The salarian desert game, p.27
The Salarian Desert Game, page 27
“I won’t be able to visit Oghogho?” We’ve only just begun to talk rationally after years of fighting and misunderstanding each other. I decided if Philana and the dragon can make peace, Oghogho and I can. But what will she think if I never once come to her cabin to see her?
“I’ve already explained the situation to her, that’s why I was late getting here. She’ll come see you tomorrow. Right now I believe she’s processing it, in her cabin. I thought she, at least, should know of your contribution to freeing the slaves.”
“I wish you hadn’t,” I say. My relationship with my sister is complicated enough without Agatha making me look better than I am.
“Don’t worry. Everyone else believes Idaro did it, and she won’t be around to give you any credit.”
I glance in the mirror, thinking of the fifteens and Nyah and even my grandmother, the dragon. I can never let them know I’m still alive. I won’t be, not to them. “They won’t believe she’d do that,” I murmur to Idaro’s face in the mirror.
“They’ll have to. We’ll let them see the report,” Agatha says.
Kayo will be devastated. She’s already lost her brother.
If she believes it, that is. I won’t ever believe anything bad about you, she told me. And she won’t, no matter what evidence they provide. She won’t let Erity and Kama believe it either, if they’re in her triad. I smile. It doesn’t matter if everyone else believes it.
“What about the ship’s records? Of who came aboard and who disembarked?”
“It’s an O.U.B. ship. They’re our records.”
“Does that mean…?”
Agatha nods. “The Adept is travelling with us.”
Murdock was right: I don’t want to leave my cabin.
In my mirror, I watch Idaro take a deep breath. “Give me a sheet,” she says.
Murdock’s assistant hands me the spare sheet for my cot.
“Goodbye, Idaro,” I whisper, covering the mirror. I hold out my arm to the assistant, standing nearby with her IV needle.
I’m ready to be Kia again.
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About the Author
J. A. McLachlan lives with her husband in Waterloo, Ontario. She is the author of a short story collection, Connections, two non-fiction textbooks on professional ethics, and three science fiction novels: Walls of Wind, The Occasional Diamond Thief, and The Salarian Desert Game. Find out more about her and her books and sign up to receive free stories on her website:
www.janeannmclachlan.com
or connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+.
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Other Science Fiction Books by J. A. McLachlan
Walls of Wind, an alien science fiction novel that explores gender relations, can be found on Amazon and Kobo.
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The Occasional Diamond Thief, the first book in the series about Kia and Agatha, can be found in bookstores and on Amazon and Kobo.
Acknowledgements
First, as always, I am grateful to my family for their help, support, encouragement and love: Ian, Amanda and Jeff, Tamara and Steve, Caroline and Karl, Richard, Linda and Peter, Pete and Jan, and my beloved nieces, nephews, cousins, and grandchildren. You are the air I breathe.
I also owe thanks to everyone who helped me with their critiques and editing: Lori Christy, Barbara Strang, Linda Barron, and Ian Darling. Thanks also goes to my amazing launch team, who helped give this book a great start.
I am very grateful to my friend and publicist, Janice Shoults, to my talented cover designer, Marija Vilotijevic and my interior designer Catherine Murray, both from Expert Subjects, and to my publisher, Brian Hades, of EDGE Science Fiction & Fantasy Publishing.
Finally, I am deeply grateful to my readers and fans who have bought, enjoyed, talked about, written reviews on Amazon, and generally spread the word about my books. You are the reason I sit at my laptop laughing, weeping, swearing, cheering, and generally sweating blood. (Yes, this is something I am deeply grateful for!)
~ Jane Ann McLachlan
To the Readers of this Book
I’m surprised I’m not mentioned in the acknowledgements, since there wouldn’t even be a book if I hadn’t come back from Salaria and told the author what happened there. I had a tough time convincing her they actually changed the way I looked, but then the cover artist showed her a picture of Idaro and me, and she had to believe it.
The first thing I’m going to do when I get back to the university is form my own triad. I know I’m a smart-mouth and a loner, and I don’t expect to change all that much. But I was part of a group on Salaria, the fifteens, and even though I didn’t like it at first, I got used to having friends (after I got over being surprised about it) and then I got to like it. I intend to try that again, sometime. Otherwise I’ll always think back to this one world, this one time, when I was part of something. I don’t want it to be a single memory.
The desert part of it, I’m okay as a one-off, though.
However, do NOT expect another story from me. No way! I am going to stay put on Seraffa and finish my Interpreter’s degree. No more space travel and potentially fatal adventures for me. If you see anyone from the O.U.B. (blue and white robe, with a hood) you should tell me at once so I can hide. Then you should hide, too. And if anyone says the word “vision” to you — unless it’s your optometrist — you should RUN!
Oh, and if you know anyone who’d like to be part of my triad, tell them to email me at: kia@execulink. com. I have learned you can never have too much back-up!
~ Kia
More titles form EDGE:
The Rosetta Man
By Claire McCague
Wanted:
Translator for first contact.
Immediate opening.
Danger pay allowance.
Estlin Hume lives in Twin Butte, Alberta surrounded by a horde of affectionate squirrels. His involuntary squirrel-attracting talent leaves him evicted, expelled, fired and near penniless until two aliens arrive and adopt him as their translator. Yanked around the world at the center of the first contact crisis, Estlin finds his new employers incomprehensible. As he faces the ultimate language barrier, unsympathetic military forces converging in the South Pacific keep threatening to kill the messenger. The question on everyone’s mind is: Why are the aliens here? But Estlin’s starting to think we’ll happily blow ourselves up in the process of finding that out.
Praise for The Rosetta Man:
“The cover and synopsis had me expecting a light-hearted comedy. I didn’t realize I was getting a geopolitical first contact thriller that somehow still managed to be a light-hearted comedy. I really enjoyed this book! The characters are rich and diverse. Estlin and Harry are great, Beth and Bomani made me cry. The story is fast paced and engaging and again, completely unexpected. Great book for fans of first contact scifi, but also fans of thrillers and mysteries. And so well-executed that I give it a solid 5 stars.” — Scott Burtness, author of Wisconsin Vamp (Monsters in the Midwest)
“This book ranks up there with many of the classic sci-fi “first contact” stories and Claire McCague’s scientific background comes through in waves.” — Cameron Arsenault, Amazon Reviewer
“A completely enjoyable read. Good action, lots of humor, and a global setting. Strongly recommended.” — Diane Lacey, Amazon Reviewer
The Braided Path
By Donna Glee Williams
On the slopes of a vertical land where people’s lives are bounded by how high and low they are able walk on the single path that connects their world, the young widow Len Rope-Maker watches as years go by and her son Cam struggles to find his limits. Long past the time when other youths in Home Village have found their boundaries, Cam keeps climbing higher and lower, pushing on with his sweetheart Fox who also shows signs of being a Far-Walker. But Cam’s drive to venture far along the path nudges him towards the top of the world, while Fox’s sends her downward, toward the mythical sea at the bottom of all things. Both are true to their own heart’s calling.
A story of love and distance…
Details
The Salarian Desert Game
by J. A. McLachlan
Copyright © 2016 by J. A. McLachlan
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published by
EDGE-Lite
An Imprint of
HADES PUBLICATIONS, INC.
P.O. Box 1714,
Calgary, Alberta, T2P 2L7,
Canada
The EDGE-Lite Team:
Producer: Brian Hades
Acquisitions Editor: Ella Beaumont
Cover Design: Marija Vilotijevi
e-Book Design: Mark Steele
Publicist: Janice Shoults
e-Book ISBN: 978-1-77053-113-0
* * * * *
All rights reserved. Under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-Book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
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EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing and Hades Publications, Inc. acknowledges the ongoing support of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and the Canada Council for the Arts.
(EBK-20160319)
www.edgewebsite.com
J A McLachlan, The Salarian Desert Game
