Songs Of Harmony
Page 1
Songs Of Harmony
A Harmony Novel
Andrew Elgin
Contents
Also by Andrew Elgin
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Notes From Haven
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Notes From Haven
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
Notes From Haven
Chapter 31
Notes From Haven
Chapter 32
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About the Author
Also by Andrew Elgin
Harmony series
Finding Harmony (Novelette)
Seeds Of Harmony
Ambassadors Of Harmony
Visit Andrew Elgin's website at http://andrewelgin.com and get the prequel novelette Finding Harmony, subscribe to the blog and get notified about new books and sales.
This story 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 any person or place is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-0-9978816-7-7 (Ebook version)
ISBN: 978-0-692-70298-7 (Paperback version)
Cover Design by Tony Rhoton - akdia.com
Copyright © 2016 by Sixth Sense Solutions
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To Maggie, for finding me
To Judith, for helping me
Acknowledgments
It's not easy, this acknowledgment thing. Unlike the Oscar winners who have their catalog of names ready to reel off, I have not got an easy list of people.
That said, however, I would like to acknowledge the numerous writers of science fiction I devoured early on. If I mention those influences, then I must also acknowledge my mother, who introduced me to the fascinations of libraries very early on. And, if my mother, then my grandparents who also loved to read, and were responsible for instilling that love into my mother who passed it on to me.
And so it grows and grows.
More specifically, I'd like to thank the early readers of this book who now wouldn't recognize what it became: Michelle Felicetta and Eric Hughes.
Of course, if it wasn't for Maggie, my wife, encouraging me, nothing would have been done. And if Judith Tarr hadn't got down and dirty with the first re-write, I probably would have thought I was OK, when I certainly wasn't!
Apart from these few, I'd like to also acknowledge all the writers I've read since my teen years, even the historians, because they all taught me something about writing.
A special thanks goes to the following people, who gave vital support during the first launch of this book: Cynthia Garbarsky, Susana Gama, Susan Orton, Linda Harrington, Cynthia Gillen, Peter McPherson, Julia Marks, Glenda Spiwak, Melanie Johnstone and Connie Baldwin.
Prologue
Two Planets
Finding one planet able to support human life was quite rare. But in one system two such planets existed; Haven and Harmony, both circling the same sun. That sun was nowhere near any center of human civilization, even using astronomical measurements. Neither was it close to any trade route. The system was essentially unknown in an unexplored, minor part of the galaxy.
A colony class ship, immense in size and aspiration, carrying everything needed to jump-start life on a new planet, had malfunctioned. Navigation awry, its target planet long since lost, it tumbled out of the blackness into this isolated system and, following an old and, by now, useless schedule, woke the people it carried. Their observations and measurements at first confused them before they finally accepted that fate had decided they were to live when they could so easily have been corpses turning to dust, traveling without end. They blessed the luck which had brought them to this system and set about the slow task of maneuvering to rendezvous with their new home. But which one?
The choice seemed obvious. They chose the inner of the two available planets and named it Haven. Against all odds, with very few minor exceptions, it was rich with everything they would need from the very start. Fortune, or fate, was again on their side, it seemed. Why bother even looking at the outer planet? It had no easily accessible ores. In comparison, it had nothing to offer for quick and steady growth.
Seen from the edge of the system, Haven seemed to hurtle where her sister glided. Yet, to the grateful, lucky, new inhabitants, the seasons seemed normal. All that they missed was a moon to light their nights. But they could live, were living, without one.
It was only after they had begun to forge the beginnings of a fresh, world-spanning civilization that some, still amazed at the fate which had brought them, wondered whether they had made the right choice. They had left a planet scraped clean of all that it could offer them. It was the reason they had left. Did they have to repeat that here? Wasn't this a chance to be different? Think differently? Act differently? Instead of forcing their will upon the land, could they not, perhaps, be less voracious, less demanding? Perhaps the other planet would have been the right choice. No metal ores in easy reach would have meant a different start, a more cooperative beginning. It would have allowed the growth of a closer relationship with the planet. They argued that, if they had chosen the other planet, they would have had all the metal they needed in the ship itself anyway, so huge was it. Why be greedy from the very start?
And so some of the people, looking for a new way of living; a way, they felt, which should have been chosen, took a ship to the outer, slower planet with its beckoning moon and they named it what they dreamed of: Harmony.
But Harmony was not welcoming. There were trials which tested the resolve of them all. Severe weather and sickness took their toll. In the face of this seemingly unrelenting struggle, some of the colonists were found wanting. Sadly acknowledging their weakness, these few said farewell to their dream and left to travel back to Haven. They set off in the ship they had arrived in, but not one survived the return journey. The cause was never established. On board, apart from the bodies, there were some samples of plants and some recorded stories of strange things that had been witnessed or perhaps experienced back on Harmony; tales which made little sense. These tales became rumors. And the rumors grew and spread. Harmony became, not a dream, but a nightmare: a place where people lost their humanity, became like beasts living in a stone age. In the minds of those on Haven, Harmony was a warning not to try to change their nature. The stars would be theirs only if they took what they ne
eded, not if they denied themselves.
On Harmony, the now isolated settlers continued the struggle to survive, as well as to understand the planet. They strove to listen to it, to become close to it. And, slowly they spread and they learned. They learned of the planet, but they also learned of themselves, and the knowledge they gained brought them new awareness and began to change them in subtle ways that, because they were gradual, became accepted as normal. In their stories and memories, Haven became a distant, unbalanced place of destruction and metal and blinkered ignorance where people confused progress with wisdom.
As they grew slowly in different but always human ways on Harmony, so those on Haven grew in the same way humanity always had. Industry and government, education and politics, exploration and invention became more intricate and less personal and always bigger. And all around them, in the moonless night sky, the unknown stars shone and teased them with the need to find their own kind; to reconnect with them. But to do that required combining driving leadership, innovation and the constant investment of energy and inspiration to reach toward a common goal. Whenever those elements existed at the same time, they were never harnessed effectively or for any useful length of time. And most of the time they did not coexist.
The original colony ship had long since been gutted and re-purposed as the basis of factories and mines and machinery, as it had been designed to do. Some small ships were necessary to dismantle and transfer the colony ship to the planet's surface, piece by piece. Those tiny offspring themselves broke down eventually. But, before the last of them failed, a new one was built. But there was nothing for it to do. It served only one purpose; to provide a tangible connection with the stars in the night sky. In due course, another was built. And later, another. But none of them could travel beyond the system of their birth. Their purpose was to provide a connection with the unspoken dream of Haven; to find the rest of humankind.
Despite having the ability to travel, there was hardly any contact made between Haven and Harmony, because Haven felt there was no need. No metals meant no progress to those on Haven. Harmony had been a failed experiment early in Haven's history. It was a planet for the curious only. Not for anyone who wished for the stars. Harmony was no place to find civilization. Once in every several generations a ship had been sent, but there was no real purpose to it beyond the technicality of the voyage itself. Harmony was a useful target. It was close enough to make a voyage there and back feasible, and far enough to make a voyage a useful test of equipment. After such fleeting visits, tales were told of a strange affliction, a curse whereby nobody could leave Harmony alive if they stayed too long on the surface or ate any of the food or drank the water. Those on Harmony came to resent such contacts, seeing them as unwanted invasions of their privacy and as intimidatory displays. Haven became an unspecified but potent threat to their way of life.
Haven's rulers infrequently combined political profit with scientific advance. They used Harmony to exile the very occasional high profile 'irritant', when a visible, but expensive, 'mercy' was politically valuable. Of course, there was no way of ensuring such a prisoner's safe arrival. But it was technically very useful for testing new ship designs.
So the two planets, carrying the same human seeds at different rates around the same sun, nurtured and grew them in different mediums to have different aspirations. Harmony and Haven passed through the same seasons at different times and at different rates.
And the sun remained in the center, pulling the planets along, like children.
Chapter One
By the time the shuttle door lifted, Lisick, Gerant and Bellis, the housekeeper, had been waiting for several minutes, intensely curious as to why it was here. Also more than a little alarmed by it, by the strangeness and angularity, the size and power of it. The harshness of its engines battering the day sounds away had warned them of its arrival. Plus, Pasker had been quick to summon them to witness the strange thing sounding as if it was tearing the sky apart. He had been sent back inside, much to his annoyance. To everyone outside of it, the craft was wrong. It was metal - so much metal! - and sharp angles and it smelt wrong and it was of nothing natural. It was an offense to the land it was resting on. The small group of silkies had scattered into the undergrowth at the first roaring sounds and were only now studying it cautiously from a safe distance, snickering quietly to reassure each other.
The quick descent had heated the craft and it gave off clicks and hisses as it cooled. A few moments passed before anyone was visible. Then a man wearing a full helmet attached to a suit of some sort of shiny material stepped off the ramp. He stopped a few paces from the three and thrust a document at them, waiting until Gerant had reached out slowly and taken it.
"Read it! Assuming you can read." the crewman said, his voice sounding both hollowed and distant by the helmet, before turning abruptly and disappearing back into the gloom of the craft.
He reappeared shortly dragging a large chest down the ramp. He opened it up to reveal that there were, in fact, two lids, two chests, one inside the other. Off he went again, watched curiously by four pairs of eyes (Pasker was not to be denied a view, albeit from just inside the doorway) and also with some trepidation as to what would happen next.
He returned, accompanied this time by another crew member, also wearing a suit and helmet. Between them they had a limp body. Without a pause, they marched down the ramp, dumped it just off the edge, by the side of the double crate, and returned again to the interior. By the time the three arrived at the body, the door was closing and the large and unnerving craft was virtually airtight again.
Lisick was first to react, moving swiftly in her jerky fashion to discover it was a young man, a teenager maybe, maybe older. The dirty pale face, sunken features and lank, dark hair made it hard to determine. The concern on her face was replaced by a venomous glare at the ship.
"What gives them the right to do this?"
By then, Gerant and Bellis were kneeling, touching the newcomer's cheek, feeling for a pulse, brushing the hair back, checking for wounds.
"Let's get him inside," said Gerant. He peered inside the crate to confirm it was empty. Then he paused a moment to close his eyes and appeared to be thinking, before shaking his head in irritation. He easily hauled the limp body up, draped it over one large shoulder and made for the wooden building about fifty paces away, seeming not to notice the extra weight.
Once inside, they made the new arrival as comfortable as they could and left Bellis with strict instructions to have food ready and to come and get them when he woke up.
"I could read nothing of use in either of them," Gerant said, tipping his head at the craft outside. "Not closed, but not knowing anything. Some fear, maybe. I didn't have much time. How about you?"
"Me? Nothing. Didn't even try. Well, never mind. We have to deal with it." Lisick was nervous and it showed in her clipped speech. "They scare me, though. I mean, I knew they came here. But seeing them? That's different. It's real. But why now? What do they want?" She hugged her thin body. "I don't like them, Gerant. Whatever it is they want, I don't like it." She nodded at Gerant's belt. "What's that they gave you? Hadn't we better see what it is?"
Gerant pulled it out, laid it on the table, holding it flat with one hand while Lisick paced nervously behind him. He finished and turned to her with a sour look on his face.
"They want plants. Certain plants. They've got drawings here of the ones they want. That must be what that box out there is for." He held it up for Lisick to see.
She squinted at the drawings, trying to recognize what they were of. "Plants?" She looked up at Gerant. "They came here for plants?"
"And to dump the boy, don't forget."
"But what do they want our plants for?" She gestured angrily at the drawings. "And I can't make out what those things are meant to be. They look dead to me. Do you know what they are? And when do they want them, anyway?"
"It says 'immediately' in the letter."
Lisick snorted h
er derision at that. "Oh, yes! Of course. We have been waiting for them to arrive with bunches of plants in our arms, so we could give them to them straight away. They're idiots!"
Gerant had been studying the drawings and now he looked up. "Maybe Bellis would recognize them. She's good with plants. I'll ask her."
"But why do they want them? And why now? And what if we didn't give them anything? What then?" Lisick demanded.
"There's another part of this thing I haven't told you about." Gerant's voice took on a heavy tone. "They threaten us. Or, actually, they threaten Harmony." Gerant acknowledged Lisick's shock with raised eyebrows and a curt nod at the document. "They threaten to spray poison on Harmony if we don't give them what they want. Apparently, that thing out there is equipped and ready to do it."
Lisick was aghast. "No, no, no. That can't happen! We must stop that. We must find those plants now. Show me again. We'll get them. We'll get them."
Before Gerant could reply, Bellis called them from the door. Pasker was beside her, eager to be part of this most strange and wonderful day.