One thing that is already bothering me is that a journal tends toward those “walls of text” which have never characterized my books. I am a dialog guy, from the show-don’t-tell group of writers. I’ll see how the rest of this first chapter unfolds, but am already toying with the idea of even-numbered chapters being Pai’s observational counterpoint to Graf’s writings to his children and their mother.

And, yes, that comes up again. Trust me, as a very socially conservative Catholic, it was and is a stress on me to have this three-way relationship. I know full well that cultures do drift over time, and here we are nearly 150 years from The Fourth Law, so I’ll keep on for now and try to muddle through. I also realize I’ll need to talk to my copyeditor about formatting. With Graf’s entries in italic, it would be confusing to use the same for his internal thoughts, which is what I’ve been using for ten books, now. Guess, I’ll figure that out, too.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Four months prior

My dear family, Graf wrote in pen into the small journal his wife had given him, like all the others for the past year.  She didn’t trust an electronic tablet, so whenever he asked, she would glance at what he wrote and send it to Suza, Tér, and the new twins, Henry and Philip, so named by their mother, Alix, as they started fighting in her womb and have since never stopped.

“It was Alix’s suggestion I write all this down, holding my eyes with hers and saying what no one wanted to:  ‘if you die, at least our kids can know something about their father,’” he said softly in the small waiting lounge in Birmingham.  Waiting for their flight to the moon.  His and Alix’s relationship was complex:  after mistaking her for his fiancée, she fell in love with him.  With Pai, whether as Thinking Machine or android, not able to have human children, the three young adults reached a compromise.  It so rankled Alix’s parents that they first reduced, then cut, contact with their daughter completely.

“Pai was so mad about that,” he muttered again.  “So many of these people are nuts about family.  Screw this, I need to finish this entry in fifteen minutes.”

…family, he continued to write, even with all the training I have been given by the legionaries as well as the SOG special group of the Republic of Texas, there is still so much I didn’t know.  Two weeks ago, as an officer candidate, I trundled along behind a platoon who landed by airplane – our special craft are in top demand, right now – in Des Moines, what was once the State of Iowa.  Like my home, former Wisconsin, it’s in a legal gray zone (I know y’all will understand when you are older), but such zones are places where dissent and rebellion can ferment.

Graf tapped his pen on the paper has he looked up.  After now just five years with my wife, I think of myself as one of them, and no longer just a simple farmer from Spring Green.  Partly because who fell on me, and who I fell for, but also what Pai calls my gift.  I’m about ready to call it a curse if I have to talk to Empress Aurelia or PM Reina one more time.

We took a few trucks north, to a town called Ames.  Used to a college town, I guess, generations ago.  I would have expected a place like that to be long dead, but there was enough ag to keep what few socialists, as your empress calls them, alive.  These days, as we’ve found out, they call themselves Separatists.  Not that they wanted to be separate from the Russians, Texans, or imperium, really, but because they want to be separate from anyone not a normal human.

He paused again.  There is so much I cannot say.

Well, even your dad has figured out that’s just not going to happen.  Empress Aurelia and her fam, your auntie…they seem to be everywhere, these days!  I know one of your best friends, Suza, is a demi; never goes to your school ‘cause she thinks too fast, but is a part of your Sisterhood.  I know they are loyal friends and will stand by you.

Anyway, we parked way south of town and walked in from several directions, trying to not be obvious.  Some pretended to be traders, some wildcatters.  I had my ratty flannel back on – and tell your mother to stop laughing! – and was “just another farmer from the northeast, looking at their seed stock.”  All four groups went to four different bars that evening to listen.  We also all slept in tents, back outside the town.  And exchanged messages.

More I cannot talk about in detail.  Graf considered how to slog through what happened next.

What was odd was that my little group, of which I was supposed to be in charge of, yeah, right, I let the centurion make the calls, met this old guy at the dive we were in on the west side.  He was well into his third pint and muttered something something Weissberg and that he was from some miles west, a village called Boone.  For some really creepy reason, he seemed to know not only who we were, but more about the Polar Alliance than a rustic should.  He did mention where the Separatists met, then stumbled toward the door, mentioning taking his horse back home.  When I steadied him,

I cannot mention this stupid “gift” as Pai calls it…

…him, he looked up and said, “My great grandfather said you would come.”  I saw him off, hoping he didn’t fall off; it was a little warmer, so even if he did, I guess he’d be okay.

This has been enough and the bell sounded to get aboard.  Ah, my beloved wife, walking toward me, I see in her light gold eyes, is fully charged.  My second trip off-planet.  I wonder what will happen?