Time for a Teaser Tuesday excerpt!
From the second prequel of my To Be Sinclair series entitled Undying Dawn, in which Kyan Sinclair rethinks his principles:
Turning to Joshua,
he stated, “I want to buy you out.”
“What?!” Joshua was so startled, he even dropped his
soft drink bottle in the sand. “Why?”
Heart breaking,
Kyan tried desperately to keep his face neutral. “I have so many reasons, I doubt if I could
even count them all. Whenever I think
about one, corollaries pop up so fast and furious that I don’t....” He hung his head.
It hurt even
worse that Joshua didn't get angry with him.
The true, loving concern of his best friend felt completely undeserved
as he rattled off questions. “What’s
wrong, Kyan? Are you working too
hard? You’ve hardly PAL’d me for years,
now. What happened to all your
enthusiasm? You’re living in paradise,
for pity’s sake.
“Do you just
need to get out more? You should come
with me on my next recruiting run.
Experiencing a new city, new scenes, and new people will energize you
again, I’m sure. Why don’t we go see
Takeo soon? Maybe some of his people
would want to join us.”
Kyan turned his
head to watch the parasailer, now near the harbor of Sainte Maxime, descending
to Earth once more. He was unsurprised
and untouched when Joshua ultimately pleaded, “For God’s sake, Kyan, talk to
me!”
After riffling
through the top dozen excuses he had manufactured in his mind to explain to
Joshua, he surprised himself by saying, “I just... feel dead.”
As Joshua
gasped, Kyan tried to analyze the feeling.
“Whenever I think of any part of the plan anymore, my brain goes numb,
like I know it’s not going to work. Like
some part of me knows there’s some kind of flaw, and I have to start from
scratch.”
Looking Joshua
straight in the eyes, he concluded, “And I know how much thought and work
you've put into the plan, how much passion you have for it, so I know you will
resist changing anything at this point.
So I either buy you out, or you buy me out. Since I’m so heavily invested in the
equipment anyway, I might as well buy you out.”
Joshua’s brow
curled in confusion. “What kind of
changes were you thinking about?”
“No.” Kyan shook his head. “I don’t even want to get into it. You’ll want to reanalyze the plan, but we did
such a good job on it that it would all fall to pieces if we tried to re-tweak
all the little details to fit the major tweaks.
I want to start from scratch.”
Bewildered, it
took Joshua a full minute to respond.
“But I want off Earth, too.”
Kyan sipped his
drink. “I’m not saying you can’t join
me, or even contribute. I’m just saying
I want to redesign the entire strategy with completely different goals, and I
don’t want to have to fight you to set things up my way.”
Gazing at a
distant yacht, he sighed. “We've been
best friends for ten years. You know I
love you, man. But I need to find my
passion once again. My values have been
changing in ways I can’t even describe to myself. I need to find a deeper meaning to dedicate
my life to.”
Joshua sat up on
the side of his lounge chair, picking up the bottle and digging his feet in the
sand. “Like what? Can you at least give me a clue?” He wiped off the bottle and leaned forward,
elbows on his knees, ready to listen with every care in the world.
Kyan considered
everything he knew about Joshua. Born
into affluence, he had nevertheless worked hard to learn everything MIT’s Sloan
School of Management could teach him.
While multiplying his grandfather’s fortune by investing in Moehrke Jump
Drives and setting up new interstellar shipping lines, Joshua’s passion for the
expansion of humanity into the galaxy led him into taking multiple science
courses at UC Berkeley after earning his first degree.
After noticing
they were both taking the same three unique subjects in biomedical engineering,
environmental engineering, and the newest terraforming course the university
offered, Kyan struck up a conversation with him. That led to a most remarkable dinner, ending
the evening at a bar where they clinked their glasses together to toast their
new friendship and potential partnership.
Bankrolled by
Joshua, who was earning a heavenly salary and options from his grandfather,
Kyan had tweaked the basic design of a wormhole navigation headset so heavily
that it qualified for its own patent.
The PsyActive Link he had created took the planet by storm as the most
efficient social utility ever devised, replacing most phones and datanet sites,
and used extensively by business for teleconferencing.
By the time he
had repaid Joshua with interest, Sinclair-Edwards Limited became the
Sinclair-Edwards Corporation with a minimal common stock offering. Overnight, at ages 23 and 25, they found
themselves christened as two of the top 100 wealthiest people on Earth.
Just over a year
later, the scientists of their new private company S-E Discovery and
Development, Ltd., had finished exploring one of the wormholes leading from
Rendel’s volume of space, determining that the fourth planet of the new system was
the closest planet to Earth-like conditions ever discovered. Despite the frenzied newscasts and dozens of
interviews, Kyan and Joshua were unable to find enough qualified people willing
to sign on to their charter as colonists.
Joshua the ebullient businessman focused on that element of the plan,
while Kyan the scientist stuck to the practicalities of setting up their new
world.
Then Joshua had met
Julia. Kyan found himself inviting Monique
to share his life just so he could have regular sex with someone beautiful
enough to distract him from thinking about Julia. It was almost more painful when the two ladies
developed a fairly strong friendship, though it was nowhere near as strong as
Kyan and Joshua’s. Still, Monique was
unthreatened by Julia’s intellect, and Julia, she of the Italian curves,
luscious breasts, softly rounded belly, and loving, generous ways, was
completely unthreatened by Monique’s slender, statuesque, standoffish goddess
beauty.
So here he was,
staring at Joshua staring at him, wondering what he could possibly say to make
Joshua realize that being a brilliant, obscenely wealthy scientist was just not
enough for him anymore. “Do you think Monique
loves me?” he finally blurted, unsure why he had asked in the first place,
since he already knew the answer.
Joshua’s lips
parted; he blinked heavily before offering a mild response. “I’m not the person you should ask.”
“In other words,
no. I don’t think so, either.” Kyan turned his face away. “So the reason she’s with me is because I’m
wealthy, or good in bed, or a status symbol.
The odds of her being with me for who I really am are slim, wouldn't you
say?”
Joshua remained
silent, though he did run one hand through his blond American surfer curls
before sighing and looking at his bottle.
Kyan decided to ramble on for a while, since his subconscious had already
generated two items of interest thus far.
“Our plan was
predicated on the thought that normal, everyday people are tediously boring, as
well as too stupid to live half the time.
Yet look at Manuvia’s founder.
Leah Marie Fischer originally signed on as a domestic servant to Corona
Segundus.
“Although she
admits to no genius, at least to no advanced intellect, nevertheless she had a
brilliance to acknowledge her strengths and get trained as a courtesan. She surrounded herself with loving people who
could help her make decisions, she fell into an unexpected inheritance but
learned to manage it by the seat of her pants and in non-standard ways, and now
she has 50,000 colonists signed up to build a new society. That tells me three things.
“First, intelligence
doesn't get the loo scrubbed.” Kyan was
grateful when a burst of nervous laughter erupted from Joshua, because he still
felt uncomfortable letting out so many of his deepest thoughts, even to his
best friend. Smiling briefly at his own joke,
he grew serious once more.
“Although we've been concentrating on getting the most brilliant people we can to sign our
charter, we haven’t really thought much about why they are living the lives
they do. They are undoubtedly immersed
in comforts too numerous to mention, such as their support staff. To think they might have to suffer the
privations the original scientists did on Corona Segundus is a negative
incentive. Corona Segundus is the object
lesson, and the people you have been approaching have learned it by
proxy.” Joshua nodded deeply, brown eyes
searing in intense thought.
“Second, Leah
Fischer’s investments revolved around one thing: the comfort and support she
could give to people. And not just
brilliant people; I hesitate to say ‘average people’ because it doesn't sound
like there is such a thing on Corona Segundus.
“But consider
her two main investments, a nourishing and delicious food product, and
compounds for the maintenance and pleasure of the bravest men on the planet,
the wildlife bounty hunters, who lived in virtual squalor before because they
had never had the time to attach themselves to women. Somehow she internalized a vision of the
expansion of the colony so well that she pinpointed the exact way to attract
new colonists who could guarantee the colony’s health and welfare.”
Kyan put down
his bottle and shifted in his chair to sit across from Joshua. Staring intently, he declared, “The third
thing is so astonishingly subtle that it took me two years to understand
it. Manuvia isn't going to be a
successful colony because of what apparently sounds like free sex for people in
any way they can manage to achieve it.
It didn't get 50,000 people signing on just because Leah Fischer is
famous, or talented, or charismatic or an equalist or a political minimalist.
“It was because
she deliberately established the tenets of a new kind of society that invited
every single member to contribute their own creativity and talents toward its
success. She took the craving for love
and understanding, and made it the theme of the colony. Love.
Pure and simple. Expressed right
in the charter. ‘That each citizen is
granted leave to pursue love and gratification with no threat of onus or
censure.’ How simple is that?”
He slumped. “And what do we offer our potential
colonists? Patent rights and
intellectual rivalries. Surely we don’t
even understand ourselves, if that is the limit we place on intellectual
gifts.”
“What kind of
tenet or goal do you think would inspire people to want to join our
colony?” Joshua at least seemed to
realize why Kyan thought their whole plan should be scrapped. Usually he would have offered half a dozen
counter-arguments and derivative ideas before asking Kyan for his own.
Kyan
sighed. “I don’t know. I've been thinking a lot about
motivation. I almost feel like I
should....” He blinked as if he could
navigate a PAL fog.
“What? You know I’ll help, in any way I can.”
Kyan shook his
head. “I don’t know if I will ever figure
it out. I’m not the people-person you
are.”
He stared into
Joshua’s eyes. “That’s why I think one
of us should buy the other out. You’re
the businessman, so figure out a price you wouldn't mind either taking or
paying. If I can’t figure it out, I’ll
sell out to you. If I do figure
something out, I’ll buy from you. How
does that sound?”
It took Joshua a
full minute to respond. “Fair. But I’ll have to get back to you on it. It’s not like I could just take the annual
bottom line of S-E D & D and cut it in half. I have to make projections and talk to some
industry analysts, that kind of thing.”
Kyan
nodded. “That works for me.” As Joshua glanced past his shoulder, he knew
their ladies were probably approaching behind him. “I’m going to take a swim, then head back to
the house.” He headed for the gentle
surf without glancing toward Julia at all.
◊
◊ ◊
The third night
of Joshua and Julia’s visit, Monique started in on him. “Don’t you realize we haven’t gone anywhere together
for four months? With the exception of
the beach, I don’t think you've even been out of the house for three weeks.”
She finished
oiling her legs before bringing the bottle of emu oil to the bed and turning
away from him; Kyan sat up against the headboard and began moisturizing her
back. “How about we spend a nice week in
Milan? Fashion Week is coming up. I could wrangle a stint from Vicente, I’m
sure. You could publicize your colony
then, too.”
Anointing her
spine perfunctorily, Kyan murmured, “I notice you didn't say ‘our
colony’.” She stiffened in surprise, but
he kept applying the oil as if he hadn't noticed. “If you want to go to Milan for Fashion Week,
feel free.”
“Yes, but people
always ask where you are. I always get
uncomfortable regards,” she complained.
“I feel vulnerable when I go places by myself.”
“That’s why we
have bodyguards.” He capped the oil and
set it aside.
Monique turned
to straddle his thighs, though she was still wearing her thong. Reaching for the oil, she began slicking him
up in turn. He stiffened quickly,
wondering why her beauty wasn't enough to get him aroused anymore.
While she played
with his balls and gave him a glittering smile, Kyan swept his hands up her
thighs and sides to cup her breasts briefly before lightly grasping her
shoulders. “Monique. Why are you here?”
He could tell by
her appalled look that she was ready to bolt.
They had never had a serious, soul-searching discussion before. “Because I love you,” she finally whispered.
“Funny. We've never said that to each other
before. I wonder if it’s really
true?” Kyan slid his hands down to take
her hands. “Or if it’s just a set of
words to us both, without real meaning in the first place, so we've never used
them before.” He kissed one of her
hands. “Do you think we've just been
using each other all this time?”
He was surprised
to see tears in her eyes. “I've given
you three years of my life, and you can ask that?” Her lip was trembling now, too.
“Well, I've given
you the same three years. I've given you
a place to live, I've purchased you more clothing and jewelry than you have
even worn, I've taken you on trips. You
have not needed to spend a single euro on yourself. I would say we have exchanged gifts of equal
value, including time. I did not force
you to come live with me, after all,” he made sure to point out. “You accepted my offer, and we've had a good time,
or so I thought.
“But you want to
get out in public, and you don't seem to plan to move with me to my new
planet. You've never criticized my
goals, but they seem to mean nothing to you.
That’s why I asked. I’m simply
curious as to why you are still with me.”
“What do you
want of me?” Monique appeared to take
his gentle honesty seriously, for although she had asked this with wholehearted
intent, she was no longer upset.
He stared into
her eyes for a long moment before gripping her hands for emphasis. “I want you to be happy. Your presence here has been a great blessing
to me, but if you don't see yourself as my life partner, that’s okay. I just want you to be happy. That’s all.”
He kissed her other hand. “What
do you want of me?”
She sat beside
him and held his hand. “I've always
wanted your love. You’re a perfect
gentleman and an interesting lover, always willing to act out my
fantasies. But I've turned myself
inside-out for three years now, trying to get you to love me. Although you've gone through all the
motions, I wonder if you’re even capable of love at this point.”
He slid down in
the bed, put his arms around her, and encouraged her to snuggle in. With a kiss to her forehead, he gazed into
her eyes. “I love the fact that you
exist. I love your beauty. I love your public coolness and your private
vivaciousness. I love knowing I've given
you some much-needed stability after your last lover hurt you so badly. I love knowing that you've enjoyed living
with me.
“But I have
never been a publicity hound, and I know you crave that, you need that. I've tried to be a gracious host to your
friends, but I've never been able to relate to their lifestyle. All the possessions I've given you have never
meant much to me, because I don’t understand why they mean so much to you. I’m glad if they've made you happy, but since
we don’t share the same core values, I truly don’t think you are happy here
with me.”
Caressing her
face, he planted a simple kiss upon her lips.
“Feel free to stay with me, if you wish.
Feel free to move on, if you wish.
If you do, come back to visit as often as you like, or even visit me
when I move to my new planet. But
otherwise, I don’t think I can offer you anything I haven't offered
before. I’m sorry.”
Eyes luminous, Monique
kissed him back. “I’m sorry, too. I do love you, especially for understanding
me so well.” Running her hand across his
chest, she let it rest over his heart.
“I just hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for someday.”
Kyan
gave her a wistful smile. “So do I.”
