BLUE STAR, GLORY FAR

By

Araius

This story was plotted where stories like this were anathema
and it came to light where Science Fiction flourish.

This planetary romance saga is dedicated to all
Sciencefictioneers. Who else?

PRELUDE

	He stood on a knoll and faced the Purple Downs, with legs
astride, arms straight at his sides, and observed the Stars
rise, rising from behind the hills in double auras like
golden twins afire, blazing in a new dawn in a timeless
pattern, but in his eyes remaining always the miraculous
phenomenon of the HeliĆ Equation of Iucari-Tres.
	The Greater Aura was leading the Smaller by the hand in
this Joining Season, or so it seemed. More often than not,
it had appeared to him, when Cextra and Seasons were
changing, that the dimmer Dwarf was chasing and eclipsing
the bright Giant for a share of greatness and glory.
	Giant and Dwarf--expressions that floated through his mind
like old curses, like the name creeping up again, after so
many cycles forsaken in oblivion, as if a long-forgotten
voice had whispered it into his mind. 'TRAJAN SCHURELL.' He
could not explain why it came to him unwarned at this hour,
this very moment when he was facing the most critical phase
of his existence: to continue to exist or simply to cease.
	He had had a good life. The Lar smiled; he would have
laughed aloud as he stood erect in HeliĆ shine but it was no
laughing matter. His life had been exceedingly good and had
brought him renown and fortune. But he was a man of the
future. After engendering children and grandchildren, he
still felt the future was of prime importance. The past was
a dark well, the present a broken dream, but the future was
for the taking; he could live on forever. And his yearning
for an heir on whom he could build a timeless foundation
remained as strong as ever.
	His first Dama had provided him sons and had been his
pride, a treasure he regularly flaunted at festivals and
palace balls. She came of Praecel stock, as was he--so was
his and everybody's assumption--and because of his resources
and position he was by duty and tradition bound to marry
Elanorien.
	Waiflike Elanorien Ayrie, with her auburn hair and
beautiful russet on light purple eyes. Every time she
appeared at his side to be exhibited in public as a prize
possession, especially on occasions when the stones of her
tiara caught the sparkle of Evening Star, it felt as if he
was holding a nymph on his arm. Most beautiful was she and
he believed that he loved her. So were his sons, and
grandchildren, on whom he had bestowed his famous features,
classic Lar, but lacking something he could not name and at
times he had found them dull. But so were all Iucarians, on
whichever planet they took abode, honourable, dutiful and
unexciting, in spite of their expressive eyes.
	He thought of his eldest Valorin and something stabbed him
like an old wound. Once he had nursed a secret wish that
Valorin would be a little more like him and less than the
others. Valorin who had grown as tall as he and had his
eyes, dark-grey on white, but lacking nonetheless in spark
that would have given him leadership over a protectorate.
Impatiently, ignoring his son's own wishes, he had driven
Valorin hard, very hard and taking no more, Valorin had left
home and hearth without a word, only a nervous letter of
farewell, departing to look for a new meaning in life in
Calitre, a Praecel among cultivators of land, bowing to the
menial tasks of tilling the soil as if buried there lay the
pearls of his preferred dreamer's existence.
	The Lar wheeled round and descended the knoll with slow
measured steps, reasoning with himself that once he too
thought he was more akin to the haphazard lifestyle of the
Calidans, the Providers of Nutriments, closer to earth and
nature than the Phylee-Patreans with their gleaming
technology. He had spent almost half an Epoch, exploring
maiden forests and unmapped deserts, occasionally content
but evermore restless, enjoying for a while the rustic
humour and casual lifestyles of the Calidan agrobiologists,
but never able to untangle the unease of his soul and to
abandon his obsession: the search for his missing piece.
	There was one enthralling moment, long ago, when he
thought his other son, and generally the most neglected of
his brood because of his sulky behaviour, would in a
rebellious instant stand up, raise a fist and show his
worth. Alden--but Alden had, after that brief courageous
spurt of anger, given up too and ran away like a defeated
wolver with its tail between its legs. He felt another stab,
but duller like the throb of old anger: he had never been
able to forgive Alden for not turning round and coming back
to him when he pleaded with his son to do so.
	After Valorin, Leoynar and after Leoynar, Glynmoran who,
his keen eye perceived was born under a shadow and would
perhaps grow up not as noble as his forebears. It would not
be for him to find out as he could no longer stay. Staying
would end in exposure as an intruder who did not belong, a
being of no age and with no past, with no remembrance beyond
the events of the White Radiation Ingress save an alien name
floating unbiddenly in and out darkened memory banks, a name
which was the only damning clue.
	But he would make one more attempt on this thirty-fifth
day of ninth Cextrum of Cycle 150 of Fourth Radix. He
savoured the suspense of the moment as with the springy
energy of one half his age he quickened his pace towards the
glass-domed, bluewashed villa lying amidst ochre-dappled
meadows beneath the higher shoulder of the Purple Downs of
Castelmoer. The aerofloat of the district physician was
already parked before the front porch. Dama Anjelie would
soon bring his latest progeny into the world. This time he
would not allow himself illusions, he had been shown how to
pass judgment. One look, one test, and he would know.
	If positive he would take the child with him, into a life
in the wild. If negative, then - with a wrench of the heart,
since the decision was still difficult to take, he could no
longer maintain the custodianship of his One Secret Legacy
and let the Battle for the Inheritance begin. The species
will become stronger than ever if they survive the Test that
is to come; if not the winds of greed and infamy will
pulverize Iucari-Tres, this Prosperous System of the HeliĆ
Equation.
	"And I must live," said Lar Irwain Trevarthen as he
entered the villa.



PART I


IUCARI-TRES


BOOK ONE


HOMECOMING


Chapter I


TYRO SEASON


Josrin Grahn lifted his head up to the sky, sniffed and
inhaled dreamily smiling the scents of trees and flowers
opening in Tyro Season of this young Cycle 170 of Fourth
Radix. For someone fast approaching his fifth Maturity, his
oblong face sharpening into a blade of a chin, was unlined,
except for the fine, almost imperceptible tokens of many
sleepless nights imprinted across his forehead. The
jet-black pigment of his abundant hair had long since given
way to the strains and ardours of his profession, and had
ripened to a shock of silver.
	His day had been far from easy; it had even been
particularly difficult since the Dama Dowager of Ayrie had
sat at today's session of the Treasury Council for the
estate of Lar Irwain Trevarthen. She rarely participated in
the Council's seasonal deliberations, although in her
absence her voting right remained as good as the others.
However times were changing; the future management of the
estate was at risk. She was known for her belligerence and
obstinacy, leaving no room for negotiation or compromise,
and her last suggestion, or rather commandment was as
uncomprising as a verdict of guilty: "Find another Lar
Protector Designate!"
	"So easy to command, so hard to implement," Grahn
grumbled. He ambled down the steps of the Hall of Rights and
wove a path through an unusually large crowd of spectators
and journalists. A Phycel reporter blocked his descent,
snatching his arm with one hand and waving a soundcorder in
the other.
	"What news is there from the Tres-Tiorem?" There was fear
and there was curiosity in the reporter's brown on green
eyes. "The latest rumour was of a tidal wave forming west of
Frairimont. Is there another ingress of radiation from space
beyond?"
	Grahn shook the reporter off irritably. "I've heard
nothing of the kind. Aren't you journalists better off
maintaining your composure than lapsing into needless
hysteria?"
	Without further comment the Phycel darted away to accost
another government official coming down the steps, who was
soon engulfed by throngs of anxious members of the public,
no longer hungry for snippets of noble scandal, but for news
of looming disasters.
	Grahn shook his head ruefully while he sought his way to
the designated parking lot of his Affra aerolimousine. These
were unsettling times: floods, earthquakes, natural
disturbances of varying kinds had fallen upon Phylee-Patre
like a global epidemic. Officials and science stewards
laboured from dawn to night trying to hammer out a workable
hypothesis for this latest calamitous challenge which nature
had thrown at their intellectual heads, but a solution had
so far evaded them and for now they could only stand by and
meet the disturbance head-on as it occurred, usually with
unforetold quickness and devastation.
	Grahn ignited his aerolimo and the blue-black sedan
sleeked upwards, a chrome panther responding effortlessly to
the magni-pulses of the overhead cloverleaf. Leaning back
against the control seat, Grahn pondered about the day's
events.
	While the very stability of the Three Planets was being
threatened by the inexplicable instability of nature, the
Council sat down and deliberated the mundane matter of
successorship. He was nursing a growing irritation that the
problem, with its many-sided complications, had been neatly
wrapped up in a package by the council members and shoved
off the table right into his lap.
	'Find a new Lar Protector Designate, but don't say
anything about it.' Secrecy was the Trevarthens' forte. The
existence of the Treasury Council was a well-guarded secret
and, he hoped, it could be maintained as such, a proper
conspiracy, for his own conspiracy to succeed.
	Grahn thought of Milraus and smiled. During the meeting
Surgeon Director Wyllan Milraus had dropped the hint, shyly,
hesitantly, as if expecting immediate rejection: "Have you
ever thought of trying to find the whereabouts of Lar Alden?
Remember that he has a daughter by his second union to
Roslinne Ermiz? His daughter may have children."
	The members fell instantly quiet as if he had uttered a
malediction. Then Grand Proctor Willouri boomed out in his
brass voice: "An excellent notion, Milraus. Why don't you
put that on your agenda too, Grahn. What do you think, My
Dama, uh?"
	The Dama Dowager nodded her head in a vacant, sagacious
manner, and the subject was brushed aside in the manner of
'oh, you must admit Milraus sometimes has interesting
notions, but so impractical, don't you agree, Honoured
Members of the Council?'
	"Poor Milraus," Grahn thought, his mouth twitching with
amusement. As Surgeon Director his presence at the Council
was pre-empted and dictated by the wishes of the late Lar
Irwain Trevarthen. In Grahn's younger days, the exploits of
Lar Irwain had constantly fascinated Grahn and the media, a
sensational figure with sensational origins: he was the only
survivor of Aberon, which was obliterated from the face of
Evening Star by the White Radiation Ingress. Dead and buried
for nearly two Maturity Epochs he still seemed to wield the
sceptre over everyone connected with his estate.
	But as to Milraus, his seat on the Council was commonly
regarded as a formality. In a preoccupied way they consulted
him in matters concerning health and sanity, and with the
same negligence they shrugged away his advices. In future
though, they had better pay more attention to what Director
Milraus had to say because, with a gush of buoyancy Grahn
far keyed the speed blinker of his Affra, his idea was the
best they had come up in days of haggling.
	Seeking out Alden was a better modus operandum than
sending out Lukus on a mission across one end of space to
Calitre, and thence to the other end, to Vestre or more
commonly known as Evening Star, in search of his foster
brother, Valorin, or any of Valorin's offspring. Both ways
were feasible. Lukus Stratken would depart on his journey
and he, Grahn, would speak to the person who, he had known
for some time now, had secretive contacts with Lar Alden.
The very person they were trying to dislodge from his title
and inheritance: the young Lar Protector Designate Glynmoran
Trevarthen. Even an advocate notary sometimes found it
necessary to keep things under his shock of hair.
	While his aerolimo glided along the flytrajectory without
so much as a hum, he stretched his hand to the communication
panel and coded Glynmoran's call sign on the screen.