The Impossible Future: Complete set by Frank Kennedy (e novels to read online TXT) 📗

but the RC – as we call her – was the last Carrier to transport Korean colonists eight hundred years ago. We cleaned the peninsula of your kind and gave you an entire world in exchange. Yes?”

She smiled like a good little Hokki. “I’m sure I read about that somewhere in my history studies.”

His eyes glazed over. He didn’t want to be here anymore than she.

“Oh,” he said. “Appears my wine has all but extinguished. Where might I find …?”

Li-Ann grabbed him by the arm. “Come with me, Admiral. I know precisely what you need.”

Just like that, Kara’s close encounter with a master of the universe ended, and no one else appeared to notice she was all alone, her bare feet digging into the warm sand. She was wrong, however.

Chi-Qua emerged from the shadows. Kara’s best friend, sporting a yellow top and pink prosthetic lenses, arrived with a bag slung over her shoulder. She sported a devious smile.

“Oh, no,” Kara said. “I know that look. You have a plan.”

“I do. I think you’ll like it.”

She shook the bag, and objects clanked inside.

“Nice. Where do you propose?”

Chi-Qua pointed inland, where the land rose sharply and a phalanx of bullabast trees acted as sentries, hiding the closest estate houses from view. When they reached the nearest tree, a hundred meters from the party site, darkness descended. The twisting geometry silhouetted against the starry sky.

“I’ve been up this one,” Chi-Qua said. “There’s a great cubby halfway along the main trunk.”

“Two problems. First, I’ve haven’t climbed one of these in five years. Second, these things are challenging enough in full sun. I’d rather not risk injury and have to explain myself to my parents. Can’t we just hide out at the base?”

Chi-Qua laughed. “No, silly. It’s your sixteenth. Time to be adventurous. If you fall and crack your skull, I’ll say it was your idea.”

Kara shrugged. “Brilliant. What’s in the bag?”

“Nead.”

“No! You didn’t. How? A bottle goes for almost a thousand Dims.”

Chi-Qua reached for the lowest branch and swung upward.

“Call me a magician,” she said. “I have this trick where I attack when everyone’s back is turned. Actually, Honorable Father keeps close track of volume, so I’ve been skimming ten milliliters twice a week for the past three months. Happy birthday, Kara.”

And with that confession, refusal was no longer an option.

As she climbed, Kara slipped and almost lost her hold twice, but she followed at her friend’s heels and reached the cubby ten minutes later. They laid back, side by side, and peered through a large opening in the tree. Kara had almost forgot this feeling of intimacy. She couldn’t remember why she ever gave up climbing bullabasts.

Chi-Qua worked with dexterity to open the tiny bottle of Nead and pour equal shots into the glasses.

“To the years,” she said.

“To the years,” Kara replied.

The liquor, highly prized and extremely rare, went down warm and pungent at first. Then, the famed miracle of this creation reared itself from the bowels of her stomach, shooting forth a gas that infused her lungs and stampeded her taste buds. It carried the tang of wild berries and the punch of sweet vinegar drawn from fermented Nead pears. The taste was fleeting, but the lightness of being stayed behind much longer.

She knew the cautionary legends: One shot of Nead gave an hour’s pleasure; two shots turned grown men into giggling children; three shots were a love letter to suicide.

The next thirty minutes offered Kara everything she wanted for her birthday. Amid the distortion, hyper-realized imagination, and unexpected desire for the girl beside her, Kara let go of the excess baggage. Lang and Dae disappeared into another timeline, leaving Kara as the sole heir to Syung-Low, determined to become Hokkaido’s hero in waiting. Her Honorable Mother and Father told her not to pursue a life in BRED. Instead, they willed Nantou to her, with full blessing to change its mission and unwind all its profits in order to feed the Hokki people for free. And then, of course, she was free to change social norms – starting with a mandate for daily hair color variants and lens prosthetics for everyone.

It all made sense. She saw it happen, step by step. Even imagined herself grooming her own children with greater flexibility. They thought less of family legacy and more of philanthropy and saving Hokkaido’s most delicate ecosystems.

Dreams. Nonsense. But a pleasant diversion, nonetheless. When Nead’s impact lessened, she settled in to watch the stars in silence.

“Thank you,” she told Chi-Qua. “The best gift of all.”

Her friend wiped away tears.

“It might be,” she said. “I’ll hope.”

Kara did not pursue the obtuse response. She sensed when Chi-Qua was lost in a world of fantasies. She was the third of six in the Baek household, crammed somewhere between the wildly popular first heir and the angelic baby of the lot.

A star brighter than all the others appeared in the opening.

“There,” Kara said, pointing. “Right on time.”

“Which one is it?”

“The Henrik Nilsson.”

Kara was a fast study of the Carriers’ varied orbits, and she knew each one’s predictable routes. Every night, nine passed overhead on similar trajectories. The Henrik Nilsson crossed just ahead of the leading Kye-Do ring.

“I almost went onboard a Carrier years ago,” Kara said. “I think I was eight. We were touring the rings – remember, when I won the contest? The navigator said they were experiencing mechanical issues and were going to dock for repairs. I forget which Carrier, but we were in sight. Almost there. Then the problem fixed itself.”

Chi-Qua tossed the glasses into the bag and sealed it.

“I’ve seen bytes. That’s good enough for me. I think my head would burst. It’s all so much. We weren’t meant to live that way. I need a firm planet beneath me. I