Welcome, I’m Mary Louisa Locke, the author of the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series and the Caelestis Science Fiction series. In this daily newsletter, I reflect on my life as an indie author trying to age gracefully, including my struggles to maintain a balanced life, what I listen to, read, and watch for entertainment, and occasional bits of information I’ve gleaned from doing the research for my novels.
In addition, now and again I will provide some of my fiction to read, for free, on this newsletter. Everything is available to anyone who subscribes, but I am always pleased when someone shows their appreciation for the newsletter by upgrading to paid, and I particularly enjoy getting likes and comments at the bottom of posts.
Daily Diary, Day 1490:
Today, I’ve included the seventh scene in Aelwyd: Home, my short story in the Caelestis series set in the Paradisi Chronicles universe. I am publishing a new scene every Tuesday and Thursday. If you haven’t read the first two introductory posts yet, I strongly suggest you do so before you start on the short story itself. To find the first of these two posts, or the earlier scenes, click HERE. Also very brief check in at end of post.
Aelwyd: Home
By Louisa Locke, copyright 2016
Scene 7:
“They said you fainted,” Mabel said, sitting next to her bed in the clinic infirmary. “But I like your version better. I met your father when he arrived to mount the search and rescue effort. I’ve never seen anyone so huge and loud! I think going to sleep was a very clever decision on your part.”
“Oh my stars. You met him? Was he awful?”
“Not any worse than my Uncle Lewis. He’s not as big, of course, none of the Yus are. But he has the same arrogant loud voice that makes you want to go and hide. I wish I could lose consciousness the next time he calls for a family meeting, although they said you wouldn’t let go of Stewart, so you couldn’t have been completely out of it. They lifted the two of you right up into the shuttle and flew you back here and popped you into quarantine, which is why I wasn’t able to come see you until they moved you to a regular room.”
Mabel was her first visitor, and she’d insisted Kammie tell her everything that had happened from the moment she discovered the fence was down and Stewart ran off. It felt good to get everything off her chest, even stuff she’d not shared with her mother for fear of upsetting her . . . like her reaction when she saw her father striding up to her in the clearing.
“What day is it? I keep asking and no one will tell me.”
Her friend leaned in close and whispered, “I’m not supposed to tell you, but it’s been fourteen days since they got you back.” She smiled impishly, putting two fingers to her lips in the signal they’d developed as kids back on the Nautilus for “just between you and me.”
Kammie whispered back, “And Stewart? My little stepbrother. He’s really all right?”
When Mabel nodded emphatically, Kammie finally let the last bit of fear go. Her mother had assured her over and over that Stewart was fine, in fact had bounced back much quicker than Kammie did from the illness they’d both contracted. But she’d worried that they were just sparing her from some dreadful truth.
She told Mabel, “I haven’t seen his father. Mom says Bai’s been by to visit, when I was asleep. But he must be so angry with me.”
“Oh, no, not at all. Stewart explained to his father how he escaped through the fence when he discovered the current was down, and how you ran right after him, for hours and hours. He said he lost you, you didn’t lose him.”
For a moment the tears that had been coming so easily since she woke up in quarantine filled her eyes. What if he’d died?
Bringing out another worry, she said, “I can’t help but wonder, if I hadn’t chased him, would he have stopped and come back on his own?”
Mabel shook her head, her long black braid bouncing on her shoulder. “He’s a Hakka, like my mother and grandmother. Very independent people. Bai says his son loved roaming the forests back home in the Philippines. He would slip away from his grandmother for hours at a time. If you hadn’t followed him and been there to turn on the mobile, they might never have found him in time.”
“Well, it really was the natives who saved him . . . they found him wandering around delirious, then that man taking me to him. Was it really solar flares that kept them from tracking our IDs?”
“Yep. They were only able to locate you once they could triangulate between Stewart’s and your IDs and the mobile signal.” Mabel laughed. “You have no idea, Kammie, how your little jaunt has galvanized the Ten Families. The Abramovs are trying to figure out how to protect against similar communications breakdowns, the Thorndikes have stepped up their patrols of the various base camps, and the Gunthers are working overtime to synthesize the vaccines Bai developed from the stuff they found in Stewart’s and your blood.”
Kammie nodded. Her mother told her that they’d found some odd microbe in her bloodstream that behaved like the cross between a virus, a bacteria and a parasite. Made her squirm just thinking about it.
Mabel went on, oblivious to Kammie’s discomfort. “They found similar antibodies to the ones in your blood among natives all over the planet, so they’ve decided the safest thing is vaccinate every person from Earth. It will be part of the general immunization injection every child will get at birth from now on. I’ve already had my shot, which is why I was let in to see you.”
“But what about the Originals? My mother sounded like she didn’t believe me when I told her about seeing the young boy with the whooping cough, or the signs of measles.”
Mabel again leaned in closer and said, “She believed you. She just didn’t want you to know there was a big fight going on in the Council of Ten. Some family representatives, like my Uncle Lewis, and the Thorndike on the Council, are arguing that we should just let whatever diseases have been introduced into the native population run their course.”
“That’s terrible. That’s the kind of attitude that ruined Earth!”
“I know, and there’s been big push back from everyone who feels the way you do. The Chandlers, of course, are the most liberal faction when it comes to protecting the rights of the natives.”
“But they are only one family.”
“Yes, but my father says the labor argument the Kuttner and Ganesh council members made will prevail . . . even with my Uncle Lewis.”
“Labor argument?”
“The Kuttner and Ganesh council members pointed out that if all the natives are killed off, there won’t be enough unskilled workers to get all their fields and factories into production.”
“How do you know all this?” Kammie asked. The all powerful Council of Ten, led by the descendants of the initial founders of the Paradisi Project, had always seemed a remote mystery to her.
“My father. He may be the youngest and least powerful Yu brother, but he worked hard onboard the Nautilus space station to build friendships with like-minded men and women from the other families.” Mabel’s brown eyes gleamed with mischievous excitement. “And it’s your mother and stepfather who may have come up with the winning argument. They say that they have the research data that proves if whooping cough, measles, and other illnesses are permitted to incubate in the native populations, they will eventually mutate or combine with native pathogens.”
“Causing new super bugs like what was happening back on Earth.”
Kammie thought about Stewart’s mother, a victim of one of these new illnesses.
Mabel nodded. “No one wants that. So my parents are confident that eventually all the families will come around… decide to help stop the epidemics among the natives.”
“Have they spread very far?”
“Doesn’t look like it. You were probably right that this was the fault of the Quinns being lax about their medical requirements for some passengers. The problem is getting the trust of the natives so they will let us help them. That is being left up to each family.”
Kammie was about to ask what the Yus were doing to find the band of people she’d encountered, when the door to the room opened and a smiling Stewart ran in and flung himself on her bed.
“Stewart, be careful. She’s still hooked up to her tubes,” Bai chided, trying to remove his son from Kammie’s arms.
She shook her head at her stepfather and hugged the little boy as tightly as she could. She couldn’t believe how wonderful it was to see him . . . or how pleased she was that he was glad to see her.
She ruffled his black hair and whispered, “We had some adventure didn’t we? You didn’t know I could run that fast or long, did you?”
“You stopped running like a girl! But I’m sorry I lost you.”
“That’s all right. I got to see some wonderful things. Animals I’d never seen before.”
“Me too,” he whispered back. “One of the doggies talked to me. He told me I would be all right. That my sister was coming for me. And then there you were.”
To be continued…
Brief check-in: Making good progress on manuscript, nearly 700 words written yesterday. Weather turning sunnier, but nice and cool at night for sleeping. No phone calls scheduled for today (although that was true for yesterday and ended up with 2 unscheduled short calls.) Finally ran into another house with Halloween decorations.
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Skeleton with wooden leg! Funny! Story continues to grip me!
Don't forget about the parrot on the shoulder!! Hilarious!