Whistling Past the Graveyard Read online

  Quotes

  “A breakneck epic.… Kevin J. Anderson is one of the best plotters in the business.”

  —Brandon Sanderson

  “A setting so rich and detailed that the reader will suspend disbelief and actually be there.”

  —R.A. Salvatore

  “Kevin J. Anderson writes the kind of inventive and entertaining space opera that is exactly what I want to read.”

  —Peter F. Hamilton

  Book Description

  The Prequel to the Saga of Shadows and the Hugo nominee The Dark Between the Stars

  Return to the epic universe of Kevin J. Anderson’s breathtaking, bestselling Saga of Seven Suns and Saga of Shadows. Nine years have passed since the end of the titanic Elemental War, and the human race is still picking up the pieces. The Terran Hanseatic League has become the Confederation, and King Peter and Queen Estarra work to heal wounds among the factions of humanity, as well as with the alien Ildiran Empire.

  Trade Minister Rlinda Kett seeks to reestablish contact with lost human colonies that have vanished in the chaos, and she travels to a planet called Happiness, site of an isolated neo-Amish colony where the treacherous Prince Daniel was exiled. As a civil war brews among the Roamer clans over the old ways versus new business methods, some brave clans venture back to skymining again, harvesting the restless clouds of huge gas giant planets—where the threat of the devastating hydrogue aliens always looms …

  Smashwords Edition – 2016

  WordFire Press

  wordfirepress.com

  ISBN: 978-1-61475-491-6

  WHISTLING PAST THE GRAVEYARD

  Copyright © 2016 WordFire, Inc., September 2016

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the copyright holder, except where permitted by law. This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Cover design by Janet McDonald

  Cover artwork by Stephen Youll

  Kevin J. Anderson, Art Director

  Book Design by RuneWright, LLC

  www.RuneWright.com

  Kevin J. Anderson & Rebecca Moesta, Publishers

  Published by

  WordFire Press, an imprint of

  WordFire, Inc.

  PO Box 1840

  Monument, CO 80132

  Contents

  Quotes

  Book Description

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  About the Author

  If You Liked …

  Other WordFire Press Titles by Kevin J. Anderson

  Chapter One

  Rlinda Kett

  As she flew the Voracious Curiosity in a sparse sector of the Spiral Arm, Rlinda Kett discovered Happiness. Or rediscovered it, more correctly.

  According to Confederation records, no one had received word from the isolated colony since the end of the destructive Elemental War. The planet Happiness had been settled by hardy and ambitious neo-Amish families with no interest in galactic politics. They just wanted to be left alone.

  Back in the days of the Terran Hanseatic League, when Chairman Basil Wenceslas opened up many new unsettled worlds connected by the network of Klikiss transportals—alien dimensional gateways that allowed instantaneous travel from point to point—the neo-Amish had signed up for the colonization initiative. They’d taken their group of four hundred followers through the trapezoidal stone doorways, claiming the isolated world for their own.

  No one had heard from them in more than nine years.

  Flying alone aboard her comfortable old ship, Rlinda relaxed in the cockpit as she watched the mottled, blue-green sphere grow larger. Ever since the unexpected death of her beloved Branson Roberts, “BeBob,” she had not chosen a new copilot. She calculated her course by herself and arrowed the Curiosity in, ready to find her place in orbit.

  Because Rlinda was such a large woman, she had made a special expansion modification to the pilot’s seat. She had dark skin, a big booming laugh, and a warm personality that put everyone at ease. For several years now she had served as the Confederation’s Trade Minister, because King Peter had specifically asked her to fill that role. Despite that, she was more proud of her cooking skills and the restaurants she owned and managed.

  Now, as she flew toward the isolated planet, hoping to reestablish contact with the colony, she lounged back to eat a late lunch: savory glazed vegetables enhanced with minced medusa frills, a recipe of her own devising, which she featured on the main menu of all her restaurants. Rlinda never skimped on her preparations in the galley, even if it was just for herself, as much as if she were with a large group of friends.

  After dabbing her lips with a napkin, she activated the comm. “Hello, Happiness. This is Rlinda Kett from the Confederation, reestablishing contact. Can anybody hear me down there?”

  Since her arrival was a surprise, she didn’t expect an instant answer. Scanning ahead, she detected no other space traffic, no ships in orbit, no obvious cities on the planetary surface. The neo-Amish had colonized Happiness only a dozen years ago, and given their general avoidance of advanced technology, she didn’t exactly expect the few hundred of them to build a gigantic metropolis in that amount of time.

  After five minutes of silence, she clicked the comm again. “Anytime you want to respond.”

  She finished her meal, set the plate aside, and reached forward to pick up the small silver capsule on the piloting console. She rolled it between her thumb and forefinger, wearing a bittersweet smile.

  “I told you we’d go interesting places together, BeBob. I always liked traveling with you, though I preferred doing it when you were alive.” She touched her lips to the capsule of his compacted ashes and set it back on the console. “You’re still my favorite ex-husband.” She heaved a long sigh, but decided not to ruin her day. Instead, she savored the lingering taste and pondered what she might have for dessert.

  After another five minutes of silence she picked up her dishes, cycled them through the sanitizer, then returned to the pilot’s chair. Since the neo-Amish weren’t talkative, she decided to search a little harder for them.

  She activated the Curiosity’s sensor suite and scanned across all communication bands
, but detected no activity. Next, she flew over planet’s the night side, but found no city lights in the darkness. Orbiting back into daylight, she ran a more rigorous inspection of the primary continent. She tracked down some weathered old alien ruins, crumbling cities abandoned by the insect race—likely the location of the transportal wall. When the hardy colonists had come through the dimensional gateway, taking a chance on this new and unexplored world, they would have built their own settlements nearby.

  But so much had happened since then. The Elemental War grew more destructive; the nearly invincible alien combatants destroyed countless populations, and then the long-vanished Klikiss race returned to reclaim their former planets. Many fledgling settlements, like Happiness, were wiped out.

  She still received no response from the colony below.

  “Hello down there?” she said aloud. “I hope you’re not waiting for somebody to come and help …”

  In the nine years since the end of the War, the Spiral Arm had engaged in a full-scale recovery operation, reconnecting lost colonies. King Peter and Queen Estarra strengthened the Confederation from the jungle world of Theroc, remaking human government into a unified and supportive power structure, rather than the oppressive Terran Hanseatic League that had been ruled by the iron-fisted Chairman Wenceslas.

  At the end of the War, the powerful elemental beings had seemed defeated, but what if the capricious sentient fireballs, the faeros, or the destructive and vengeful liquid-crystal hydrogues had come back to destroy isolated colonies like Happiness? Or what if the innocent, helpless neo-Amish were obliterated in the Klikiss invasion to reclaim their old worlds? Would anyone have known?

  She pressed the comm again. “You all are making me very nervous up here. Anybody listening?”

  As the Confederation’s Trade Minister, Rlinda had important duties, but she also liked to fly her ship and explore. Now that the Confederation was stable, she felt it was time to search out those worlds that had fallen through the cracks. Some of those misplaced colonies had indeed been found. A few were thriving, a few needed help, and a few had been destroyed. She didn’t know which category Happiness would fall under.

  She continued to scan for any indications of a power grid or a newly built city—hell, she would even settle for a small town. Her heart grew heavy as she decided she might have to cross this colony off the list.

  Then, she did discover two small settlements not far from the broken and moss-covered Klikiss ruins. Rectangular patches of crops stood out against the otherwise untouched natural vegetation. The main town and the farmlands were nestled in a broad, gentle valley near the abandoned ruins, while a second, smaller village was higher up in the hills and tiny dots of what must be livestock.

  Hope blossomed inside her. As she descended through the calm atmosphere, angling toward the larger settlement in the valley, Rlinda picked up BeBob’s ashes again. “I prefer a happy ending to the story. Let’s go down and say hello.”

  Rlinda was the gregarious one, while BeBob would have been a loner if she hadn’t constantly dragged him out of his shell. He’d been a skinny man with frizzy gray hair and a nervous disposition, and she had adored him. They had experienced so many adventures together, had such a wild and exciting romance, and they had wanted to retire together when it was all over. It had been so perfect; their very own happy ending.

  Rlinda wrapped her fingers around the capsule of his ashes as tears welled in her large brown eyes. Then one day, BeBob had dropped dead of an undetected aneurysm while simply crossing the street. It wasn’t fair.…

  But she still had her lovely ship, she had her work as Trade Minister, she had her friends, and she even had her own company, Kett Shipping. She would survive. But she would have been much happier if BeBob were there to help her connect the dots.

  Soaring across the sky, the Curiosity left a bright and prominent vapor trail, which signaled her arrival to the uncommunicative people below. She skimmed past the high upper pastures and headed for the broad valley, the obvious population center of Happiness.

  When the Klikiss swarms had returned a decade ago, surging through all of the open transportals, the sentient insects had overrun so many colonies, but somehow they had missed this place. Happiness looked pristine, though too quiet for her liking. Selecting a freshly harvested field, she landed the Voracious Curiosity, hoping this bare plot hadn’t been freshly planted and that she had just ruined a season’s worth of crops. Not the first impression she wanted to make.

  When she emerged and walked down the ramp, she saw people moving toward her dressed in drab clothes and wide-brimmed hats. She planted her hands on her wide hips and drew a deep breath of “fresh” air filled with the scents of mown grass, mud, and manure. Her arrival caused quite a flurry.

  Forty neo-Amish approached her, coming in from the fields or emerging from the homes. They didn’t seem terrified, not unwelcoming. Despite the warm temperature, the women wore long skirts and full sleeves; the men had vests, long-sleeved shirts, long hair, and voluminous beards. They all carried hand implements for working the fields—rakes, hoes, shovels.

  Although Rlinda found it quaint, she knew the charm would wear off after an hour or so. A few simple machines would have increased the crop yield and eliminated countless hours of backbreaking labor. Rlinda was not fond of backbreaking labor. But the people here did not seem downtrodden.

  The tall fifty-ish man in the lead had long hair and a voluminous beard that spread out in wiry brown strands shot through with gray, which gave him an intense dramatic appearance, but his eyes were kind, his face was seamed, his hands were covered with a glove of calluses and dirt. “My name is Jeremiah Huystra, and I lead the people on Happiness. We wondered when you would come to find us.”

  Grinning, she stepped down off the ramp and extended her hand. “Somebody had to check up on you after the War. I’m Trade Minister Rlinda Kett. Sorry you fell through the cracks. I wanted to welcome you to the Confederation, make sure you weren’t in need or in danger.”

  “We are not in danger,” said Huystra. “and we do not need any interaction with the outside planets.” His sonorous voice carried no threat, just a simple matter-of-fact tone.

  “Glad to see your settlement is unscathed. A lot of terrible things have happened since you left the Hansa.”

  “We heard,” said Huystra. “We’ve been visited several times in the past.”

  “Really? We have no record of that.”

  “It was not official. A Roamer clan leader named Olaf Reeves found us several years ago. His family offered us supplies and help, and by the requirements of hospitality we accepted their gifts. They accepted our explanation that we were doing fine, and they have left us alone.”

  A young man, twenty-five years old at the most, came forward. He had blond hair and handsome features that were hard to discern under the workaday grime and the curly beard that covered his cheeks. “Olaf Reeves told us about the Klikiss incursion, but the neo-Amish deactivated the transportal not long after establishing this settlement, so it seems we were lucky. Otherwise, the bugs would have taken over Happiness.”

  Rlinda narrowed her eyes and studied him. “You look familiar to me. I don’t usually forget a face.”

  The young man looked embarrassed. “You don’t know me anymore, but I was once Daniel. Prince Daniel. Chairman Wenceslas groomed me to take over from King Peter.”

  Rlinda drew back. She remembered that the young prince had mysteriously disappeared from Earth near the end of the War. “Prince Daniel! Well, it’s good to see you again. The King and Queen will be thrilled to know you survived.”

  “They may be relieved to know I’m alive, but I’m not sure they would be thrilled.” His voice took on a harder tone. “They’re the ones who stranded me here. They stunned me and threw me through the Klikiss transportal.”

  Rlinda was scandalized. “I don’t believe they told that part of the story.”

  The young man looked away, his cheeks flushing. “I des
erved it. I was a real shit.”

  “Language,” said Jeremiah Huystra in a quick stern tone.

  “I would offer my apologies, Father Huystra, but that is the proper language. The King and Queen did what they had to do—and that brought me here. It turned out for the best.”

  As Daniel spoke, a young rosy-cheeked woman came forward to join him, taking his hand. She was pretty but plain, wearing dark blue skirts and a bonnet. She herded three young children, two boys and a girl.

  “I would have been corrupted if I’d stayed back in the Hansa. I would have remained a bad person, an unfortunate person.” He smiled at the young woman. “Now I have a lovely wife, Serene, and three beautiful children.”

  “Three, so far,” said Serene, with a quirk of a smile.

  “I wouldn’t want to go back there.” Daniel looked shyly at his wife, slipped his arm around her waist. “Getting exiled was truly the best thing that could ever have happened to me.”

  Huystra nodded somberly. “When he first arrived here, Daniel was quite a difficult young man, but exhaustion, contentment, and the inner satisfaction of a day’s hard work cured him of that.”

  Chuckling, Rlinda looked around at the neo-Amish who stared at her and her ship. “This isn’t the news I expected to hear, but I’m very glad for it.”

  “Stay for the evening meal,” said Huystra. “We can tell you our stories. You will see exactly how our life is, but then we will ask you to keep our secret. We don’t want to rejoin the Confederation. We have our Happiness.”

  Chapter Two

  Daniel

  He had not thought about his past life in many years.

  During his initial months trapped among the primitive neo-Amish, Daniel had been rebellious, angry, resistant and difficult. A real shit. Now in retrospect, when he thought about the person he’d been back at the Whisper Palace on Earth, being trained and twisted under the thumb of Chairman Wenceslas, brainwashed, deluded ... he would not have had it any other way. He did not want to leave here.

  Father Huystra was justifiably concerned about the arrival of Captain Kett, but Daniel was more worried than any of them. Even back in the Hansa, the neo-Amish had never understood politics, business, or trade obligations. Completely insular, they had no grasp of how ambitious and determined people could be. The hydrogues, faeros, and even the Klikiss were destructive and dangerous, but not devious. They wouldn’t try to wheedle their way into Happiness to trick or corrupt the neo-Amish.