Book of the Week: THE SADDLE AND THE SLEUTH

            Soon after the arrival of Inspector Kreeng, Randi had bigger problems than distracting and keeping track of a bruiser-turned-dandy and his gang of powder-puff thugs. The Talon’s network of informants usually sent information in regular pulses, and she worried when rumors trickled in separately, instead of in bundles. It meant the people sending the rumors, stories and fragments of confirmed details were worried enough to bypass the routine established when her father and uncle were younger than her. Randi sent out a request for more data to the older men who acted as clearinghouses for information sent to the Talon. The request went out less than twenty minutes before Inspector Kreeng’s ship came into orbit around Rensler, so Randi didn’t have time to let Uncle Eryk know about this newest development. The welcoming dinner and formal meeting of the governor’s cabinet exhausted him. Organizing the schedule of tours for Kreeng and his assistants took up all the rest of Randi’s time, so that it was two days later before she was able to slip away to the series of caves under Government House and check her messages.

           Borderline folk vanishing. Twenty rumored. Eight confirmed. Six found dead. Eleven missing short while but gaps in memories. Suspect testing. Set’ri.

            Randi cursed when she got to the last word, the worst word anyone could use or hear in these unsettled days. To call someone a Set’ri was an insult almost worthy of death.

            The Set’ri were purists, dedicated to preserving the pure Human genome. The only problem was, they considered themselves intelligent and moral enough to determine what belonged in the Human genome and what didn’t. They worked through the government whenever possible to have defective genetic traits stamped out, through forced sterilization. And when the government wouldn’t cooperate, they resorted to midnight raids, killing children and sterilizing adults who had something ‘valuable to contribute to humanity, despite their defective genetics.’ Usually that meant a slave labor force.

Book of the Week: THE SADDLE AND THE SLEUTH

            Erianda Rensler’s world, and apparently the fate of the Human race on the colony world of Rensler, changed just a few Lunars after her twenty-third birthday. The change started simply, innocently enough. Crises had arisen, drastic enough for the Council of the Central Allied Worlds to call a meeting that included the governors of the colony worlds. Her uncle, Governor Eryk Rensler, had been suffering from some illness that wouldn’t go away, and changed symptoms on a semi-regular basis. He sent his younger brother Edrian, Randi’s father, because his physician didn’t recommend Wrinkleship travel, with strain on every major organ.

            Her mother Aura, who usually acted as hostess for Government House, went with Edrian. That left Randi the task of looking after her uncle, double-checking his security, and running a few discrete tests to make sure the physician was still a friend and not in the pay of some new enemy. She accepted her assignment with minimal grumbling. She was needed at home; she just didn’t care to be saddled with the onerous duties of acting as hostess.

            “On the bright side,” her uncle said, when she grumbled to him over an after-dinner game of Strategems, “with the way I’m feeling, you won’t have to suffer through any ridiculous parties for a while.”

            Randi knew she had been acting and feeling like a child. She let her uncle win two of their five games, to make up for her attitude. He felt bad enough by the end of the evening that he didn’t seem to notice, and retired to bed before his usual midnight.

            The reprieve from social obligations was short-lived. Less than two days after her parents’ ship left orbit, a Council starship slid into orbit and the Honorable Inspector General Asmondias Kreeng shuttled down to the colony.

Book of the Week: THE SADDLE AND THE SLEUTH

Commonwealth Universe
Colonies
Downfall/Era I

As mentioned last week, PIRATE and SADDLE are novellas, about the daughters of heroic men -- based on two of my old-time movie heroes, Captain Blood and Zorro.

THE SADDLE AND THE SLEUTH
From Writers Exchange

On a remote colony world, the daughter of the Talon, the defender of the people, takes over her father's mask and identity. At the same time, an investigator comes to the colony in search of the Set'ri, to stop them from hastening the disintegration of the galactic civilization.

Can the two work together for the sake of the future, or will their necessary deceptions push them apart forever?