I’ll be posting the Book 1: 4th Sequence beta audiobook around lunch tomorrow, in pure reading format without music for a limited time. The recordings went swiftly and enjoyably over Facebook Live on the page for Bones of Starlight, and those videos are still there.
From tomorrow, visit evaelasigue.bandcamp.com for a downloadable by-donation version. Have a happy Earth Day!
The two ships landed next to a school playground by a lake. “I wish to hold a discussion with Princess Soleil,” Sturlusson explained over the com. “Anyone else who wants to come landside for your own reason, I have a small process available in hand if you are worried. It was a terrible disease that ravaged this place, but you will be fine. Meet me by the tall slide.” Everyone came out.
They gathered for a session with the harmonizer, a Vedani module that could read a physical body and inform it how to adapt to a set of conditions. “People here died to a disease that had a cure possessed by the Imperium, at a time when our planet’s leaders were independently establishing open contact with the Vedani.” Raev Sturlusson dropped this bomb with a take-it-or-leave it tone that brooked no argument at this time. “One of those being my father.” As he finished administering to the last, he looked around at all of them like a tour guide. “You are now free to explore the famous peace and independence of Hirylien. An added note of caution, things can be really bad inside the buildings. Return to the ships at sundown. Princess Soleil, if you will accompany me.”
Starting tomorrow – from Tax Day to Earth Day – I’m going to go live on the Facebook page for Bones of Starlight at approximately tea time (appearing midafternoon PST sometime between 3-5) for an indeterminate but succinct span, as I lay a section book reading track each day for the beta audiobook on Bandcamp. Bring your own tea or snack. If I one-shot the recording, which happens, that live version will be the recording, but if I make a mistake I’ll just roll on and call it a live reading warmup. The videos should still be there on the page to catch anytime afterward.
The 4th Sequence has 7 parts, and if all goes smoothly I can release that entire Sequence album by-donation (as currently all the beta audiobook chapters are) over Bandcamp on Earth Day.
Stroll in anytime.
Ship-to-ship communication was re-established, and Raev Sturlusson’s voice asked a question. “Can the Princess tell everyone where we are?”
Turning to look at her, Wendel pushed a button on her console that lit up. Leaning a step into it, Soleil answered, “We are looking at Hirylien, an abandoned planet of the Pan-Galactic Imperium.”
“She is correct, and we are going to land. Harper, follow Trosper.”
Soleil took the button herself to voice a caution. “The surface might still be virulent.”
“If you fall, it will not be to what felled the former residents of this planet. I can ensure our safety. I have not been duplicitous with you; we’re making good on all our chances. It is you who will decide your fate.”
Dispelling her thought chatter, Soleil began working into the requested guidance actions to send the vessel to their destination. Captain Wendel Harper could be heard hooting over the com as her ship spun up in ways undreamed-of. When asked what it was like working with higher-level awareness in Drift X, she smiled and said its personality hadn’t changed; it was just better at expressing itself, now.
The wavering dislocation of the jump settled into the feeling of normal presence, and people filtered up to the fore to get a view. Images of this planet haunted Soleil’s childhood. She was here for a very good reason, certainly. So many scenes, she could recall: mourning, the monument, ongoing refugee struggles. It was the birth planet of a major economic contributor, and of a notorious social enemy – an enemy who’d spent no energy on showing her personal malice, though she’d been well placed to receive it. Sturlusson was purposeful.
Next to Drift X in space was a familiar fighter ship, and she figured who was in it. Returning her gaze to the planet Hirylien, the Princess felt a rock in her gut.
Bones of Starlight 3 : Greater Beyond 