| Author: |
Lynda Williams |
| Dated: |
Thursday, December 10 2009 @ 02:00 PM EST |
| Viewed: |
422 times |
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The Okal Rel Saga is a ten-novel SF series by Lynda Williams, published by Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy. Part 6: Avim's Oath will be out in April 2009. I am currently working on Part 8: Gathering Storm in which the cultural exchange referred to below is taking place. The excerpt below is a draft vignette probably written circum 2003 which didn't find its way into the novel-in-progress. But I've been encouraged to believe that "off stage" glimpses of the characters that don't appear in printed publication will interest some followers of the series. So I thought I would try sharing some through Scroll in Space.
"And which one of them -- " Perry said, casting the pronoun to denote a pair of Purebloods, "-- had this particular bright idea?"
Not a promising start, thought Amel, standing in his flight leathers on the other side of her desk. He suspected he ought to say something encouraging. “Um, well,” was all he actually said.
Perry dropped the message to fix an ominous blue stare on the messenger. “A cultural exchange?”
“It’s a sort of ... reception thing,” Amel explained, gesturing vaguely and then dropping his hands with a feeling of crowning inadequacy in the face of Perry’s scowl. “Except it isn’t,” he concluded. “Not quite.”
“Between Reetions and the Ava’s Empire?” Perry double-checked.
Amel cleared his throat. “Pretty much, yes.”
Perry gave him a hard look. Then she dropped her eyes again to the vellum sheet on her desk. It was covered in Erien’s neat handwriting, as legible and regular as print. “Sounds like one of Erien's ideas," she said, and cocked an eyebrow at him with a hopeful air. "Is Ameron counting on me to kill it?"
Amel drew breath to speak, held it a moment, then abandoned the effort. "No," he said.
"No!" she exclaimed. “What do you mean no! Ameron’s done this to make it my job to tell Erien it can’t happen. Don’t tell me he isn’t up to that! He’s a crafty, Lor’Vrellish -- “
"No, Perry, really!” insisted Amel and paused to wet his lips as she simmered down a little. “Ameron supports the idea of hosting a Cultural Exchange,” he assured her, and added with what he hoped was liege-like command and certainty. “Here.”
"In about another hundred years!” Perry said, with a snort. “Sure! It would make sense."
Amel winced. "Erien has convinced him that -- "
"Then you’ll have to unconvinced him!” said Perry. “Gods alive, Amel! Improve diplomatic relations, the boy genius says? I can think of a dozen different ways that an Empire-Reetion exchange could be the prelude to the second Killing War instead!"
"What?" Amel asked, lightly. "Only twelve." He yanked over a chair and sat down, shaking out his hair which was drying out after the close confines of the cockpit and uncomfortably stiff with sweat. “I stopped counting after twenty-three dreadful scenarios, myself.”
“You aren’t taking this seriously,” she accused him.
“I take it very seriously when you make the kind of faces you’ve been making since you saw that letter,” he assured her, stretching out as he settled. When she didn't answer he leaned forward again with an earnest look. “Honestly.”
“But?” she said.
“Well,” he said, and shrugged. “There isn’t much that Ameron and Erien agree on.”
Perry opened her mouth to confront him with more arguments and closed it again with a vexed, brooding air. “I see your point.”
“Exactly,” Amel said. “We’re doomed.” He got up again and stretched his arms to their full length to get the ache out of them from the long trip. Then he offered her a mild, lop-sided sliver of a smile. “I thought I’d better come out and break the news to you myself.”
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This should so be in the books. I think all the book should be longer so that it talks me longer to read them, but the Publisher doesn't agree with me. So there are short little sections of storys like this all over the internet because that didn't fit into the books. There are some on the aurther's offical wedsite at www.okalrel.org. (or you can google Okal Rel to find it) My favorite is about a Demoran Princess and a Wild Vrellish Man. It takes place about 500 years before the first books even start. That's what you get for writting a series for over thirty years: to many good little bits that don't fit anywhere!