Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 67092 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 224(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67092 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 224(@300wpm)
Aunt Zeelah and Uncle Grennly are Primes, Kara remembered with a twinge of unease. I hope they won’t mind that I’m half Kindred. I hope they’ll honor our kinship and let me stay with them.
Of course if they didn’t, she could always stay in the public hostel. For centuries upon centuries Tranq Prime had been a closed planet, meaning that if you didn’t have kin to stay with there, you couldn’t stay at all. There were no hotels or motels or anyplace else for a trader or merchant or wanderer to lay his or her head at night in the underground grottos where the people lived. And of course, staying outside the grottos on the freezing cold surface of the planet was unthinkable.
But during Kara’s lifetime, Tranq Prime had finally opened its doors—albeit grudgingly—to outsiders. Each of the larger grottos had built a public hostel and though there were strict limitations as to how long a visitor could stay, it was now possible to visit Tranq Prime for trading purposes, although they still discouraged any kind of vacationers.
But I’m not a vacationer—I’m family, Kara told herself as confidently as she could. She landed her ship a little way away from the rest of the trader vessels and made certain her landing gear was on steady ground. Then she took a deep breath and punched in a number on her viewscreen.
A moment later, two elegant, somewhat older people appeared before her. The woman had ice blue eyes and pale blonde hair, swept up into a tasteful twist at the top of her head. The male beside her had somewhat watery blue eyes and a long, bony face. He didn’t have much hair but what he had was carefully scraped over the bald dome of his head in straggly blond wisps.
Kara recognized them from old holo-pictures she’d seen in her father’s family photo library—this had to be her great aunt and uncle.
“Yes?” The woman frowned at her, a sour expression on her thin, elegant features. “Who might you be and why are you calling us?”
“Aunt Zeelah? Uncle Grennly?” Kara asked hopefully. “I’m sorry to call you out of the blue like this but I’m here on Tranq Prime and I was hoping to meet you in person.”
“Meet us? Who are you?” Grennly demanded.
Kara gave them a close-mouth smile, being careful to hide her fangs.
“I’m Sylvan’s daughter,” she said. “Sylvan—your nephew. Or…sister’s son,” she said, remembering the round-about way they named kinship bonds here.
“Oh, good gracious!” Aunt Zeelah’s face cleared and she put her clasped hands to her heart. “Oh Grennly—it’s little Hara! My sister’s son’s daughter!”
“It’s Kara,” Kara corrected her gently. “And yes, that’s me! I came all the way from the Mother Ship.”
“Such a long way! Er…is anyone else with you?” Grennly peered at her anxiously, as though Kara might be hiding all the rest of her family in the back of her shuttle.
“Nope, it’s just me,” she said brightly. “I’d very much like to meet you in person, Uncle Grennly, Aunt Zeelah.”
“Well, of course, my dear!” Aunt Zeelah said. “Just come to the main grotto and we’ll meet you by the reflecting pool.”
“Wonderful!” Kara wanted to grin but instead she gave them another closed-mouth smile. “I’ll be right there.”
“We’ll see you soon!” Aunt Zeelah trilled and Uncle Grennly waved a hand at her in a friendly way before the connection was cut and her viewscreen went blank.
There, that wasn’t so bad—they’re welcoming me with open arms! Kara told herself as she pulled on her boots, grabbed her carryall cube and swathed herself in the thick vranna skin coat. She put on thermal gloves and a thermal face shield too, just to be safe. She well remembered the story her parents had told about how her mother had nearly died from exposure, even in the short amount of time it took her father to carry her from their ship to the entrance of the grotto, when she first came to Tranq Prime.
Finally, when she felt she was as shielded from the weather as she could be, Kara popped open the door to her shuttle…and was nearly knocked flat on her back by the gust of icy wind that shoved through the entrance like an overeager customer at an all-you-can-eat buffet.
“Whoa!” she muttered, bracing herself against the wind. “Good thing I’m covered up!”
She stepped out into a cold so icy it seemed to steal her breath. It made her nose and mouth go numb and her lungs ached when she breathed it in, despite her thermal face shield. Kara knew that she needed to get out of it quickly before she froze.
Up ahead, moving in a group over the snowy plain, she saw the traders and merchants. Raak was among them—a head taller than everyone else. He was also the only one not wearing any kind of face and head protection. His long black hair whipped in the icy wind but Kara didn’t think he looked distressed or even particularly cold. He moved easily, walking at the front of the pack of merchants and looking around, his silver-ringed eyes taking in everything while all the other traders were solely focused on the door in the vast stone wall that rose to their left.