Excerpt from Chapter 1: (See the free download for the whole first chapter!)

              As she touched the ship down, she noticed that because of thedark sky, she could barely see a flat, sandy plain that looked as if it were painted a dark red. Off in the distance she could see the lights of a strange town.

        Without a word, she and Ankh exited the ship after she had collected her few belongings: her computer and her black box containing the few items she had brought from her old room. As her feet touched the soft ground, Rivi breathed in the cool, sweet, night air. She saw the lights of a few Earth vehicles coming toward her and Ankh from the small town in the distance.

     “I must leave you now. You will be safe with these people,” Ankh stated, pointing toward the nearing vehicles.

      Rivi gave Ankh a short hug, and he received it with all three arms. As the vehicles got closer, Ankh stepped back and drew out the silver cube from the sphere hanging from the rope, that hung around his own neck, set the cube on the sand,and expanded it. After he gave a short wave to Rivi, he entered the cube and it floated up and away.

      The Earth vehicles came to a stop about five yards away from Rivi. Turning away from the glare of their headlights, Rivi reversed her ship back into a small silver cube and dropped it back inside the clear sphere hanging on the rope chain around her neck.

        As she adjusted the chain around her neck, a man and a woman dressed in khaki pants, blue Polo shirts, and dark glasses, approached Rivi.

       “Greetings,” the man stated in a slightly louder than normal voice, while he raised his hands in peace.

        “I am affluent in most dialects of Earth, including English,” The weary, fourteen-year old Rivi stated incredulously, shaking her head with a slight smile.

       “Good. Then my name is Ed, and this would be Alice, an associate of mine,”the man replied, slightly taken by surprise.

        “Was that a friend of yours?” the woman asked, looking into the night sky curiously.

        “Yes, ma’am,” Rivi replied, suddenly feeling small and alone as she stared after the silver cube that was almost out of her sight.

      “We’ve arranged for you to stay with one of our fellow employees. If you’ll come with us. . . .” The man stated pulling off his glasses as if he suddenly noticed Rivi’s change in behavior.

           Rivi nodded and let them assist her into their Jeep. As the vehicles headed into the town, Rivi stared out over the dark horizon. Although she knew that this place would be her new home, she felt as separated from it as much as the houses in the town were separated from each other.

       Once they entered into the town where they were heading, Rivi noticed that the dirt road from the desert valley turned into a hard, black surface that made the ride a lot smoother. The vehicles turned down a few streets before they came to a stop on the side of a road in front of a blue-sided house. The man got out of the front seat and walked around the Jeep to help Rivi out.

          Rivi looked up at the house as they walked toward it; however, her gaze soon drifted back toward the starry sky. They stepped up unto the front steps, and the man politely knocked on the front door. A light went on in the house and a woman opened the door with a smile.

      “This is Miss Tate; she will be your caretaker,” Ed stated. “Miss Tate, this is Sarah Ernestine.”

      “Please . . . I am much more accustomed to being called ‘Rivinaig Nejnigns’,”Rivi stated with closed eyes thinking of painful memories that were stirred by the mention of her past.

      “Sure, come on inside then, Rivinaig. You look like you are tired,” Miss Tate replied with a warm smile as she stepped back a few steps, welcoming Rivi into her home.

       Rivi looked up at her and then Ed, who gestured toward the door with his hand. Rivi entered into the house as Miss Tate shut the door behind her. Rivi followed Miss Tate up a flight of stairs and into another hallway.

      “The bathroom is here on your right, and your room is at the end of the hall to your right as well. If you need anything, I’ll be in the room to the left.”

        “Okay,” Rivi stated quietly.

         She walked down to her room and realized that she was still carrying her blackbox and her palmtop under her left arm. She walked over across the room and setthe box on the windowsill. Feeling overcome with the past events of the day, shewalked over and laid down on the twin bed along the opposite wall. Withinmoments, Rivi was sound asleep. . . .

     Not for long, though, . . . Two hours later, a nightmare encroached on her peaceful sleep. Miss Tate ran into the room to find a lamp, a few books, Rivi’sblack box, and a pair of shoes floating around the room. Shocked, Miss Tatelooked toward Rivi, who was flinching and wreathing on her bed.

       Quite suddenly, Rivi woke, throwing her eyes wide open. She sat up trying to figure out where she was-she obviously was not on Aun. After a second, she lookedtoward the door to see Miss Tate looking from her to the objects floating in theroom, as light from the hallway spilled into the room behind her to light the darkbedroom dimly.

     “Sorry. . . . Nightmare,” Rivi stated, realizing where she was. She looked at each floating object and lowered them softly to their places.

     “Does this happen often?” Miss Tate asked while very disturbed but still curious.

     Rivi shrugged and closed her eyes.

     “Most nights, yes,” she stated, as she relaxed and laid back down.

      “Would you like to talk about it?”

       “Not really. I was able to tell some of it to my guardian father, Ankh, on Aun,but I was never able to tell him all of it. The dreams just keep coming back.”

        “Perhaps it would help if you would share all of it?”

        “Maybe someday I’ll be able to share all of it with someone. . . . But for now,I just live with the dreams,” Rivi answered, trying to close the horrible dream from her mind.

        “Does the ‘floating objects’ thing happen often?” Miss Tate asked, worriedly.

        “Oh, that. . . . That’s nothing.” Rivi looked over at a book and made it float over to her new caretaker.

        Miss Tate gasped and waved her hand around the book to try to figure out howit was floating.

       “It won’t bite back,” Rivi answered, turning her head on the pillow to smile atMiss Tate.

        Miss Tate gingerly plucked the book from the air.

        “Goodnight, then, if you’re sure you’re okay,” Miss Tate stated, still a bit unsettled.

          “Yes, goodnight,” Rivi answered, rolling over as Miss Tate left and shut thedoor behind her.

          At five o’clock in the morning, Miss Tate woke Rivi up gently. Rivi sat up in her bed already alert.

        “I have to leave early to go to work. You have two and a half hours before youwill need to start out for school. I’ve set directions to the school on the kitchentable; it’s not far, so you will be able to walk to the school.”

        “Okay, thank you. What time will you be home?” Rivi asked.

         “I’m afraid that it’ll be sometime after dinner, but there is plenty of food in thekitchen. You can call me if you need help; just press the “star” key on the phone downstairs.”

        “I’m sure I’ll manage.”

        “All right,” Miss Tate replied, then turned and left the room.

       Rivi got out of bed, and realizing that she was still dressed in her clothes fromAun, she decided that she should change. Walking around her room, she openeddrawer after drawer and then finally looked in the closet where fifteen differentshirts and pants hung, neatly pressed. There were other smaller articles, like socks,arranged neatly in their own cubbyholes. Rivi shrugged and chose a set of each,remembering that Ankh had taught them how the citizens of Earth normallydressed during each particular season. She removed her own articles of clothingand proceeded to dress herself accordingly.

        Rivi then went downstairs and found the kitchen. She noticed the set of directionsto the school on the table, along with a set of books and a backpack. Not havinganything else better to do, Rivi looked through the schoolbooks only to discoverthat she had learned the material before. She put the books into the backpackand then went to look around the rest of the house.

        Rivi found a room with a large table and another room that had two machinesin it. Rivi recognized the machines from Ankh’s classes: a washer and a dryer. Shethen found a room with a couch and an armchair facing a large black box with ablank screen. Frowning slightly, Rivi sat down on the couch and turned the TV onwith her mind.

        As pictures and words began to reach her, Rivi began looking more and morebored. She closed her eyes, shook her head to get rid of the pictures, and shut thetelevision off.

        “Mind-numbing,” she stated simply, as she then went to continue her tour.

         She found, to her surprise, a computer sitting in the next room in which she looked. Rivi turned on and accessed the computer through her mind and instantly found and destroyed five viruses, one of which would have soon become capable of attacking the boot sector. After she repaired the damage the viruses hadcaused, she found the computer to be a lot more primitive than the ones to which she was accustomed. She decided to leave it alone for now and left the room.

       “Earth needs to get beyond single pairs of gateways and the binary language of ones and zeroes before it will make any vast improvement in technology,” Rivi saidto herself, as she walked out the back door into the fence-enclosed backyard.

        She found a ladder leading up to the kitchen roof and decided to investigate.She found a newly shingled, shallowly slopped roof. Walking out onto the roof,she found that she was outside of her bedroom and sat down on the wooden windowledge. Looking up into the stars, which were growing dimmer with theapproaching sunrise, she found where Planet Aun would be if it were bright enough to be seen at this distance. Gazing at that one spot, she began to wonderhow the rest of the children were faring.

        An hour later, as the sun had just begun to brighten the early morning sky, hercomputer that she had put into her pants pocket fought for her mind’s attention,just as she had taught it. Giving it a second’s attention, she found out that it wastime for her to leave. Rivi got down off the roof and went back into the kitchen inthe house. She picked up her backpack, read the directions a few times to memorizethem, and then set off toward the school.