Her Darkest Beauty_An Alien Invasion Series_The Second Generation Read online

  Patricia Renard Scholes Her Darkest Beauty

  Her Darkest Beauty

  An Alien Invasion Series

  The Second Generation

  Book One

  Patricia Renard Scholes

  Prologue

  As human prisoners awaited transport, the alien waited to feed. Others of its kind awaited them in the newly built prison. No more visible than a wisp of darkness, the entity had spent much time in the camp feeding off the fear that permeated the air with sweet perfume. Hoping to get more than aroma, it hung near several who might live through their incarceration and tried to entice them. They were a dispirited a lot, too powerless.

  But there! That human blazed with an uncommon fury. The entity hovered closer, considering a number of ways to entice him, anticipating the feed, when a burst of rifle fire blasted through the camp. Prisoners fell, including the one it had chosen to inhabit.

  Irritated, the entity searched the crowd hoping for a victim who would accept its “guidance.”

  Most humans, however, did not appeal to the entity because too few of them owned even a flicker of true power. Humans were a boring species. Here an atrocity had just been committed, a line of twenty of their own had been murdered by rifle fire, and the crowd muttered helplessly or wept hopelessly. No spark of rage flamed with bright energy. No one dug deep inside to raise a lush fire of revenge. None of them despised their enemy enough to hate, hurt, and kill.

  Ah, now! What about that child at the front of the crowd swaying on unsteady legs? Her energy burned, but her spirit flagged. This child held promise. She possessed the essence of uncommon Talent, attractive to the entity - to own such power, to feed upon it, and control it! The urge to taste the child’s misery through the blaze of her Talent drew it close enough to be touched. Although her grasp of Talent would have allowed her to see it floating right next to her, she did not.

  It hovered around the devastated child in indecision. It wanted to taste her trauma in its fullness, not sniff at the wisps of fear and sorrow that emanated from her thoughts. It had not drunk the full expression of emotion in a very long time. It usually ignored children. They simply took too long to experience life in all its darkest beauty. This girl would need to reach adolescence before she could become a true predator, and that remained several years away. The entity had never been known for its patience.

  But the power! It ached to possess her power to twist it at will. Once she matured, this child could fulfill its darkest wishes.

  I can help you, the entity offered, speaking directly into the child’s mind.

  To its delight, the child did not look alarmed at the alien voice in her head. Neither did she search the crowd for the speaker, unlike most humans. Most humans, especially the Talentless, would have pushed away the entity’s thought as too strange to accept, and then insult the offer by forgetting it had ever happened. Most humans were beneath the entity’s notice, not this child, however. The child accepted the beast’s voice, but her eyes remained on the body of one of the prisoners that had just fallen, the one the entity had abandoned after his life force left.

  Her father! So that was why this girl felt such an amazing flare of emotion. The entity studied her as she stared at her father’s blood turning the black mud into a sick red.

  He’s dead, the beast told her. They killed him. It threw a bolt of hatred for her enemies at her to see what she would do. With children, one never knew. Some of them simply shut down, and this one looked like she might.

  The child accepted the hatred. The Talent in her burned with a desire for revenge.

  The beast purred.

  It tried another bolt, this time one of fear. All of you are in danger with them in control.

  It nearly laughed with delight when the child also accepted the second bolt.

  I can protect you, it said. Let me make you strong enough to eliminate those who took your father from you, and I will reward you. It then gave her a taste of the reward. It allowed her to feel nothing at all, giving her a sense of peace like cold, numbing ice… a peace like death.

  Chapter 1

  Karra slipped into the back of the classroom, head down as if embarrassed. In reality, she felt sick from too much indulgence last night. Remembering last night almost brought a smile of pleasure until she remembered she was supposed to show contrition for being late for school.

  Last night, her heels had tapped across the tiled floor. All the guests watched as she poured drinks and offered caresses. Last night she used the name Desire, and made sure each one of the guests craved her attention. She relished her control over the guests. She remembered how their eyes lingered on her hands as she stroked the silky fabric stretched tightly over the curves of her body. Last night, Barnis Ves, the Nevian investigator, mentioned once, and only once, how he liked blondes better. Blonde was the shade of her childhood, she told him last night. With no trouble at all she made him forget the color of her hair. Last night, after the guests left, wanting her all to himself, he had called her the best. And until the moment came for her to kill him, she was.

  Another smile threatened, as she remembered last night’s murder. She had accomplished quite a bit last night, ridding her world of one more Nevian, then relieving him of his cash, in addition to the money he had promised at the beginning of the evening’s entertainment. She considered it a tip. The Homelander Front had paid her in advance for her unique services.

  Still, she had not relished killing him, even if he was from Nevia. She had begun to want out of her life, maybe even out of her very skin, which seemed to house too much of something large and dark. It felt as if not enough room remained for loving and laughing, especially when she needed to force room for holding her daughter and playing with her.

  Karra tore her mind from last night and tried to concentrate on this morning’s lesson. Thankfully, no one had given her more than a cursory glance. Maybe the adult education program was more lenient than the one designed for children. The teacher could have sent her directly to the Chief Administrator’s office for coming in late, had he wished.

  She froze in her seat when Sinda spoke her name.

  “… positive Karra didn’t really mean it that way. Surely she isn't actually implying a parallel between her cruel barbarians and our benefactors."

  The class, in discussion over their writing assignments, had chosen her story as the topic. Squeaky-voiced Sinda, Inner City bred, sounded exactly the way Karra expected.

  "She's Area, erren’t she?" Manroy argued. "She don't see 'our benefactors' the same way you do, Sinda."

  "Then you're both totally ignorant!" Sinda spouted. "In her story barbarians didn't build cities and bless the world with their incredible technology, did they? Did they? No! They ravaged the whole land and forced people into hiding. It isn’t the same at all!"

  "Erren’t it? Whose culture is left? Ask yourself that. Whose celebrations do we honor? Which history is taught? Maybe you’ve never heard our family stories. I have. Who benefits from the kindness of ‘our benefactors’?"

  "Enough!" Stiveson barked.

  Although his voice sounded harsh, Karra saw Stiveson grin. She watched his face grow pink, slowly across his cheeks and nose, in pleasure that his class finally discussed something.

  "Manroy, tell us why you came to your conclusions. Did Karra's barbarians build anything?"

  "No," he admitted. "But they destroyed a whole culture and replaced it with their own, as if they had a right to."

  "Why didn't they have a right to do what they did? Sinda?"

 
"Because they were awful! They hurt and killed people!"

  "No," he objected. "It was more'n that."

  "Explain, Manroy."

  But while the young man searched for words, someone else spoke.

  "Maybe Karra didn't intend a parallel," the other student said in a voice so quiet Karra had to strain to hear her. "Whether the old culture was replaced with savagery or technology, the fact remains, it was replaced. I think that was the whole point of her story."

  "Do you agree with Bibbera, Sinda?"

  "No. Her logic is as ignorant as Manroy’s. She sounds like she's from the Area like Karra and Manroy are."

  "Ignorant,” Stiveson interrupted. “You use that word quite a bit. What makes her logic ignorant? What does the Homelander Outer Area or a Nevian Inner City have to do with a story about barbarians? Karra, would you like to answer that? It’s your story after all."

  Karra shook her head. The movement brought a wave of nausea. She had taken a couple of tablets before she left Barnis Ves that he insisted would kill a hangover. By the time she reached school, a headache had also begun to develop, so she had taken two more. They hadn’t yet worked. She wished she had spent time this morning to score something more reliable off the streets. But she was already running late, and had really wanted to honor her promise to her mother to finish school. She couldn’t finish if she didn’t attend.

  "She’s wise to say nothing," Sinda snapped instead. She continued speaking just above a whisper, "It's wrong to make a parallel where there isn't one. You know that, Master Stiveson."

  "Sirra." Stiveson’s correction sounded husky with emotion. He was the only teacher who insisted on the old Irelli title. Karra feared it would cost him his job someday, if his curiosity did not.

  Believing she had access to some of the old Homelander literature, he had asked her for just one illegal book. Instead, she had used their most recent assignment by writing a story showing people hiding their treasures, burying bits of knowledge, making tiny caches of wealth for the day the barbarians would leave, or be destroyed. She hoped he understood that all such treasures remained in secret places, indicating that if she did have access to anything illegal, they would remain there until the invaders left—or were destroyed. Only someone from the Area would have dared to write such a story. She wondered if Sirra Stiveson would have been so willing to choose her story if he knew that last night she had eliminated one of their oppressors. She also wondered how her classmates would have responded, Sinda in particular. Karra allowed herself a small half-smile.

  "Pleased with yourself, Mistress Willo?"

  Startled, she jerked her head upward to see the Chief Administrator of Education standing in the doorway. His alien black-within-black eyes gleamed back at her.

  "Pardon?" she asked in a voice far calmer than the pounding of her heart and the thundering in her head.

  "A most revealing story, yes? Are you pleased with its results?"

  "I'm sure I don’t…"

  But he gave her no time to reply. "Master Stiveson," he said, emphasizing the politically accepted title. He waited a moment, as if judging the class for its reaction. He seemed satisfied when no one spoke or moved. "I will take it, please."

  The composition and literature teacher held the pages out for his superior, trembling in his hand, shaking with nervousness.

  The Administrator turned toward Stiveson. "I want to see you this afternoon during your free period, Stiveson. Mistress Willo, you will come with me.”

  Karra glanced at her teacher who avoided her eyes. Flushed to the top of his bald spot, he focused his attention back to his class, changing the subject. Karra ducked from the pity in her classmate’s peripheral glances, and brought herself to her feet.

  Later, when she recalled this moment, she realized she should have run right then and never looked back, no matter the promises made to a dying mother. The events that followed changed her life forever.

  Chapter 2

  The Administrator strode toward his offices, with an authority, indicating he expected her to accompany him. The day of her interview by the examination panel reviewing her application, Karra had walked down this same hall. They informed her that they screened all applicants before accepting them into the Second Start Program.

  "We must be sure," a panel member had stated, sounding as if she chose her words with care, "that your past does not interfere with (corrupt, Karra interpreted) the goals of the other students."

  Considering her family background, the panel was probably more worried about her politics. She doubted they spent any energy at all worrying about her legal profession, which included work like the evening entertainment Investigator Barnis thought he had purchased. The panel was right. Politics did get in the way. Had she not been so afraid of what the Nevian investigator was close to finding, she would never have accepted the job, either as his party favor or as an assassin.

  Karra tried to blink past the massive headache developing behind her eyes. Her thoughts clouded as a storm brewed in her head. Her ability to think fogged.

  She doubted incoherent thoughts plagued the Administrator’s brain. He had invited her to his office with a definite purpose in mind. He had no trouble seeing a relationship between the barbarians in her story and the benefactors his people claimed to be. He guided her toward his office in the Administration of Education wing of the school.

  Being the Council member in charge of public education, he might even take a personal pride in his people’s nearly successful attempts to destroy the diverse cultures of this planet. Graduation from the Public Academy allowed its students access to several of the private upper level academies. It advertised that all graduates qualified for a number of Inner City jobs. True enough, but a person could starve before receiving one of those cherished jobs. Karra had one other sibling who attended the Public Academy, her brother Dugaan who was four years younger. The rest of her siblings attended a local Primary Basic school.

  Primary Basic schools, scattered throughout the Area, taught Irelli language, reading, basic math, Nevian history and civic duty. Although not required, such an education was available for Sector Five children from six through fifteen. No subjects in geography were included in a Basic education. No ties to the mainland and to the Homelander cultures that once lived there were ever offered. For a Basic student, their world began and ended within the city of Sector Five’s walls.

  A Primary Basic allowed Area residents to be more valuable to their Nevian employers. Saril, the sister just younger than her, although sixteen, had been permitted to remain in the local Primary Basic school in order to graduate by the end of the year. Saril would be the first among Karra’s siblings to receive that distinction.

  Ahead of his class, Dugaan would graduate next year. He planned to become a physician someday. Most Area residents found the cost of any of the upper level academies prohibitive. Dugaan would too, if he failed to find someone to sponsor him. Area residents rarely made more than just enough to survive.

  Such realities usually incensed her, making her want to lash out at the Nevians. But today she needed to focus on the issue at hand, meaning how to satisfy the Administrator of Education’s curiosity and still be able to remain at school. The story she had written, still clutched in his hand, waved at her like a flag of caution.

  The plaque on his door gave his full name and title. She squinted past the headache to see it clearly: Hannok Se Walliz, Chief Administrator of Education, and was sorry the moment she did. A new dart of pain stabbed through the back of her brain.

  She tried to distract herself by recalling what she knew of Master Walliz. The man sat on the Sector Five Council along with the various heads of this Sector’s administrative committees that met regularly with the High Commissioner. She wished he had chosen to administer education from a separate facility altogether. All others on the Sector Five Council kept their offices in Level Three. The canned blurb maintained that Level One, being the closest to the Outer Area streets, ma
de Sector Five education accessible to everyone, but most Homelanders knew otherwise, even Level One Homelanders like Sinda.

  His hand gripped her elbow as he propelled her past the door and through the outer office where his human receptionist sat keying entries at her desk. Although not a Nevian, the woman would betray her own kind to Security before she would risk losing her Inner City job.

  Walliz closed the door. She winced as the sound of the latch closing hammered in her head. Go away, she told the headache. Think through it, she told herself.

  Out of habit, Karra studied the room. It contained only one massive desk with three matching chairs, with his behind the desk, and two guest chairs facing his desk. One wall boasted of a floor-to-ceiling bookcase opposite a marbled window. Further examination showed the window presented no function outside of decor. Not meant to open, it even refused to let light in well.

  The only way out, she finally realized, was the way in. The sudden thought brought another crash of thunder in her head.

  Her eyes left the window and rested on the man as he sank his stocky body in the chair behind his desk. With stumpy, gray-lined fingers he pushed back a lock of blue-black hair that had fallen across his forehead.

  Odd, she thought when she also began to see herself last night, stroking Barnis’ forehead, combing his scantier hair with her fingers as though she enjoyed it. She shuddered. The money compensated.

  "Please sit down, Mistress Willo."

  Was the room growing warm?

  "Just the other day I thought about you and decided to pull your file. Yes?"

  What have I done to make him think of me? Fear slashed at her, throwing hot daggers into her head, causing her vision to blur. Beads of sweat dampened her brow. She tried to hide the barrage of emotions behind a placid expression, and knew she failed.