Miara’s story takes place during the beginning of a period of cultural and perceptive expansion. It is a story of First Contact, and her position as a prime focus of this change. She is a dynamic person with big dreams and goals, and at times even bigger personality.
Major characters include Daniel and the immortals.
Excerpt
When I was back to myself, Daniel was curled up in my lap, holding my hand in his two small ones.
“Hey, I’m back.”
“You were gone a long time.”
“Have we been?” I asked, looking around, and indeed, it was after twilight, early morning as the sun came up on the eastern horizon.
“What’d you find?”
“A ship!” I said. “A ship in space above our planet!”
“What’s a ship?”
“A ship is a vessel used for traveling. You know the boats they use along the coastline or up and down the big rivers?” He nodded. “A ship can be a very big version that sails across the ocean, or a different kind that sails through space, between the stars.” I made sure to include images for him, since he had never seen a ship on Terra. “Some people on other planets, who make machines, know how to make ships go through space. We think that’s what’s up there.”
“Space peoples!!” he yelled, jumping up and down in circles. There were many other people still there, and the immortals were gathering in the large hall with the Speakers, masters, and Toril, and I could feel Florin, head of the Speaker’s order, talking with several different people at once, spreading the word of this great and portentous news. I went into the hall, Daniel dancing along some distance behind, and helped Dia pull out our big world map and clear off the largest of the chalk boards. Toril’s young assistants, Roria and Reus, were bringing out the candle stands and mirrors kept in the hall to create enough light until the sun rose.
Word was getting out, people still in their apartments were being woken and told the news, dressing rapidly and flocking over the grounds to converge in the large hall, talking in excited, animated tones, and wondering all sorts of things. The hall was packed in record time, and when the sun had cleared the trees everyone was assembled, and Trax started the meeting.
I know a lot of people tell me how strange it was to think about that ship, floating up there in space, to talk about it at that first meeting and still wondering if they believed it, and what would happen. Were they good people or bad? Alien, the word the Terrans use, is not in our language. People are people, no matter what kind of being. And it never lets us forget exactly that—that they are people, just like anyone else, and should never be treated as anything less. But me—I had no qualms, no disbelief, and no fear. There’s never been fear, not of anything tangible. We would soon find out what their intentions were, and until something scary presents itself there’s no need for it. This, my mother is sure, is how I always get into so much trouble, especially when I was a child.
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