EPILOGUE
15 February 1 A.A.
Ri lay between the pinned sheets. They had rigged her a cocoon at the core where gravity couldn’t bruise her fragile nerve endings. For three weeks, the remaining members of the Icarus team had studied her in the hope of finding a cure.
The genetic alteration of the single injection Bamker had designed had made her empathy much higher. But it also made her physical sensitivity intolerably higher as well.
She couldn’t even sit up without the nausea overwhelming her, she was now more susceptible to vertigo too. The journey up to the core had almost killed her until she’d finally passed out from the pain. She’d woken here in her own private quarters.
A gentle knock sounded against the plas wall that formed one side of her chamber.
“Yeah?” She hoped it was Devra or some friendly face from the Icarus, though several had been avoiding her. Including Jackson. His rare visits had been stilted and awkward. She could do nothing to remove the blame he heaped on himself, as if he could have stopped what had been done to his ship. She hated to see him without his smile, it had been his only weapon against the world.
And no one would tell her how bad it was out in the corridors. When she asked, their faces closed down. It was clear that Homo sapiens were destroying themselves well ahead of schedule.
As the silence continued, Ri began to fear it would be Olias. He hadn’t forgiven her for not telling him of the Icarus project. But the others had been right, he’d been dead set against it. And it was always a struggle for him not to point out that it served her right for taking the untested injection immediately upon her return from the jungle.
A hand appeared through the opening and grabbed onto the edge of the doorway. No one followed it. Its owner seemed to be bracing himself to enter. But there was no mistaking the hand.
“Bryce.” She breathed out into the room.
He pulled himself around the corner and drifted over until he gripped the railing that protected her from accidental contact. He reached out and she cringed away.
“Don’t touch me.”
He snatched his hand back as if stung. “So, it’s true.”
She hadn’t meant to shout. It had hurt, even past her heavy earplugs. She looked away and nodded.
“Aw, Ri. Nothing good ever came from that damn genome.” He gripped the rail tightly with both hands.
“Sorry. You already know that.”
“You came from it.” That elicited a weak smile. “And they still have hope…”
His dark eyes focused upon her. His emotion of disbelief was clear despite his obvious attempts to mask it.
“…but for me the damage is probably permanent. I don’t think I’ll ever see another sunrise with you over the cold ocean.” Tears formed at the corner of her eyes. She dabbed at them gently with a bit of cloth. Small motions she wouldn’t have noticed before she’d taken the dose now felt like fisticuffs.
“I miss that most of all.”
His hands were white on the rail and his eyes darkened. “Damn.” It was little more than a whisper.
“Damn it all to…” He turned for the door.
“Don’t go.”
His push for the door was stopped as if her words glued his hand to the rail. He hung there, not facing her, but he didn’t leave.
“Please don’t go, Bryce.” Still he didn’t turn and the darkness seemed to wrap around her. She’d been fighting against it so hard, but she was losing the battle.
“I’m scared, Bryce. I’m so scared. But it is better when you’re here. You bring, I don’t know, a peace into the room for me. Others’ emotions batter me, but not yours.”
He turned to face her. With a deft twist, he swung under the rail but stopped himself before he ran into her. He slowly extended a hand palm up.
She slid her hand out and lightly rested her palm on his. For the first time in a weeks, she felt the warmth of another living being.
“I’m afraid, too.”
Ri could feel each tiny turn the tears took as they coursed down her cheek in the light fan-driven breeze that supplied her fresh air.
“Why is that, Bryce?”
“I thought my bar’s name was for other people. Now I know it was for me.”
She could only shake her head. He’d never answered anyone’s question about the meaning of R4U with more than a shrug.
“My heart wonders how can it go on beating without the woman who is ‘Right For You’?”
# # #
Ri woke after her first good sleep in a long time. The nightmares had inexplicably shifted into dreams. Perhaps not so inexplicable. She could still feel Bryce’s gentle kiss on her lips. Why had she insisted on being first?
It was getting bad out there. She could tell by what they hadn’t told her. She’d had a long talk with the Captain. Devra, or whoever survived, must destroy the ship if it reached the threshold of the Nara Reaction, it was the only kindness. It was a sign of how bad it was that the Captain didn’t argue very hard.
Why had she thought up this stupid idea to begin with?
“Because you had to save the people.” Turner’s voice was soft.
She opened her eyes and the voice commanded the dim light. When she could stop blinking against the brightness, no one was in her room. Great. Now she was hallucinating.
“Ri. Can you hear me?”
She glanced at the comm, but it showed no open channels. She spoke into the room, “I can hear you, Jackson, but I can’t see you.”
“Can you feel me, Ri?”
She noticed that mixed in with his words was a sense of his bright smile. Somehow it was him, she couldn’t mistake the feeling for anyone else. Suddenly a chill ran up her spine and flashed into the heat of anger.
“I ordered that no one else was to be subjected to my fate.”
His thoughts remained steady. “They solved the problem a few hours ago. They needed a guinea pig and I wouldn’t let them risk anyone else. Besides, if it didn’t work, Olias would have to treat me nicely instead of hounding my every step.”
But she could also hear what he didn’t say.
“You didn’t fail me. Especially not now. You always came through when it mattered.”
There was a long pause. He tapped at her door and, at her silent acknowledgement, slid into the room. He held onto the retaining bar.
Ri could feel her pulse quicken until it pounded painfully against her ears. She could feel Jack’s question.
“Are you strong enough, Ri?”
She wanted to laugh. After weeks of lying still at zero-gee, she was weak as a kitten.
“Just try me.”
For a brief moment a floodgate opened. Captain Jackson Turner, his hopes, fears, childhood heartbreaks, all so carefully hidden…all of who he was and hoped lay like a great plain before her. In that brief flash of insight, his disaffected attitude toward life was clearly explained. He had striven for Olias’ acceptance his whole life and his every effort had only pushed his big brother further away. Jackson could be no other way than who he was.
At a deeper level, there was something that took a moment to unravel. It was a hope. Hope that… She laughed aloud.
“There is no way I could have saved you from who you are. I couldn’t even save myself.”
A smile pulled tentatively at the corners of his mouth. Finally he shook his head and joined in her laughter. “Didn’t even know that was in there. Nope, I guess I’m just gonna be stuck with being me, aren’t I?”
She let him see that there was no anger. No blame. She could see him take it in, but knew he would not be able to accept it right away. He needed some time. He’d lost three of his crew. And he was still human.
Finally she realized there was a question waiting behind everything she had just learned.
“Yes, Jackie, it worked. But it is more than empathy.” Jackie he was to himself so he could be nothing else to her.
“They’ve been reviewing Bamker’s notes. Some twisted shorthand that has given everyone of them headaches trying to unravel. And he rambled as much in his notes as he did in real life. One hypothesis was that at least telepathy was merely an extremely heightened empathy response. I guess he was right. Too bad he didn’t live to find it out.”
Ri agreed. And she knew Jackson could feel the agreement so she didn’t have to voice it. It would take some getting used to.
“Tell the Captain, I don’t know if it will be our salvation, but I know that if we don’t try it, it will be our destruction. It’s up to you two now.”
A wave of relief washed over her. The blackness seemed to recede at the same time that the darkness grew stronger. She let herself fall toward sleep after the strain of the interview on her limited reserves. Jackie’s mind withdrew, but she could feel the thread of connection remain after he left.
# # #
Bryce sat looking out over the crystal blue sea. The illusion was nearly perfect; it swept forever into the distance. The high, flat rock was the ideal spot to observe this failed world. He’d lost track of how many times he’d watched the sunrise from here. But he could remember every moment he spent here with Ri in their brief time together.
The word had gone out. Ri’s great experiment had worked. Devra Conrad herself had come by the bar in the early morning hours to let him know all the details. People could be made more empathetic without losing self. It was said they could see into each other’s souls if both parties were willing. He looked at his hands, so strong and so useless. He couldn’t be a part of the grand experiment.
And he couldn’t save her.
Christ, he didn’t even know what he was thinking. He just knew that Bryce Randall Stevens Junior had memories that humankind did not need to be burdened with no matter what their future. No final bond awaited him in the bright future.
His parent had overseen the complete unraveling of the human genome. Even how to imprint memories upon a like brain. He had impregnated his own daughter with a clone of himself. He had found the path to immortality.
He simply hadn’t counted on Bryce Junior refusing to carry him down the path. He was not his parent. He was himself.
Bryce lay back on the rock and looked at the brilliant dawn sky. The orange and red sunbeams streaked across the firmament like great searchlights seeking the future.
He could barely feel the cold anymore as he lay on the rock Carla Wendell had chosen. It was a good place to be. The cold sun glittered against his skin. It was almost the color of the brittle frost all around him. All he felt was a strong desire to sleep and a deep sense of satisfaction.
There had been someone right for him. He, himself, had been worthy.
He was almost sorry he wouldn’t live to see the sunset.
# # #
“Good morning, Jeffers.”
She smiled, “Olias, you old beast. How are you today?” She was past formality. Such things had become unimportant lying here.
She opened her eyes. She was alone.
His mental voice actually sounded as gruff as his spoken one. “Listen. Feel. And you will know how we are.”
“Not you, too.”
“Just listen.”
It was disconcerting to feel his thoughts with her mind. She remembered connecting with Jackie last night. How had she done that?
Ri tried to listen and became aware of an array of thoughts. That wasn’t right but she had no other word for it. If she concentrated, she could see the entire ship. Almost. It only took moments to figure out that the blank spots were where no one was looking.
She reached for Bryce, but only silence returned. Ri could see half a dozen patrons sitting quietly in R4U, but only Jaz, Jasper Elenar of Tycho City, Luna, was on duty. The Arctic biome was invisible. There must be no one there to see it. She closed her mind against the meaning of that silence.
Bryce had revealed everything last night. Right down to the details of his parent’s memory implants. And his promise that he wouldn’t curse humanity with the worst of its past. All her arguments had been in vain. Finally they both changed the topic so that their last time together wouldn’t be a fight. She guarded her thoughts carefully, there were some things he had hidden his whole life and they were not hers to reveal. As he’d wished, the secret of his past would die with her.
She found the thread that was Devra and reached toward it. The Captain’s thoughts emerged from the array.
“Yes, Ri, in a single night. No ill effects detected.”
She could only lay back in wonder as she saw everyone but didn’t lose herself.
“So much for our fears.” Donnie’s voice was exuberant as ever. That woman could bounce back from anything.
It was odd. She actually felt more herself than ever before. The six thousand surviving members of Homo sapiens in the array saw her as Ri Jeffers, a unique member of the community. Four thousand gone in six weeks. The loss of so many was a pain to her, but it was a relief as well. Everyone in the array could now share that loss and move ahead. She was undeniably herself, but she belonged. She dabbed at the tears to clear her eyes.
When she managed to do so, she saw a solitary figure standing beside her bed. She reached but only received a blankness from the figure. She wiped her eyes again and saw Bryce.
She closed her mind to everyone and shut her eyes tightly. She was hallucinating the dead. This was not a good sign.
“Hi, Ri.”
She looked again.
“I thought…” Her struggle to voice her questions and her joy at seeing him alive made her completely tongue-tied.
“You know, I actually did it. I was freezing to death on that damn rock of ours and the artificial sun rose over the horizon and I started laughing.” His face was lit with a smile that would rival one of Jackson’s but was all for her. She basked in the feel of it.
“It is so like the Old Bastard, after having controlled so much of my life, to control my death as well. Screw him, I figure. Freezing to death on a fake rock in a dead biome. What a depressing way to go. No wonder I was so morose; living in that bloody place. Maybe I’ll set up a hammock in Robbie’s jungle. She’s breeding a new bird-cross to be her pollinators.”
Ri let a part of her mind drift open and saw Robbie running from one nest box to another. She was playing mama bird to several dozen hungry chicks.
Bryce leaned over the railing and gently rubbed a finger down Ri’s cheek. Somehow it didn’t hurt so much. He moved back.
Devra drifted into the room. She pushed his sleeve aside and placed an injector against his arm. After she fired it, she spoke aloud for Bryce’s benefit, since Ri could hear her thoughts.
“It will take a bit.”
Ri didn’t know whether to be disappointed at not having instant communion with Bryce or to feel relief that his powerful emotions wouldn’t be overwhelming her just yet. She held out a hand and the Captain gently held if for a moment before smiling tentatively.
“I should never have let you go first, Ri. You were the best of us.”
Though it pained her, she squeezed Devra’s hand and did her best to hide the agony of the return gesture.
Others drifted into the room one by one. The five remaining members of the Icarus crew and Olias all came in.
The gruff Sub-Captain offered her a nod of respect. She saw that he truly meant it. He specifically didn’t stand near Jackie. Ri waited, and finally laughed. Everyone in the room, including Jackson began to laugh. Olias offered a wry grin of acknowledgement. Clear communication or not, they still had a lot of ground to heal.
“At least you’ll have time to work it out now.”
Olias’ old scowl and one of Jackson’s smiles were her reward for offering her opinion.
“You all look like a funeral procession.” Before any could speak she realized that’s exactly what they were.
Jackie’s thoughts reached out to her, “I wish I had gone first…”
Ri reached out for him, for the thread of him in the array that was Stellar One, that was humanity. But he closed it quickly; so she simply did her best to show she wasn’t sorry for her own death but rather for not getting to see the result of their creation. The community of humankind had been born.
Finally exhausted, Ri settled back into the array and closed her eyes against the worried faces.
“Olias, you take cake of Jackie…”
His thoughts completed hers. “We’ll watch over each other, Jeffers.”
She smiled. He’d still never used her first name. She held out her hand, palm up. She could feel Bryce’s unsteady hand rest upon hers.
It was enough.
She let go on the tight hold which was all that had been sustaining her and keeping back the dark. She relaxed and listened to the slowly pulsing voice that was humanity and yet was the six thousand distinct voices of Stellar One. It echoed the beat of the ocean waves in the Arctic.
Ri Jeffers let her thoughts drift. Whatever the future held, humans had survived the technologic age without self-annihilation. There was no way to destroy a member of the array without damaging yourself.
Her thoughts turned outward. Maybe they would never reach the stars. Maybe they no longer needed to. What did it matter when there was so much else to learn right here.
Yet, something wasn’t right. There was a …disturbance. She sent her thoughts toward its source. She could feel a tentative Bryce and then the array, supporting and strengthening her query. It came from beyond Stellar One. Beyond Earth, Moon, or Sun. In the direction of the constellation Hakuchou, Cygnus the Swan. She could almost see the star Deneb, alpha-Cygni.
A deep feeling washed over her. It tasted like bright copper in her mind. A single thought that was also many flashed back to her across all that distance. Filling her mind and body with a vitality she could barely contain. It washed over the consciousness of all humankind.
“Greetings.”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
There is no way I can offer enough thanks to:
Abigail Alling and Mark Nelson, both members of the original BioSphere 2 team, who spent two years inside their enclosure in Oracle, Arizona, and have offered their insights into the world inspired by the chronicle of their experience, Life Under Glass.
Chief Justice Richard Guy (ret.) of the Washington State supreme court for his insights into the legal and ethical implications of the human genome.
Dr. Thomas Hopp, former vice president of Immunex Corporation, for his patience in expanding my knowledge of cellular function, genetic engineering, and the human genome. Any scientific oddities are my own extrapolations.
Dr. Emily Kane, Chair of Sociology, Bates College, for her guidance in readings regarding the factionalization of society.
Dorothy Wilhelm for her introductions and support to aid the research of this book.
Don Spencer, Brewmaster at “Silver City Brewing Company” of Silverdale, WA, for a tour of his brewery and putting up with a ream of silly questions on the process of making beer.
Jim Flint for his patient readings and probing insights.
Kris and Dean for reasons they know well.
And my wife for the endless application of her skills as a research librarian and her infinite patience with my penchant for discussing characters and plots late into the night.
REFERENCES / ADDITIONAL READING
BOOKS
Alling, Abigail, Mark Nelson, Sally Silverstone. Life Under Glass : The Inside Story of Biosphere 2. New Mexico: Biosphere Press, 1993; ISBN: 1-882-42807-2, 254 pp.
Dawkins, Kristin. Gene Wars –the politics of Biotechnology. New York: Seven Stories Press, 1997. ISBN: 1-888363-48-7, 60 pp.
Eitzen, D. Stanley and Maxine Baca Zinn. In Conflict and Order – Understanding Society. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1998; ISBN: 0-205-26469-7, 590 pp.
Fuller, Gregory N. & Goodman, J. Clay. A Practical Review of Neuropathy. Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins. 2001 ISBN: 0781727782, 329 pp.
Goble, Frank G. The Third Force, The Psychology of Abraham Maslow. New York: Quokka/Pocket Books, 1978; ISBN: 0-671-81030-8, 208 pp.
O’Neil, Gerard. The High Country. New York: Bantam Books, 1978. ISBN: 0-9622379-0-6, 326 pp.
Pearce, E.A. and Gordon Smith. The Times Books World Weather Guide. Times Books, Random House, 1990. New York. 480pp ISBN: 0-8129-1881-9
Rummel, R.J. Understanding Conflict and War, Vol. 2: The Conflict Helix. California: Sage Publications, 1976; online at www2.Hawaii.edu/~rummel
Rummel, R.J. Understanding Conflict and War, Vol. 3: Conflict in Perspective. California: Sage Publications, 1977; online at www2.Hawaii.edu/~rummel
Walford, Roy L., M.D. & Lisa. The Anti-Aging Plan: Strategies and Recipes for Extending Your Healthy Years. Four Walls Eight Windows Press, 1995. ISBN: 1-568-58049-5, 309 pp.
Zubrin, Robert. Entering Space – Creating a Spacefaring Civilization. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 1999. ISBN: 0-87477-975-8, 305 pp.
ARTICLES AND WEBSITES
Antypas, Alex & Meidinger, Errol. Science-Intensive Policy Disputes: An Analytic Overview of the Literature. 1996 www.ublaw.buffalo.edu/fas/meidinger/scipol.html
AP. Sun’s layers rotate at different speeds, researchers find. 3/31/2000cnn.com/2000/tech/space/03/31/solar.layers.ap/index.html
Armstrong, John. The Value of Biotechnology as an incentive for Moral Evolution. www.ifgene.com
www.bio2.edu
www.biospherics.org
Butler, James. The Human Genome Project – Will the HGP Change Scifi Forever? 2000 209.1.224.14/area51/Cavern/1225/paradigm/archives/27jib.html; Paradigm Science and Technology
CNN. Sun aims powerful flares at Earth. 3/1/2000 cnn.com/2000/tech/space/03/01/sunspots/index.html
Grünewald, Peter. Genetic Engineering and Medicine. www.ifgene.com, originally published in Gentechnik, Was verursacht der Mensch durch den Griff in die Erbanlagen?; Arbeitskreis für Ernährungsforschung, 1994; ISBN: 3-922290-24-8
The Human Genome Project. 2000, www.ornl.gov/hgmis/ & www.ornl.gov/techresources/human_genome
The Manhattan Project –Ethical Debates Concerning the Use of the Atomic Bomb. A Science Odyssey: Resources: Educator’s Guide: Physics, WGBH, Boston
Marin, Malu S. Going Beyond the Personal. www.cpcabrisbane.org/Kasama/V10n4/gbp.htm, Reprint from Women in Action No. 1, 1996, Isis International, Manila.
Readings on the Manhattan Project. A Science Odyssey: Resources: Educator’s Guide: Physics, WGBH, Boston
Verhoog, Henk. Genetic Modification of animals: Should science and ethics be integrated? www.ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu, originally published The Monist, Volume 79, Number 2, April 1996
EXCERPT FROM MONK’S MAZE
It is the end of the Second Dark Ages…
Vigils
The Nightwatch
–time of learning to trust the darkness–
7 March, 2252
Brother Colin Clark’s handlight slipped from his chilled fingers. It bounced once, twice, a third time, clattering loudly off the rocks in the quiet of the night, then went out.
He lunged for it and clipped his shin hard against a boulder.
“Blasted St. Nicholas.” Tumbling forward, he crashed onto the ground.
His hands wrapped about his shin were filled with a sticky warmth. The only thing that wasn’t freezing on this stupid planet. Why of all people had he been the one sent back to Earth? Many of the other brothers had been eager for the adventure.
“Let them,” he’d wanted to shout when Brother David chose him as the Order’s emissary.
“Let them be the ones sent to lie in the dark.” But no, it was quiet, unassuming Brother Col who had to lie on the rough rock of this remote island with the pain rocketing up his nerve endings. Blinking his eyes did nothing to reveal even the vaguest of shapes in the overcast, moonless night.
“So don’t lie in the dark.” Brother David’s cracked old voice was as clear as if he were right beside him rather than a memory that he’d left a dozen light-years behind on New Kells circling a friendly orange star.
“Okay, turn on the light switch.” He gasped when he realized he was talking back to the old man. He ducked the scowl more fierce than a slap could be. A year in transit aboard ship and he still feared the old monk.
Besides, as far as he could tell, there weren’t any light switches on Iona, or on the planet for that matter. Every observation he could make from orbit revealed no use of any broadcast media. No powered vehicles even.
“Find the handlight.” Brother David was always full of orders, but he did have a point even if he was just a memory.
Colin rose to his good knee and addressed the darkness.
“I would greatly appreciate it if any crawlies or other nasties this planet has, would please move aside this night.” His voice fell flat and was ripped away by the wind into the vast darkness.
He reached out with hands that retained little feeling and began to probe the cold, wet grasses and rough, rocky crevices. He poked about in a slowly widening circle.
His arm plunged elbow deep into a freezing puddle before he realized what was happening. He jerked back and caught his elbow on another blasted rock, rose to his knees only to put weight on his abused shin, and collapsed once more to the ground.
“Bloody hell!” He was in too much pain to bother being shocked by his own language. Flopping sideways in the grass he wrapped his good leg over his throbbing shin and a hand about the twinges shooting up his arm. He’d never found that particular bone to be the least bit funny. Though all the other brothers certainly delighted in how often he rapped it.
He needed shelter. Now. He needed to be back on the deorbiter, which was hidden in an old barn a kilometer away over rough ground. He needed a building, but he was completely lost in the darkness even before he’d dropped the stupid handlight. He’d take a stone wall right about now and be happy. Well …happier.
A drop of rain splashed on the bridge of his nose and spattered into both of his eyes.
“Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost!”
# # #
Meghan Taylor had been staring out the window when the light appeared. Appeared where no light should be. None could be. Nor was it the flickering light of flame, but bright and white and steady as no light should be.
For a minute, perhaps two, it wandered about the ruins of the abbey on Iona. Then, as she’d reached for the binoculars, it spun about and disappeared.
A minute passed.
Five.
Fifteen.
No light returned. No light on Iona.
Please, no light on Iona.
Had she been asleep?
No, it was sleeplessness that had brought her to the window in the night.
And her feet were far too cold against the chill stone floor of the Watcher’s hut for it to be a dream.
She inspected the alarm panel. Fascinated even after a year by the glow of the steady lights that held no heat. There were no alarms from the abbey doors. None for the chapel. None for the bishop’s house or even the abandoned village. Every light glowed a soft green. Steady, like the light on Iona she truly hoped she had not seen.
Her hand hovered over the red button. The one that would call the Guardians. That would bring to Iona the only authorized users of technology.
But what could she tell them?
“I’m, ah, fairly sure ‘twas a light I saw.”
“No. I dinna know what happened to it.”
“It was late and I was na sleeping well.” Too many thoughts of the fast-approaching end of her exile. Too anxious to head home in just five days.
“No. The wee light did na come back, but I dinna think I imagined it.”
She moved her hand away from the red button and stared out at the darkness. She knew the view even on nights like this when there was none to be seen. A short grassy slope dropped from the front of her hut down to the rough waters of the Sound of Iona. Less than a kilometer away, across the dark water, Iona. The height of Dun I, the hundred meter-high mountain of the island, towering above the north end. Grassy meadows sprawling from shore to slope dotted with ancient stone buildings. All misted by the soft pattering of the light spring rain.
And the abbey. The abandoned home of the thrice-curst Order of Iona.
For a year, well, three hundred and sixty days of it so far, she had watched the abbey until it loomed large even in her nightmares. And now, with just five days to go, there was a light where none should be.
But with nothing to focus on, her eyes shifted to her own, dim reflection in the window. She contemplated the disjointed collection of shapes lit by the ever-burning green lights of the panel.
Her face, thin and white, made gaunt and ill in the dim glow. Black hair lost in darkness. Not reflected at all.
Crossed arms over an invisibly dark nightshirt appeared connected to nothing.
Two dim trunks of legs appeared far below as if severed yet still standing.
Scattered pieces, all shivering in the chill that was as much inside her as against the bottoms of her feet.
Was she truly coming apart? Losing her mind as Mad Erin had half a decade before? A girl gone mad with the Watching of the most evil place on Earth. In the end speaking only to the gulls who cried forever above the rocky shores of Eilean nam Ban. The Isle of Women.
The curst isle.
Her prison.
She closed her eyes.
Five days. Just five more days.
The madness circled about her on silent wings, swooping ever nearer.
Please let there have been a light.
AUTHOR BIO
M.L. Buchman started the first of, what is now over 50 novels and as many short stories, while flying from South Korea to ride his bicycle across the Australian Outback. Part of a solo around the world trip that ultimately launched his writing career.
All three of his military romantic suspense series—The Night Stalkers, Firehawks, and Delta Force—have had a title named “Top 10 Romance of the Year” by the American Library Association’s Booklist. NPR and Barnes & Noble have named other titles “Top 5 Romance of the Year.” In 2016 he was a finalist for Romance Writers of America prestigious RITA award. He also writes: contemporary romance, thrillers, and fantasy.
Past lives include: years as a project manager, rebuilding and single-handing a fifty-foot sailboat, both flying and jumping out of airplanes, and he has designed and built two houses. He is now making his living as a full-time writer on the Oregon Coast with his beloved wife and is constantly amazed at what you can do with a degree in Geophysics. You may keep up with his writing and receive a free starter e-library by subscribing to his newsletter at: www.mlbuchman.com
Copyright 2013 Matthew Lieber Buchman
Published by Buchman Bookworks
All rights reserved.
This book, or parts thereof,
may not be reproduced in any form
without permission from the author.
Discover more by this author at: www.mlbuchman.com
Cover images:
Dangerous Asian Girl, © Igor Kovalchuk
Glass corridor in modern business centre © Sergios
Red Moon _b_, 2006-10-02
Starry Sky, Mbz1, 2007-10-22
Other works by this author: