Eve's Planet

Eve's Planet-Book 3 of the Minder's Series

by Nina M. Osier

A remote and deadly world holds Captain Maisie Thurlow’s children hostage, and she’s determined to set them free. The apparently “Earth type” atmosphere of Eve’s Planet drives Humans born elsewhere mad, but its Human natives must remain there or die. Or at least, that’s how it was 12 years ago when a rescue ship took Maisie, her husband, and the rest of the planet’s colony of shipwreck survivors back to civilization, but could do nothing for their offspring except leave them behind. Maisie is on her way back now, with her old team reassembled and a group of eager young scientists along to solve the mystery. She doesn’t know that she may be racing against time, as rapid climate change alters conditions on Eve’s Planet so much that it may soon become impossible for Humans — Captain Thurlow’s family included — to go on living there.

ISBN 1-59431-787-9 or 978-1-59431-787-3 Science Fiction, Futuristic Romance, Space

Also available in RTF and HTML.

I solemnly swear, by all that I hold sacred, to supervise faithfully every sapient being placed in my charge. I will protect all such beings with my life, if so required; and I will give my clients' safety absolute and total priority over that of my colleagues. Excerpted from the Minder's Oath, as taken by all newly hired Direct Care workers -- United Star Nations Central Government, Department of Inter-World Services, Bureau of Family Safety.



Chapter 1

Apple green. So Mother and Papa had both called the fair weather skies of Eve's Planet. Edouard Quiero had never seen an apple, green or otherwise, but that description came to mind anyway as he nestled deeper into the furs surrounding him and tightened his arms around his wife. Pre-dawn twilight was turning into full daylight now, rapidly, and the sky above this high plateau was lightening toward its daytime hue. A beautiful morning in spring…he had dreamed of this day for so long.

A small thing, a foolish thing, really; this wish to greet the dawn here with Meg in his arms, and no one else around them. He'd had it since their early adolescent years, when Beck, Meg's father and predecessor as community leader, had led the entire band upward past High Camp at the end of each springtime pilgrimage. Only those few who couldn't dare the rare nighttime climb stayed behind, then. Everyone else regarded coming here at the start of their year's High Camp phase as a ritual of--well--religious significance.

At least Eddie's grandmother, Vera, had described it that way. And neither of his parents had contradicted her.

Vera's husband, his grandfather Rene, lay buried in the same grave with the woman who'd killed him, just out of sight from the lifeboat wreckage against which Eddie Quiero rested his back. Not far from that grave another, empty one lay topped by a rock cairn that provided the best vantage point; but Eddie wasn't purist enough to insist on greeting the dawn by standing on that cairn's top. This was how he'd dreamed it, as a boy poised on manhood's edge. Eddie and Meg cuddling together in warm furs, with the sky turning lighter and greener above them every minute.

"I wonder how Rennie's doing with Cass and Josef," Meg said, with her usual talent for shattering her husband's romantic daydreams.

They'd made a dozen round trips between Winter Camp and High Camp in the years since he and Meg had buried Beck elsewhere on this plateau. Not once had Eddie felt free, at the start of all those other springs, to suggest this admittedly frivolous excursion. Always there'd been a reason, a good reason, why it wasn't possible…usually because Meg was pregnant, or nursing a child. Eddie's mother, Maisie, hadn't let either of those conditions keep her from the annual pilgrimage of his boyhood, but with Meg it was different. Everything on Eve's Planet was different, after the St. Helena came and went.

"Rennie's fine." Eddie realized he was starting to feel too warm already, as the sun streamed down onto the arctic tundra where Meg's grandmother, Eve, had first set foot on the planet that now bore her name. He opened his mouth again to ask his wife to move, and then shut it as Meg pushed his arms aside and climbed to her feet. So he stood up, too, and started bundling up the furs for their downward climb. "He probably doesn't even remember Shari taking care of him, and he's used to us leaving him for awhile."

"Callie remembers Shari taking care of her. She doesn't like Cass half as well. But she's almost old enough to take care of herself now, of course." Meg rummaged in one of their packs for breakfast materials. "I can't believe I had her 11 years ago this spring! I hope I never cut it that close again."

"I hope not, either." Eddie remembered how white-faced Meg had arrived at High Camp on that trip, her first spring migration as leader, and he shuddered. He still had no idea how long she'd been in labor before arriving safely at their warm season village allowed her to admit it. He only knew that Callie, their first child, had been born before the sun reached its zenith that day.

Of the two sons born between Callie and Rennie, their toddler, neither had made it past the fourth birth anniversary. Life on Eve's Planet was all Eddie Quiero knew, but that didn't stop him from perceiving it as brutal for the very young. As it no doubt would be for the very old, also, someday when they had such people to worry about; and as it was already for those with chronic illnesses or maiming injuries. Not to mention for women in childbearing…he didn't want to think about that, though. The memory of his second sister's death was still too fresh. Would he ever stop hearing the way she'd screamed? Or, after her strength to do that failed, how she'd moaned during the last hours before unconsciousness shut down and death finally followed?

Even the rawest of memories faded eventually. Experience told him that, and Eddie hugged the knowledge close as he turned his thoughts away from the stone hut at Winter Camp where Shari's life had ended. He and Meg were still alive, and so were Callie and Rennie. So, also, was his sister Cass; and so was Cass's family. He didn't trust either of Meg's half brothers and their wives to watch his own children for long enough to fetch water, let alone for this overnight trek. Rennie might not like the older of his aunts as well as he'd liked the younger, but life didn't care what anyone liked. It delivered whatever fate decreed, and all any Human could do was--well--deal with it.

"Do you think they'll ever come back?"