Vara (A to Z Challenge)

Vara is R’il’noid, though not High R’il’noid. She is a breeder and trainer of performance horses, and lives near Nik on Seabird Island. Like most fertile R’il’noids she is subject to the Genetics Board as far as having children is concerned. Her last pregnancy was, by Board decision, to Derik. Trouble was, she knew Derik in his misspent youth and gave in only reluctantly to letting him have anything to do with their son, Coryn. Needless to state, Coryn was conceived by the laboratory procedure, though Derik did insist on using conditional precognition to determine the timing and which fertilized egg was implanted.

Vara appears in Homecoming and Tourist Trap, and will have a continuing part in my upcoming trilogy. Here she is speaking from about a third of the way through Homecoming, after Coryn has invited Roi to visit over the school holidays, and she has (reluctantly) allowed Derik to visit as well, since at this point in time he is one of Roi’s guardians.

I’m glad I sent those extra food packages to Cory. I thought he was just trying to take advantage of me, but after seeing what his “starving, motherless tutee”  looks like, I really don’t think I sent him enough. If he could walk, the boy would be a walking skeleton!

What on Central was Derik thinking of, to send a paralyzed child in a float chair to a school like Tyndall! Oh, Cory says he’s bright enough, But I can’t believe the others aren’t giving him problems. Not with the way he pulls in on himself at any sudden move. I’ll certainly let Derik know how I feel about the situation when he gets here!

At least Roi doesn’t seem afraid of the horses, and Cory says he was quite a rider before he was paralyzed. Still wants to be, I think. At any rate, he really lit up when Cory offered to take him riding double this morning. I did insist that they take old Cotton, instead of that feisty mare Cory had started to saddle! I’m not so sure about letting them go bareback, though when I mind-touched Coryn to check on them a time or two, Ander was the one having problems. I thought that bay might be too much for him, but Cotton’s really the only quiet horse I have right now.

I’m doing my A to Z blogs from my books, both characters and background information. For characters I’ll introduce them quickly, say what point of time they’re talking from since their situations change drastically through the books, and let them talk. The format of background information will vary according to what I’m talking about. Bold type indicates that more information has been or will be available in another A to Z post. All of these blogs will be scheduled to go live just after midnight Alaska time. Click below for the list of participants.

Timi (A to Z Challenge)

Timi is the third of the friends Roi (Snowy) manages to keep together as a dancing group. He is black. Not African or looking like it, but from a starship-based, inbred civilization, the Clan. His hair and skin are true black, not dark brown. His eyes, however, are reddish amber, with a protective reflecting layer below the amber pigment. His hair is curly, but only loosely. His culture uses dance as a method of challenge, but it is dance in free fall, with randomly changing artificial gravity fields. He appears in Homecoming, Tourist Trap and Horse Power.

Timi was older than Amber when enslaved in a pirate raid, remembers more of freedom, and fiercely resents being a slave. He had also had considerably more education than Amber and was able to teach what he had learned to the others, to some extent getting around the custom that slaves were not taught to read or to understand numbers. Here he is speaking from before the beginning of Homecoming

Should I go along? I like Amber and I’d like to stay with her, but she’s freebred, a captive like me. That Snowy’s slavebred, and every slavebred I’ve met is pretty stupid.

I don’t think Snowy is, though.

Amber said he’d learned to read faster than anyone she knew just from her reading a few things to him, and was just as quick on what she could remember of arithmetic. And that idea of his: keeping us all together as a dancing group, that we’d be worth enough that way to get decent treatment …. I’ve seen enough to know how slaves can be mistreated. Makes me want to scream, but they’ll just activate the control collar if I do.

And I’d like to be friends with him.

That’s the dangerous kind.

I’m doing my A to Z blogs from my books, both characters and background information. For characters I’ll introduce them quickly, say what point of time they’re talking from since their situations change drastically through the books, and let them talk. The format of background information will vary according to what I’m talking about. Bold type indicates that more information has been or will be available in another A to Z post. All of these blogs will be scheduled to go live just after midnight Alaska time.

Outer Council (A to Z Challenge)

The Councils were originally formed to provide the R’il’nai some feedback on how the Human population of the Confederation would react to R’il’nian actions. All members showed strong R’il’nian traits, but until the development of the Çeren index (which measured the fraction of active genetic material of R’il’nian origin) membership was rather helter-skelter. By a century after the Çeren index was developed, it was formalized: those with a Çeren index of more than 72 (1/2 the active gene R’il’nian-derived) were considered R’il’noid; those with more than 108 (3/4) were called High R’il’noids and expected to act as part of the Outer Council when on Central, and the Inner Council was made up of those with Çeren indices of 120 or greater (7/8). By the time of Homecoming, the Inner Council was effectively running the Confederation, though Lai as the last surviving R’il’nian retained veto power (which he rarely used, recognizing that all too soon the Inner Council would be on its own.) The Outer Council was an advisory body for the Inner Council and its members were on call for assignments throughout the Confederation, as were all R’il’noids.

It must be emphasized that both Councils were concerned strictly with Confederation law, which dealt with R’il’noids and relationships between planets and between species. Individual planets had their own laws and governments and aside from a few things that were requited to join the Confederation (such as not trying to settle or exploit a planet with a native sentient or near-sentient species,) any form of government was accepted and could not be interfered with by the Confederation. Think of the United Nations with absolute power to stop wars between member states, but absolutely nothing corresponding to the declaration of human rights.

Thus Central, for instance, though the seat of the Confederation for historical reasons, was under the control of an elected assembly of Humans, and slavery was accepted there. On Falaron, the vacation planet in Tourist Trap, slavery was illegal.

Confederation law did trump planetary law, and R’il’noids were not subject to planetary law. There was actually good historical reason for this: R’il’noids trying to do their job had been executed for inadvertently violating some rather strange local laws. But by the time of Homecoming some R’il’noids were taking advantage of this fact.

Although the Inner Council met regularly, the Outer Council was convened only under extraordinary conditions. Such a condition might be an amendment to the Articles of Confederation. To quote Carina, the oldest member of the Inner Council and the expert of Confederation law, when she as asked about amendments:

“Part of the original Articles,” she said without opening her eyes. “Yes, it can be changed. Two-thirds of the Inner Council—not two-thirds plus—and a simple majority of the entire Council, inner and outer combined. Then two-thirds of the planets in the Confederation have to ratify it. It can be done, but it’ll take time—probably several years, if not decades.”

But for the most part, the Outer Council serves as the eyes, ears, hands, and feet of the Confederation.

I’m doing my A to Z blogs from my books, both characters and background information. For characters I’ll introduce them quickly, say what point of time they’re talking from since their situations change drastically through the books, and let them talk. The format of background information will vary according to what I’m talking about. Bold type indicates that more information has been or will be available in another A to Z post. All of these blogs will be scheduled to go live just after midnight Alaska time.

Nik Tarlian (A to Z Challenge)

Nik is a physician, but not an esper Healer. He is R’il’noid, but he can’t quite teleport by himself. His empathic talents, however are exceptionally good. Physically he is rather small, with red hair, freckles, and light green eyes with gold veining. He is sterile and has no interest in sex, but he is expert at straightening out problem children and usually is fostering one or two for the Genetics Board.

He is half brother to Lai and Derik, and since he is close to Lai in age the two have grown up together and are close friends. His home is on Seabird Island, which makes him a close neighbor of Vara, Coryn’s mother. In Homecoming he is handed the job of nursing Roi through a very bad case of Kharfun syndrome, and he is speaking from that part of the book.

Roi may be my nephew, but I’m sure not connecting with him. That mirror shield …. Where’d he learn that? And he doesn’t trust me at all. I wouldn’t even have known he was conscious and able to move a little if Florian hadn’t pulled that stunt.

Well, at least he seems willing to learn. Wish I could be sure he’d understood my instructions on how to reverse the Kharfun paralysis, but he must have, or he wouldn’t be able to move as well as he does. I’d still feel better if he’d let me into his mind to show him what to do. Or let his father connect with him.

I wish I could keep him here while his father’s gone, but he and Florian …. Well, either Florian’s going to wind up killing him, or he’ll kill Florian in self-defense. And emotionally, Florian needs help more than Roi does.

Still, I’m not sure Tyndall’s the best option for him right now. Sure, it’s a good school. A great school. But the competition’s pretty fierce, and with Roi so far behind his age group, and in a float chair besides …. I hope the hazing’s let up from what I remember.

I’m doing my A to Z blogs from my books, both characters and background information. For characters I’ll introduce them quickly, say what point of time they’re talking from since their situations change drastically through the books, and let them talk. The format of background information will vary according to what I’m talking about. Bold type indicates that more information has been or will be available in another A to Z post. All of these blogs will be scheduled to go live just after midnight Alaska time.

Marna (A to Z Challenge)

Central was not the only planet settled by the R’il’nai when their home system became uninhabitable – but the groups fleeing R’il’n lost touch with each other. One group settled on Riya, a planet outside the region encompassed by the Confederation. Here Marna, a Healer, was a young researcher into infectious diseases. (Though the R’il’nai were immune to most such diseases, they were still cautious.) She was on an isolation satellite, studying a new disease, when a plague which did affect the R’il’nai struck Riya and the few colonies it had managed to settle. Everyone was infected. Everyone died. Only Marna was left alive, protected by the isolation satellite designed to protect Riya, and ordered by her mentor to stay on the satellite and keep sending a warning to anyone else who might try to visit the doomed planet. Her only company, aside from the satellite’s computer, was the Tinerals (monkey-like feathered singers with wings) whose ancestors she brought to the satellite as pets.

Physically, Marna has red-gold hair, dark blue eyes veined with silver, and a skin tone a bit lighter than Lai’s, but not by much. Here she is speaking from her first appearance in Homecoming, after she has realized that the life-support system of the isolation satellite is failing after two centuries.

At least I can save the Tinerals.

They’re vulnerable to predators, but there aren’t any predators on the island of Windhome, so they ought to be safe there. And it’s no trouble to teleport them down, now that I’ve reviewed how to do it.

Only three left, now, and we’re all gasping for breath. This is the last oxygen bottle. I have to send them now, while I still have the strength – but I’ll be so alone. Not for long.

Oh, Tyr, I did my best to stay alive, to keep warning off any other R’il’nai. If there are any. I did program the planetary computer to keep broadcasting. How I wish I could feel a Riyan wind in my hair once more, but if I go back the plague will kill me, and I’ll no longer be able to do my duty.

Use your head, girl. Your job was to provide a warning. You can’t do that if you die here. It’s time to come home, Love.

Win? But Win’s dead! I felt him die! Or ….

Common sense, that’s what it is! I can’t do my job if I die here, so I might as well die on Riya and join the rest of my people. Just let me get the few things that are truly precious to me, like the hair clasp Win gave me when we decided to try for a child.

I’m doing my A to Z blogs from my books, both characters and background information. For characters I’ll introduce them quickly, say what point of time they’re talking from since their situations change drastically through the books, and let them talk. The format of background information will vary according to what I’m talking about. Bold type indicates that more information has been or will be available in another A to Z post. All of these blogs will be scheduled to go live just after midnight Alaska time.

Lai (A to Z Challenge)

Ten thousand years before Homecoming and Tourist Trap a disease crossed over from Humans to the R’il’nai. Although a mild, flu-like disease in Humans, it was deadly to the R’il’nai and to those hybrids with a high proportion of R’il’nian genes. A cure and an inoculation were found, but the aftereffects of the disease, and also of the inoculation, included a drastic reduction of an already low fertility. Between the direct effects of the disease and the aftereffects, the R’il’nian population could not maintain itself. Although hybridization with Human volunteers was re-initiated, the purebred R’il’nai of the Confederation were slowly approaching extinction.

Lai was the last survivor. The only thing that saved him from suicide, in the first lonely years after his father Tarl’s death, was the love of a human woman, Saroi, nicknamed Cloudy for her pure white hair.

Lai is fine-boned, like most R’il’nai, with black hair, green eyes veined with gold, and dark bronze skin. Here he is speaking from a couple of years before Homecoming starts.

Twelve years ago, today, she left me. Oh, I have mementoes. That mobile, a delicate thing of spun glass, still hangs above what was our bed. I filled the vase she made with sweet lemon blossoms today, and thought how she loved the fragrance, but all I have left is memories.

Why did she leave me? Why did her note say only that she begged me not even to try to find her?

She loved me, as I loved her. Not for her appearance. Her tri-dee is still there, but Cloudy’s image is far more vivid in my mind. Pale, clear skin, light brown eyes, hair as white as the puffball clouds of summer. That white hair, beautiful as it was to me, terrified the Genetics Board. It meant she had the Koven gene, which when not blocked by the protective gene she also carried interfered badly with the development of the nervous system. Koven and projective telepathy together was too much to risk, they insisted, and refused to allow her fertility to be restored. Did their decision bother her that much?

I think, now, that I could have assured that any child we had – not that it was very likely – would not have been affected by Koven. I am not sure, but if I have interpreted the history left by Jarn correctly, a R’il’nian father may have far more ability to influence his child’s makeup than anyone suspected. I’ll have to try it out before I am sure, and for that I’ll have to find a partner. Perhaps Elyra?

I’m doing my A to Z blogs from my books, both characters and background information. For characters I’ll introduce them quickly, say what point of time they’re talking from since their situations change drastically through the books, and let them talk. The format of background information will vary according to what I’m talking about. Bold type indicates that more information has been or will be available in another A to Z post. All of these blogs will be scheduled to go live just after midnight Alaska time.

Flame (A to Z Challenge)

Flame is slave-bred, a redhead with green eyes and a very fair (but not freckled) complexion that sunburns easily. At the time she is speaking from, she has never been outdoors and has never seen the sky. She is an important character in Homecoming and Tourist Trap, though she does not appear in Horse Power. She is the least intelligent of Roi’s companions, but the most loyal. She has an eidetic memory: she can recall every detail of something seen once. She is a bit of a clothes horse, and she has the height and figure to pull it off. Here she speaks from before the start of Homecoming.

Of course I can dance. I was bred to dance. Long legs, long body and arms, perfect coordination and I’ve been made to perform exercises that boost strength, coordination and agility ever since I can remember. My breeder was a master instructor in the dance, and when I was old enough he began putting me into his classes.

How old? What do you mean? Years? Numbers? I don’t understand those, just the rhythm of the dance. I’m still growing, I know that.

Classes. My owner had me dance at times with those he had in for training, and one of them was really good. Snowy, he called himself, and somehow we both danced better together than apart. Even my owner noticed and he bought Snowy, saying he’d train us as a pair. Snowy thought as he danced, and sometimes he would come up with variations that my owner really liked. I wasn’t so happy when Snowy wanted to add Amber and Timi so we’d have four dancers, but he pointed out that four of us, dancing really well together, would bring a high enough price that we’d likely be treated well or at least not just thrown away. And maybe we could even train other dancers when we got too old to dance ourselves.

That last didn’t seem very important to me, but staying together was. Snowy, and later Amber and Timi, were the first friends I’d ever had.

I’m doing my A to Z blogs from my books, both characters and background information. For characters I’ll introduce them quickly, say what point of time they’re talking from since their situations change drastically through the books, and let them talk. Background information will vary according to what I’m talking about. All of these blogs will be scheduled to go live just after midnight Alaska time.

Elyra Faranian (A to Z Challenge)

Elyra is very small (around 4’ tall) but perfectly formed. She is milk chocolate in color, and (like Derik) monotone in that skin, hair and eyes are all the same shade, though her eyes are veined with copper. She is R’il’noid and an important member of the genetics board. Like many R’il’noid women she is sexually active and easily aroused when she is not pregnant, but loses interest in sex when pregnant or nursing. At the start of Homecoming she has agreed to try to have a child by Lai “the old-fashioned way,” although most natural pairings with R’il’nians are infertile. Laboratory manipulation has been the norm since Çeren’s work made it possible. I’ll let her explain it.

R’il’noids are essential to the survival of the Confederation, especially now that the purebred R’il’nai are almost extinct. Most have at least some degree of ability to detect and remove Maung parasitization, and many have the even more important talent of conditional precognition. My job as the chief geneticist of the Genetics Board is to encourage pregnancies that could produce R’il’noids without undesirable traits, and since Çeren’s work, that generally means laboratory pregnancies. Natural matings of R’il’nian males with human females were producing about one pregnancy per R’il’nian a century, and Çeren was getting a much higher rate with his lab technique.

But with the lab technique we were getting an increasing number of R’il’noids with no sense of responsibility.  Lai, the last of the R’il’nai, suggested that might be due to the laboratory techniques. Further, he’d gone back to Jarn’s Journal, where he detailed the first, natural cross-species pregnancies, many millennia ago. “I think I’ve figured out what he was doing,” he said. “Emotional connection — love — is necessary. Knowing what I now do, I think I can manage it with strong liking and desire for a child. I won’t claim to love you as I loved Cloudy, Elyra, but we’re good friends, and I think it might work. Are you willing to move in with me and try?”

I’ve never been exclusive in my loves, but Lai is special, special enough that whatever my doubts about whether he could get me pregnant, I was more than willing to try. “Of course,” I said.

I’m doing my A to Z blogs from my books, both characters and background information. For characters I’ll introduce them quickly, say what point of time they’re talking from since their situations change drastically through the books, and let them talk. Background information will vary according to what I’m talking about. All of these blogs will be scheduled to go live just after midnight Alaska time.

Derik Tarlian (A to Z Challenge)

Derik is a major character in both Homecoming and Tourist Trap, and will continue to be important in the upcoming trilogy. He is Lai’s half brother. He is High R’il’noid, second only to Zhaim among the R’il’noids, and one of Lai’s closest friends. Like many R’il’noids, he will never age beyond maturity, and by the beginning of Homecoming is roughly fifteen centuries old.

Physically, he is athletic (horseback obstacle racing, sailing, hang gliding) medium sized with a rather light build, and monotone in color – his hair, eyes, and skin are all the same medium golden brown color, except for the metallic gold veining in his eyes. He is more than half R’il’nian (the metallic eye veining is a R’il’nian trait) being the son of the purebred R’il’nian, Tarl, and a mother who is a complex crossbred.

Psychologically, he is one of those characters who invented himself. He is bisexual in that his partners are important to him more because of what is inside them than because of external qualities like sex. He is by nature monogamous, but he is effectively immortal in a world where women with his life span are rare and want children, and he is nearly sterile. As a young R’il’noid he had little sense of responsibility, and still suffers from the reputation that earned him. However, by the time his younger half-brother Lai was born he was considered responsible and expert enough that Tarl entrusted much of Lai’s basic esper training to Derik, and he is still the one who trains most of the young R’il’noids in the use of these abilities. He is also the Confederation’s premier expert in xenotelepathy.

Here he is speaking from roughly a third of the way through Homecoming. This is some of what he does not reveal to Roi in the book.

“Of course I understand the difference between love and lust,” I growled at Bera. “And I loved Edward.”

“Did you? Did you truly do what was best for him, or did you please yourself?”

I looked at the bier where what was left of Edward lay, fighting to control tears. Why was Bera talking of this now?

“Perhaps you are not old enough yet to understand,” she said. “Perhaps for now you need to bury this memory. But keep it. Here,” and she plucked a flower from the hedge beside us, a small scarlet flower of the kind called lovers’ lips. “Remember this, and its scent, when you are ready to bring this day back.”

Last night, after I was forced to go into Roi’s mind to understand why he had that poltergeist reaction, I revisited that memory, and this time I understood. Love cannot be bought. Edward was my slave, and while I thought I was doing the best for him, I never really allowed him to be his own person. I’d intended the same with Roi, but in seeing the horrors he had been through I understood all too well that his apparent compliance had been based on fear that I would sell him.

Had the same been true of Edward?

I’m doing my A to Z blogs from my books, both characters and background information. For characters I’ll introduce them quickly, say what point of time they’re talking from since their situations change drastically through the books, and let them talk. Background information will vary according to what I’m talking about. All of these blogs will be scheduled to go live just after midnight Alaska time.

Coryn (A to Z Challenge)

Coryn K’Derik Tarlian is Derik’s son and head boy of the 12^th year at Tyndall, a boarding school where most of the students are R’il’noids with esper abilities. Cory is a secondary character in Homecoming, is mentioned in Tourist Trap, and because he is non-aging, will still be around in the upcoming trilogy. Here he is speaking from the first section of Homecoming.

(Incidentally, the R’ and l’ are palatalized, as in Russian. An alternate spelling of R’il’noid would be Ryilynoid.)

I’m not sure why Kim asked me to tutor this Roi. Oh, the older students are always expected to tutor the younger ones, but a paralyzed youngster who everyone says is my father’s catamite? I know he’s dad’s slave. I saw him once on a visit, though he wasn’t paralyzed then. Beat me riding, in fact. But what is he doing here? Dad’s a practical joker, sure, but he doesn’t play that kind of jokes.

Anyway I took him on, though I expect it’ll be a real challenge even if Kim’s right in thinking he’s pretty bright. He’s been a slave; he can’t have learned anything. But Xazhar K’Zhaim, the 10^th year leader, is bound and determined the kid’s going to fail. Xazhar’s a bully. If I have anything to say about it, he’s not going to get his way this time!

I’m doing my A to Z blogs from my books, both characters and background information. For characters I’ll introduce them quickly, say what point of time they’re talking from since their situations change drastically through the books, and let them talk. Background information will vary according to what I’m talking about. All of these blogs will be scheduled to go live just after midnight Alaska time.