Genre: Tween/YA sci
fi
Publisher: MuseItUp
Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-77127-111-0
ASIN: B008OHOVVU
Publisher's website Amazon Smashwords Bookstrand
Book Description:
When
fourteen-year-old Keth's dad is transferred to planet Aleyne, he doesn't know
what to expect. Certainly not to discover Dad grew up here, and studied with
Ardaval, a noted Aleyni scholar. On Aleyne, Keth’s psi ability develops.
However, psi is illegal in the Terran Federation. After a dangerous encounter
with two Terran teenagers conflict erupts between Keth and his father.
Keth seeks sanctuary with Ardaval. Studying with the Aleyne scholar Keth
learns the truth about his own heritage. After Keth's friend's father, Mazos,
is kidnapped, Keth ignores the risks and attempts to free him. Little does he
realize who will pay the cost as he becomes involved with terrorists.
Book Excerpt:
“What
do you mean I must undergo a psi exam? The Terran Federation legislates against
any use of psi." The speaker, a human woman with wild gray hair, glared at
the immigration official.
I gazed at the official. Like most Aleyni, he
stood over six feet, slender, with extra wide hands, and thumbs able to bend
all the way back. His head appeared more oval than humans, too, and he showed
almost no external ears. His skin appeared almost black, like Dad’s and mine,
and hers appeared pale. His dark skin provided a welcome spot of color against
the general gray of the space port interior. The temperature felt pleasant
enough, though; nicely warm instead of the chill of the Terran Federation space
station circling above Aleyne.
He
could have been reading a laundry list. “Madam, Aleyne is a sovereign planet,
not part of the Terran Federation, and if you want to clear immigration you
must undergo a psi exam.” He pushed a data cube toward her. “Either sign the
consent form and undergo the exam, or go back up to the space station.” He
added, “Take it or leave it,” in Aleyni. No one else noticed.
She
threw the data cube on the floor, stomped, and it shattered into fragments. “I
won’t do it. I don’t want any aliens screwing around in my head.”
The official stared at her for a moment.
“It’s against our ethics to screw around.”
The woman crossed her arms. “I don’t believe
you.”
“You can return to the space station and
take the next ship out.” The official’s face revealed nothing, and his gray
eyes stared straight at her. His hands hung loose at his side. I considered him
a model of polite behavior, considering. I would have punched her.
The
woman stared at him. Her head tilted up, because she barely made five feet. Her
face, which wore a ferocious frown, turned bright red. Maybe she disliked dark
skin, or maybe she simply hated Aleynis.
“I’m
going.” She spat the words, turned, glared at us, and marched down the
corridor. I glanced back and noticed her arguing with a Space Force officer.
The expression on his face would have curdled milk.
Dad
prodded me. “Keth, come on.” He grabbed two data cubes, scanned them, and
signed both. The official passed both of them through his reader and put one
through a slot. “How old is the boy?”
“I’m
fourteen Terran standard years. That makes me sixteen in Aleyni years. The
Aleyni year is shorter than ours.”
“You
need to consent for yourself.” He passed me a new cube and I signed.
The
official threw it away and handed me another. “Read first and then sign.”
I
sighed loudly and read the whole thing, both the top half, in Aleyni, and the
bottom, in English Common Speech. I started to compare the two, noticing how
much clearer informed consent appeared in the Aleyni version, when Dad prodded
me. I signed the form and returned the cube to the official. “Okay, I read it.”
The official smiled and pushed it
through the slot after Dad’s.
I
wasn’t scared, since Dad told me about the need to take a psi exam. The Aleyni
checked for any kind of plant or animal, or whether we planned a terrorist attack.
Dad said Federation anti-psi fanatics attacked a couple of times recently, so I
understood why they checked carefully.
The
examiner set me in a chair. He asked me again if I consented to the exam. When
I said yes, the examiner put his hands on the sides of my face, looking into my
eyes.
His
hands burned hot against my skin. A thousand ants chewed through my brain and a
voice whispered questions I couldn't quite make out. I tried to take a breath,
but my throat tightened, and I gasped aloud. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried
to stop shaking. I shook my head, trying to make the voices go away, and the
examiner removed his hands and stared into my eyes for a moment. The buzzing
voices stopped, leaving my head feeling as though it would burst open. The examiner
smiled at me and passed me through the checkpoint. A couple of minutes went by
before my stomach stopped heaving, but hammers still pounded inside my head.
About the Author:
Born and raised in
New York City, Margaret Fieland has been around art and music all her life.
Daughter of a painter, she is the mother of three grown sons and an
accomplished flute and piccolo player. She is an avid science fiction fan, and
selected Robert A. Heinlein's “Farmer in the Sky” for her tenth birthday, now
long past. She lives in the suburbs west of Boston, MA with her partner and a
large number of dogs. Her poems, articles and stories have appeared in journals
and anthologies such as Melusine, Front Range Review, Umbrella Journal and All
Rights Reserved. In spite of making her living as a computer software engineer,
she turned to one of her sons to format the initial version of her website, a
clear illustration of the computer generation gap. Her book, "Relocated," was released
by MuseItUp Publishing in July, 2012. The Angry Little Boy," will be
published by 4RV publishing in early 2013.
You may find her at:
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