Veiled Planet (Hidden World Trilogy Book 1)

by Teagan Kearney

  "Sweetheart, I've hardly had time to breathe. I've barely slept since you disappeared and came here straight from the shuttle after a long difficult trip."

  Too upset to sit, she stalked over to the window and stared out at the stone walls and tiny patch of earth where a few scrappy bits of grass fought for survival. A wave of dizziness swept over her, and at once her father was helping her back to the chair.

  "You look pale." Anxiety creased his forehead. "Listen, I’ve told Bryson that whatever decisions they want to make or whatever procedures they want to do, nothing is to happen today. He agreed they’ve extracted every iota of information about the plants and animals and Marut culture they think you have. I insisted that as you're my daughter, and I haven't seen you for a while, you're spending tonight and tomorrow with me. But it took some persuading, a few veiled and not so veiled threats, and I had to reassure them I’ll bring you back tomorrow evening."

  Her own father had to promise to return her to the medical unit before they released her? Things must be far worse than she'd thought, but a small ray of hope existed as she would have time with her father. She instantly considered and discarded half a dozen ideas. "Oh, Dad, I knew everything would be okay once you returned."

  After lunch her father spoke more with Bryson.

  Feeling freer than she had since her return, and wearing one of her cadet uniforms brought from the dorms, Kara refrained from skipping as she and her father walked out of the medical complex and into the base proper. Freedom at last from the restrictive prison-like conditions she’d endured since returning to the colony. Dusk was falling, and she gazed up at the spirals of drifting pink and crimson clouds in the darkening sky, but the artificial lights dominated. She couldn’t see many stars.

  Her father brought her to one of the few exclusive restaurants in the colony that served only freshly prepared food—no synths at all. The patrons who frequented this place were from the higher echelons of the bureaucratic administration which ran and organized the base, making it unlikely she would meet anyone from her cadet group. Although everyone would know of her disappearance and return, people here would simply flick discreet glances her way. If he'd chosen the community eating hall, she'd have been the object of open attention. Her father was a thoughtful man, and she was grateful.

  Soft golden light suffused the dining room. White cloths covered the tables, imitating an elegance found on older more established planets. The diners’ conversations created a muted hum, and soothing music played in the background. Lorkan asked if she’d like to attend a play at the colony’s theater after the meal, but she refused. She needed to discuss her plans with him.

  Their table was in a small alcove where they had privacy from eavesdroppers. By her side, wrapped in a loose bundle were her trews and tunic. She’d grabbed them from under her pillow just before they left. She tucked into the dishes Lorkan had ordered, and hadn’t enjoyed a meal this much since she’d last tasted Yleni’s cooking. She was licking the final smears of a creamy fruit dessert off her spoon when her father spoke.

  "Well, young lady, tell me what really happened out there." He gave her the same look he used to give her when she was ten and said she'd finished her studies when he knew very well she hadn't.

  She looked around the room. Men and women chatted politely, smiled, and laughed carefully at each other's jokes as they dined. The image of standing with a line of Maruts at the cliff edge listening to an ancient chant and watching the ocean with wonder and awe surfaced. The colonists analyzed life from inside their safe little bubble, while the Maruts experienced every dangerous moment of it.

  On the way to the restaurant, she had pondered the question of how much to tell her father. However, sitting here with him, she could see his love for her in his eyes and knew he wouldn’t let her down. He was her father and would do everything he could to protect her.

  "Start at the very beginning," he said, and listened without saying a word while she told him of her adventures. She left nothing out. His eyes widened when she spoke of the kidnapping, their getaway from the well, the Artefact, and how they’d escaped from inside the mountain. She omitted a few details of her relationship with Rishi. Mentioning the forced partnership with him seemed a moot point in light of more recent developments. "You understand, Dad, why I couldn’t tell them everything. They wouldn’t see what we feel for each other is natural, and I couldn’t give them an excuse to mindwipe me." She gazed at her father. He still had her respect, but surviving and living amongst the Maruts had revealed a strength and confidence she'd not had before.

  "You've grown up, Kara. You're not the same young girl who’d left home anymore. But the medscans revealed something else."

  "Oh, the bear scars?" They would have shown him images of the damage, though her leg was now smooth and unblemished without a trace of the scars. "You’d never know I had them."

  He leaned forward and placed his hand on top of hers, his expression earnest. "There's a particular reason they're positive you’re not telling them everything."

  How? She’d been very careful not to let anything slip. Okay, she hadn’t run toward them or expressed gratitude for their so-called rescue, but apart from the clothes scene with Marisa, she'd answered every question and given them no reason to suspect she was being anything other than fully co-operative.

  "Kara, you’re pregnant."

  She stared at him, her eyes widening. “Pregnant?” The possibility that she could or would conceive a child with Rishi hadn't entered her head. Besides the monthly patch prevented conception.

  Colony policy dictated fertile young women use the prescribed contraceptive hormone medication and apply for permission to procreate, because until the Maruts granted them more land, the colony could only sustain a limited number of people.

  Oh! Comprehension dawned. During her absence the date for her contraceptive booster had come and gone. She touched her stomach with wonder. Rishi’s child was growing in her belly. "Oh, Dad, that's the best news since I returned.” Her face lit up with pure joy. “Aren't you going to congratulate me? You're going to be a grandfather! And Rishi will make such a good father. Dad, I want you to meet him. I know you’ll like him." Her determination to leave and get back to Rishi solidified from an indefinable longing to a fixed resolve.

  Lorkan studied her for a minute. "Kara," his tone was grave. "They want to… "

  "To what, Dad?" All she could think of was that she and Rishi would have their own family. He’d lost his parents when young, and this would mean the world to him. She pictured Yleni’s face lighting up with pleasure. Children were visible evidence of a tribe's good fortune.

  Her father swallowed and squeezed her hand. “Even if I can come up with a way to stop them giving you a mind-wipe, Kara, they want to end your pregnancy.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Forestalling Misfortune

  Colony Settlement Rule 394:

  Analysis of the indigenous hominids, their mores, and genetic makeup is essential research.

  "What?" She sat, hardly breathing, as her mind processed his words. No! This was a life created by her and Rishi. "They want to kill my baby? Dad, you can’t let them." She tried to force her brain into gear, to come up with a plan.

  “The Maruts are a hominid species,” her father continued, "but there are differences between us and they don’t know how it will affect you. This child might kill you."

  Her lips tightened. She knew in her bones she was in no danger. "Dad, I love Rishi." She touched her belly. "First, refuse to give your permission for the mind-wipe. You've seen people after a mind-wipe. They’re never quite as they were. I've heard you say people turn into empty shells that are nothing but shadows of their former selves. Since when did you start agreeing with them?" Her voice rose, "Don't let them do this to me."

  Her father looked around but nobody appeared to have noticed. The advantages of civilized politeness.

  "They have an executive order from the Council, Kara. They don’t need my permis
sion, they’re being diplomatic, that’s all." He sat silent for a moment. "I have a confession of my own to make, Kara." He waited till she’d calmed before plunging in. "I never told you much about my father, did I?"

  She shook her head.

  "I was your age when my mother died and had recently graduated from the Cadet Academy on Arkarus. My father expected me to follow in his footsteps and join the Triumvirate’s administrative branch, but I refused his offer. I'd met your mother, we were in love, and we shared the same dreams. We both wanted to be a part of something new and exciting. There was a drive to recruit settlers for this new planet, and that was it. I had a huge fight with my father. He told me if I left for Hamarkhis, I wasn’t his son anymore. We haven’t spoken since."

  Kara nodded. None of this was new.

  "My father is Leonidis Marshall, the head of the Triumvirate's ruling council."

  Kara’s jaw dropped, and for the second time that evening her mind did a paradigm shift. She'd had no idea her father had access to such influence and power. "You went off-planet to see your father and got the treaty waived just to find me?"

  "Yes, Kara. I obtained the authorization, but you must know I don’t approve of the way it was done. When you didn't come back with the other cadets, we sent out search parties, but they found no trace of you, only the remains of a dead skinned kallin bear and your stun gun. They analyzed the contents of the animal's stomach, but found nothing. We did find smears of your blood nearby, and I thought I'd lost you, that you were dead, until some Marut tribal leader contacted Intelligence saying he'd met a Marut hunter traveling with one of our women. We realized it was you from the description he gave." His eyes lit up at the memory of discovering she was alive. “Yes, I took a chance banking on the fact that if I went to see my father and spoke to him personally, he'd authorize a treaty exception for his granddaughter. He owed me that much." He paused for a minute.

  "Well, they found me, and you have to ask him to overrule Bryson's orders."

  Her father buried his head in his hands.

  "'Dad?" She rubbed his arm gently. "Are you okay?"

  "Yes."' He sighed. "But it will take too long to contact and get an answer before Bryson takes action, and I may have used up any favors my father owed me." Old resentment surfaced and faded quickly from Lorkan's face. "But you’re right. I can’t leave you here at their mercy. I’ll register an appeal with the authorities here straightaway, and that’ll delay Bryson for the moment, but it'll be a day or two before I receive an answer. That man is convinced every trace of your experience with the Maruts must be erased if you’re to rejoin and function normally in society."

  "Dad," she dropped her voice. "I've made my mind up, and nothing is going to change it. I have no wish to rejoin this society. I'm Rishi’s wife, and I'm going to live out there with the Maruts." She watched him digest this nugget.

  He didn’t seem too surprised. "You're your mother's child all right." He smiled at her.

  "There are Maruts who intend to change the way things are, who want progress between our peoples," she leaned forward earnestly. "but change takes time and has to be done gradually. Can you imagine how much I could do to further positive change if I was to live and be accepted among them?"

  He nodded.

  "I'll take a comunit with me. A few of the Maruts chieftains have them already, don't they?" Hitam must have used one. She wondered if Ikeya had one? "There is much we could learn—my research on the herbal medicines the Maruts use." She lowered her voice. "‘I’m sure the Artefact is intact down under that mountain. A working particle transporter! This would change our society. Who knows what else they’d mastered before they buried their origins and history?" She knew her father agreed with her arguments, and she loved him with all her heart, but her feelings for Rishi dominated her life. Escaping from the base was a priority, because she wasn't going to let them wipe her mind and abort her child. Those procedures were irreversible. Further horror filled her as a thought occurred. The geneticists would dissect her fetus and use it for research. Her heart beat faster, and small droplets of sweat trickled down her back. A plan. She needed to stop panicking, and make a plan. Maybe she could—

  "Okay." Her father’s voice took on a sterner ring. "First, we try the legal means. Bryson can’t do anything while I’m appealing for an overturn to his executive order. We’ll go back to my rooms and start that process."

  She shivered as they left the restaurant. Her father shrugged off his overjacket and put it around her shoulders. "What happened there?" she pointed to several long cracks splitting the length of the walkway. Several of the walkway lights were out, creating areas of pooled darkness.

  "They told me there’s been a lot of seismic action at Lemnas and Ostara' s last full moon. There are cracks like this all over the Base. Their last orbit brought the moons closer to the planet than predicted. The astronomers are busy recalculating." He gave a short laugh.

  Kara remembered the Elders—they had known. "Dad?" Her intuition clicked into gear. "I don’t trust Bryson to wait while you appeal." She kept the tremor from her voice.

  "Go on." He hadn’t shut her off with platitudes about following authority.

  "I want you to listen and don’t freak out. Okay?"

  "Sure, but keep walking."

  "Let me take your helijet, go home and I'll wait there." She could hear him running through a list of objections, but she ploughed on. "I’m not running away. This is a delaying tactic. If he wants to ignore your appeal, he’ll have to find me first."

  "Home is the first place he’ll look for you, and besides, your flight path is easily tracked."

  "Yes, but all we need is time for your appeal to be registered with the authorities. Bryson would lose his job, everything he’s worked for if he acts without sanction. Registering the appeal means he has to have permission. Isn’t that right?"

  Lorkan gave her the grin of a naughty boy with a great deal of mischief up his sleeve, one that promised trouble. "Come on, then. Let's get moving."

  Relief flooded through Kara. She’d known she could rely on her father.

  The helijet port was deserted, pools of soft light creating black holes under the dozen metal ovoids crouching around the terminal.

  "Mine’s third from the end." He pointed. "Wait over there while I log it out, otherwise it'll generate an alarm."

  Kara ran toward her father's vehicle, her feet tapping lightly on the ground. She waited in the darkness, listening to voices from outside the port drifting on the night. Laughter and conversation: normal life on the base. No matter what happened after this, she could never return to the life she’d lived here before. Images of Rishi—smiling at her, holding her hand—she knew she didn’t want anything else. Yleni had told her once that you had to be true to your own path. She had always imagined her life would be within the colony, certainly within the Triumvirate's jurisdiction somewhere, adding to the vast databanks of information. But her views had changed, and she saw things differently. If she got what she wanted she would be a hybrid. Half colonist, half tribeswoman; descended from a spacefaring race with an outlook based on science and rationality, but she'd live a simple life with a race of nomadic tribespeople. She would be part of a grander plan—bridging a gap between two races who shared the same world.

  Soft footsteps came toward her, and Lorkan loomed out of the dark. He walked lightly for such a big man. He grinned, his teeth a brief gleam in the night, before pressing his palm against the opening panel. It slid aside with a hiss. He hugged her tight.

  "When you arrive home, put this thing in its port—don’t leave it outside to show up on surveillance. Take as many supplies as you can fit on the land-scoot and head out to the far pasture."

  She looked blank.

  "It’s been a while; I guess you don’t remember we built a safety shelter, the time we had trouble with a few packs of thrinaxes?"

  “Vaguely.” She’d have been about five or six and only had a hazy memory of the small sn
arling four-legged saber-toothed creatures that had tunneled under the magsen fence around her father’s farm.

  "Head down there, and stay out of sight till I arrive. Give me three days. I’ll tell Bryson we need more time with each other before I give permission. He’ll give me another day when I talk about how pleased my father was to see me." He looked at her. "No one will kill a grandchild of mine before they’ve learnt how to fight back. Right, off you go."

  She reached up and kissed him on the cheek. "I love you," she said. Then she was inside and closing the door. The automatic lighting came on as she settled herself at the control panel. She switched on the viewer, watching her father leave. A deep warm softness rose in her heart. “Thank you, Dad,” she whispered at the screen. As soon as he cleared the area she hit the take-off button, and the machine rose smoothly into the air.

  It wasn’t usual for a helijet to depart at night, but seeing as how it was Lorkan who'd logged the transport out, there'd be no undue questions till it was too late to matter. Nonetheless, she switched to manual, disabling the flight log and making it impossible to track her, and took the machine higher than normal. Her father’s appeal would be registered shortly. Bryson would be livid when she didn’t return to the medical block tomorrow, but she had faith her father could handle him. The longer the authorities took to figure out what she'd done and where she'd gone, the better her chances of finding Rishi.

  Within minutes the helijet was heading south. Kara slumped back into her seat, a big smile across her face. She pictured Rishi. Soon, she told herself, soon.

  As the predawn light pearled the eastern skyline, her family homestead came into view. She landed the helijet as close to the house as possible, breathing in the familiar smell of her childhood as she entered. Racks of drying plants, their aromatic perfume reminding her of her mother, hung in the kitchen area. She hadn't been home for six months, and while the crops were her father’s specialty, growing herbs had been her mother’s. He’d taken over growing and caring for them when his wife fell sick. Today he grew them to keep her life's work alive. She realized how lucky she’d been to grow up here with far more freedom to roam than children on the base were allowed. No wonder she found Marut life appealing.