. In that sense, her story is an old one, that of self-realization, but her growth is explored and tested in new realities, new challenges—all while carrying old baggage, the genetic suitcase of her own humanity.
Raystar’s family farm is nestled below the Mesas, “three-thousand-meter-high plateaus that blocked out the sky with their square brutishness,” that are subsumed every six weeks by “giant, dark walls of angry clouds and bellies gorged with lightning, rumbling from one pole to another.” Kurt does a wonderful job of creating a setting full of beauty and threat, one that becomes real in its attention to detail, but also one that mirrors Earth’s environments, lands that nourish as well as destroy: “Leggers hunted the animals that lived in the ‘natch fields. Legger packs would occasionally take a lone farmer or stray kid. And in really dry years, sometimes they would attack a household.” In Raystar’s life on Nem’, there is danger, dark unknowns that lurk just outside her well-fortified home. Her parents are on constant alert regarding the possibility of their child’s vulnerability, yet they cannot totally protect her from risk. They know that some day she must walk alone, in the dry years, unprotected.
Even though Raystar of Terra is set in a far-flung, alien universe, it explores close-to-home human concerns: weakness, power, loss, family, isolation, friendship, violence, fear, compassion, and humanism. All of these complex issues are interwoven into the bizarre experiences of Raystar, and perhaps, into the awareness that her story may bring to the reader’s own quest for understanding in the hurly-burly of this world’s present.
Almost on a daily basis, we absorb negative images of human conduct, rending snapshots in a long continuum of mayhem and violence. In 2016, on the shores of Lake Kentura in Kenya, ten 10,000-year-old male skeletons were discovered, grouped together. All of them showed signs of head trauma, evidence of one tribe’s attack on another. By not ignoring what is bad in our history as well as what may be negative or positive in our future, Raystar of Terra is a realistic novel, but at the same time, it is also one that is “real” in its wonderful portrayal of a family’s closeness, the power of defiant hearts, and the unique pluck of a teenager who refuses to become an alien.
On a personal note, it has been my honor and my pleasure to edit this book. Twenty-nine years ago, Kurt Johnson was a student in my senior English class at Evanston Township High School in Evanston, Illinois. It is not often that a teacher, particularly one so many years beyond the classroom, gets a chance to witness the extraordinary intellectual and emotional growth of one of his or her charges. It has been my blessing to have been a teacher, and to have had the career that was my calling. Often, I reflect back on the ebb and flow of shared experiences in the classroom, but also on the hidden linkages between all of us, the interconnections we just barely intuit in dreams, memories, and feelings. I extend an immeasurable thank you to all I have had the pleasure to know, who have become part of me, and to Kurt…to whom I owe the fulfillment of this long-term, shared journey.
—Bruce E. Mitchell
1
Star clusters birthed suns; red giants blazed their dying light; nebulas shrouded the relentless gravity of black holes. This close to the Milky Way’s core, it is personal. Every color glared at me from the darkness.
Destruction. Cre
ation.
Gorgeous.
I wedged myself into the crook of my dad’s lower arm and raised my face to the cool fall air, feeling the soft grass through my worn overalls. A chorus of insects, common to every life-supporting planet, thrummed, chirped, and cricked around us in a random, 360-degree orchestra.
Dad was a high-collared, broad-shouldered silhouette against the white, gold, and blue smear of 100 billion suns. The waterfall of stars stopped at the horizon, except to the west, where the Mesa mountain range imposed square black outlines on the night. By Core-light, I could see our farm’s ’natch fields stretched out, a leafy ocean surging in the wind against the base of the Mesas.
A chill scuttled along my spine, and Dad wrapped his upper arm around me.
I would have dreamed in his warmth and protection until the stars and their secrets faded into the dawn. THAT wasn’t going to happen. Cuddling, dreaming, bathing in the shock and awe of the Galactic Core—none of that would make me “galaxy-ready,” according to Mom and Dad. Relaxation was not preparation. I unclenched my fists and let out a breath, feeling the sting from where my fingernails had dug into my palms.
Mom and Dad were right about being prepared, just maybe not in the way they thought. I needed to be up THERE. Not here. School was starting in two days, and I wished I could fast-forward through it. Skip to being grown-up and getting on with my life.
I inhaled the loamy night air. This had been a particularly grueling summer break. I’d wake before the sun and work until sunset. My friends went to camps. I operated heavy farm equipment. They watched vids. If I was lucky, I’d have enough energy to vid with friends after dinner. There were as many vids floating around of me falling asleep, mid-sentence, as there were stars. I don’t care what race you are—a head hitting the pillow (I drool when I sleep) always gets a laugh. Work, work, and work, and then it was “early to bed!” or some such nonsense phrase.
In response, for my eyes only, 12:01 A.M. flashed across my field of vision. Ha. You see, every Galactic had at least one synth, or synthetic attendant. I called mine AI, after the Terran phrase “artificial intelligence.” He was a fist-sized, diamond-shaped, rusted brown pendant that hung around my neck from a simple, linked, Human-made, and oddly corroded metal chain. AI had heard my thoughts, and he was pointing out that Dad and I were up past midnight.
He flashed soft green, barely visible through my clothes, and emitted of a pulse of warmth I felt against my chest. See, he used temperature and color for nonverbal communication. And he was laughing at me.
I didn’t mind his snark. More often than not, he made me smile. He was my conscience, my counterpoint, and if anyone could pull a laugh out of me, it was he.
My friends’ attendants weren’t anything like AI. While my friends usually had more than one synth, I needed only him. In fact, I couldn’t imagine wanting more than one of HIM. AI was able to do more than the synthetic attendants my friends had. I’d never felt right telling even my parents all the stuff he could do, fearing he’d be taken from me.
AI was all I had from my organic parents.
A soft breeze replaced thoughts of school (and my bizarre attendant) with smells of fresh-cut fields, the wetness that comes before a storm, and the gentle ”sshhhh” of leaves brushing against leaves.
“Mom and Cri would have enjoyed the view. We have not had so much time together as a family this summer.” I raised my eyebrows and turned toward Dad. Tucked this closely against him, I felt his rumbling voice vibrate through me.
“Dad, they….”
“Raystar.” He lifted a massive hand to me and turned his face upward. He found his thoughts in the heavens, and wind filled the silence. “Galactics have not been kind to your species.”
I frowned and looked up at him. He met my eyes with a level gaze. “Daughter, have you not wondered why there are so few of your kind?”
“We got eaten?”
“I would talk to you without humor.”
“C’mon, Dad, it’s obvious,” I grumbled. “We lost the War. It’s in the Recorders’ history.”
“And you believe what is Recorded?”
“I…don’t know. Does it even matter?”
Something scraped through the leaves in the field loud enough to be heard over the breeze. I peered toward the sound. Despite the Core’s diffused glow, the endless ’natch stalks were motionless, revealing nothing. Blinking, I turned back to my dad.
“More than ever, Raystar, history matters. I wanted this time to discuss your legacy without your mother or sister present.”
My legacy? Last night, when Dad and I discussed going star-watching today, Mom and Cri had been in the kitchen, not doing anything particularly important that I could tell. Mom had been working at her console and Cri was lounging at the kitchen table, scrolling through a reader-tablet. So he could have invited them to join us. Curious, I moved a bit away from his side, so I could see him more fully.
“Humans have been a challenge,” Dad continued, “for the Convergence, even after 1,800 years. Your kind….” His voice trailed off as he slowly looked around, taking in the changing scene. A glow, like the sun rising at our backs, stretched our shadows outward across the ’natch fields, and then, just as rapidly, shrank them back toward us.
As one, Dad and I turned toward the…light?
“METEORS!” I shouted, pointing at the burning orbs that screamed by, high overhead.
Dad encircled me in a fortress of arms. Bulging through his shirt, his biceps were like stone overlaid with cloth. Three angry blazes cut red gashes across the sky and hurtled toward the Mesas in a triangle pattern. I covered my ears as they tore the air with thundering, supersonic violence. Two staggered flashes washed upward as the rear-most two intruders burned in Nem’s atmosphere. Sonic booms cracked the sky.
My dad spun us, so his back faced the light, and covered my eyes with a hand as big as my face. Fast as he was, I saw the third flash turn darkness into day.
The Mesas and our fields flickered in a cartoonish grey and white from the strobe of brightness. Sound followed light, and a double-heartbeat explosion whumped in the distance. The third explosion shook our hill. I clutched my pendant, which housed AI.
“Youu...gett’n this?” My eyes bulged as my dad’s protectiveness squeezed air from my lungs.
“Affirmative!” AI whispered, showing a brief replay across a virtual screen. Who says ”affirmative”? And then the plants shushed and a thunderstorm wind crashed over us.
In the aftermath of the meteor storm, I blew hair from my face and blinked dust from my eyes. Darkness returned, the wind died; we could have sat frozen atop the hill for a minute, or an hour.
“Well,” Dad muttered, breaking the spell that had held us. He loosened his arms, and I sucked in a full breath. “That was unusual. The last time I saw anything similar....” He shook his head, as if clearing the thought. Then: “Come. It is bedtime.”
I wriggled the rest of the way out of his arms and stared at him, my mouth slightly open. Had the Mesas been nuked? Were fire-breathing monsters going to hatch and UNLEASH A RAMPAGE OF DESTRUCTION ON OUR DEFENSELESS AND UNSUSPECTING PLANET? WHAT WAS GOING ON? Or, was it just, I dunno, ”unusual,” and now it’s my bedtime? Meteor showers happen all the time this close to the Core.
These meteors would most certainly be in the news.
Squinting in the explosion’s after-image, our star-lit wavy plant-fields were transformed with ominous, shadow-filled, jagged, things-in-the-darkness potential. The bugs had gone silent.
It was dead quiet.
Dad frowned at the spot where the meteors had vanished and rose with a bit more speed than normal. Even when I’m grown, Gleans will still tower over me. Humans are smaller than pretty much all Galactics. But…I’d never actually seen another of my kind, except on the vids.
Three meters gone, he was a dark outline against the oblivious stars. His legs were two tree trunks wrapped in leather and ending in giant boots. The metal buttons on his overcoat
glinted, and his flared collar blacked out the night around his head. The wind streamed his hair over his collar, and his cleft chin was a statement against…something, I suppose. With a pair of swords across his back and a blaster at his hip, he looked more pirate than hero. I just called him Dad.
Even so, I slid to my feet a breath behind him. Golden eyes glowed down at me. Gleans’ eyes glowed when they were excited. Mine didn’t glow. Cool things that other races could do? I’ve totally stopped counting. Raystar? Zero. But I didn’t like the height gap, and sprawling on the ground didn’t seem like the common-sense place to be.
“Dad, you said the last time you saw anything explode like that...whaaaat?” Speaking slowly helps grownups understand. I’m sure they’re thinking that we’re just speaking slowly because we’re kids. We just want them to understand us.
“Raystar…I…do not believe we are safe. In any case, we must rise early to fix an irrigation controller.” His four huge arms created an X-silhouette as he stretched. Irrigation controller? What?
Scowling, I folded my TWO arms across my chest and glared into the now completely creepy ’natch fields. Not safe?
He laughed, picked me up—crossed arms and all—and set me on his shoulders. “Fierce daughter mine, tonight was supposed to be a history lesson.” He sucked in a breath. “Which we must continue another day.”
“But, Dad! They were just big meteors. Cool, big, explosive meteors, for sure.” I shook my head, “I don’t get it. One minute we’re star-gazing, the next we’re ducking for cover, and now we’re running back ho….” His eyes glowed. I coughed, amending what I was going to say, “…Er, leaving quickly. And what’s with the controller? They never break. Dad?”
’Natch leaves rustled, closer this time, and just right of the path we’d take home. I had not imagined that. I peered over his head toward the sound.
“You may stay here and think on that question, if you prefer?” He moved to lift me from his shoulders.
“No, no!” I batted his arms and hands away. It was like swatting rocks. Home was several kilometers away, and I was thoroughly on edge. Besides, Dad was done giving me any more information. Once he’d made up his mind, his thoughts were like giant boulders come to rest.