Akiva and Berthe have become lovers, a dangerous move since he's a priest and she's a peasant. Priests aren't celibate, but marriage to a peasant is unthinkable.
He is assigned to work with the peasantry, and so conscientious that he learned their dialect and visits their homes.
She knows the priestly dialect.
Police broke into a party and siezed the Eyimalian student radical Sevit.
At the party, Clark told Sevit's girlfriend, engineering student Paula, that he's suspicious about his research - somebody's awfully concerned about the metabolic effect of a certain obscure drug. Journalist Efirr even claims to be writing an article about it. He's pestered Clark into a date for an interview.
Police broke into a party and siezed the Eyimalian student radical Sevit.
At the party, Clark told Sevit's girlfriend Paula that he's suspicious about his research - somebody's awfully interested in the metabolic effect of an obscure drug. Journalist Efirr even claims to be writing an article about it. He's pestered Clark into a date for an interview.
Berthe and Akiva were caught in their illicit affair. Their story continues in Chapter 6.
Clark asked too many questions about who uses the drug he was researching and for what. Hints were dropped that he's not safe. The culprits seem to be Eyimalians. He quit his job.
Sevit Uchide's arrest had everybody searching frantically. Finally Efirr confessed - to Clark - that he betrayed Sevit, said he had killed him to save him from torture, and killed himself.
Berthe and Akiva were caught in their illicit affair. Their story continues in Chapter 6.
Sevit is not dead, but kidnapped. He's being held for ransom on Paffir Eket.
Clark and Paula have set out for Paffir Eket with revolutionaries Fuego, Luz, and Tiyar.
Clark, still reeling from Sevit's death and Efirr's suicide, met a lonely widow, Teresa daFlora, and made love with her. She's a community librarian.
Paula is mourning for Sevit.
Clark and Paula found out a lot about Eyimalia:
Eyimalians are very tall (it's a low-gravity planet) while Outlanders, an oppressed minority, are short. The Outlander resistance faction, called the Armies of Daybreak, includes Fuego Ariela and his brilliant daughter Luz, who are hosting Paula and Clark at the Words of Love cafe/inn.
Clans are big on Eyimalia. Sevit Uchide 's family is a powerful clan. Cousins include scholar-activists like Sevit's cousin the linguist Tiyar, and drug dealers like his cousin Greyesar.
The Uchide don't want to pay Sevit's enormous ransom. They will fund a rescue operation by the Armies of Daybreak.
Clans Viyato, Ketry, and Var exploit Paffir Eket under an old unfair treaty. They're the ones who interfered in Clark's drug research, and the ones who are holding Sevit. They are also big dealers in the drug Love's Arrow, a sort of amphetamine/aphrodesiac/slow poison.
Berthe and Akiva were caught in their illicit affair. Their story continues in Chapter 6.
Berthe and Akiva were caught in their illicit affair.
Sevit is not dead, but kidnapped. He's being held for ransom on Paffir Eket. Clark and Paula set out for Paffir Eket with revolutionaries Fuego, Luz, and Tiyar. Their story continues from Chapter 5.
Eyimalian student hero Sevit Uchide's cousin Greyesar seems to have connections all over the planet. He brought news that Sevit is not dead but kidnapped and being held somewhere on Paffir Eket. He also brought his starstruck cousin Tiyar Kituman, linguist and revolutionary, to join the team.
Clark and Paula have set out for Paffir Eket with revolutionaries Fuego, Luz, and Tiyar. This story continues from Chapter 5.
Berthe, hastily married off, made friends in the new village, especially when she devised a spinning wheel (unknown on Paffir Eket). She also had a son by Akiva.
Now, Berthe has a metabolic peculiarity that makes her urine black, which is considered a sign of witchcraft, and that means death. The baby inherited it. She hid the him with the help of friends and women herbalists. They helped her locate Akiva and give him the baby. Her story continues in Chapter 12.
Akiva, now an outcast preacher, does not know who the mother is, but is raising the child, whom he calls Neshar. His story continues in Chapter 8.
Chapter 8
The story so far:
On the spaceship owned by Holy Huey:
Paula, Clark, Tiyar, Fuego and Luz heard of a Paffir Eket anti-theocracy movement led by an outcast preacher, though they don't know Akiva by name. They also heard that Eyimalians plan to crush the fledgling movement, so they took a landing capsule down to the planet to save them.
Berthe, hastily married off, had a son by Akiva. Women herbalists helped her locate Akiva and give him the baby. Her story continues in Chapter 12.
Akiva, now an outcast preacher, does not know who the mother is, but is raising the child, whom he calls Neshar .
The story so far:
On Paffir Eket
Akiva survived a hard winter by begging and ill-disguised prostitution. His preaching became more and more anti-temple as he saw peasants in the drought-stricken province of Itscriye taxed to starvation. His flock call themselves Verloringers.
Rain came while Akiva was in Itscriye. Everybody praised Akiva as a rain-bringer, but when floods developed he had to flee.
Berthe, hastily married off, had a son by Akiva in Chapter 6. Women herbalists helped her locate Akiva and give him the baby. Her story continues in Chapter 12.
Meanwhile, on the spaceship owned by Holy Huey:
Paula, Clark, Tiyar, Fuego and Luz heard that Eyimalians plan to crush the fledgling movement, so they took a landing capsule down to the planet to save them. The story of Huey's ship continues in Chapter 17.
Akiva was about to perform a traditional dance to mark a conjunction of Paffir Eket's two moons (considered a portent) when Eyimalian bombs began to fall. Many people were killed, including Luz Ariela.
Paula, Clark, Tiyar, Fuego and Luz (the Daybreakers) met Akiva and his followers, who accept them as probably human. They talked about the god Verloring, said to have been exiled from heaven (Ayekar) when it was conquered by evil gods. Followers think Akiva is Verloring, returned.
Berthe, hastily married off, had a son by Akiva in Chapter 6. Women herbalists helped her locate Akiva and give him the baby. Her story continues in Chapter 12.
Akiva, Paula, Clark, Tiyar and Fuego helped survivors dig out of the ruins after bombing by Eyimalians. Six strangers from off-world siezed Akiva's son Neshar. Tiyar saved the boy and took the assailants captive.
Fuego, mourning for Luz, found some consolation in Akiva's philosophy.
Berthe, hastily married off, had a son by Akiva in Chapter 6. Women herbalists helped her locate Akiva and give him the baby. Her story continues in Chapter 12.
The prisoners turned out to be enforcers for Eyimalia. They are disillusioned, but also tough and hostile. After debate and over Clark's objections, the group killed the prisoners.
Communication with Huey, and anybody else off-planet, has been blocked. Clark's mystery drug grows wild here.
Fuego is more and more persuaded by Akiva.
Berthe, hastily married off, had a son by Akiva in Chapter 6. Women herbalists helped her locate Akiva and give him the baby. Her story continues in Chapter 12.
Berthe was taken to the capital where, after forceful pursuasion backed by reasoning, she became a student of the fanatic high priest Pahid. He has the same metabolic anomaly she has.
Berthe won the capital's women herbalists to the temple. She invented an alphabet for the peasant language (previously unwritten). Her story is continued from Chapter 6, and continues in Chapter 15.
Pahid's army looms on one side and violent hunger-crazed famine victims approach from the other.
Paula led the building of a bridge, readily collapsible to slow pillagers. Tiyar and Clark had a bitter fight over whether to destroy it.
Tiyar and Akiva preached together against the temple.
The group have learned more about the planet's exploitation by the Eyimalian Viyato and Ketry clans. Paula found a detonatable brain implant in a bombing victim's skull.
Berthe is with the fanatic theocrat Pahid. Her story continues in Chapter 15.
Pahid attacked, killed many, and captured Paula. Ironically, a famine-crazed mob of drought victims from Itscriye scared Pahid's army into retreat.
Tiyar and Akiva won over part of the mob.
Berthe is with Pahid. Her story continues in Chapter 15.
Clark and Paula realized that they had fallen in love.
Berthe visited Akiva and Neshar. They are now leaders of enemy factions. Her story continues from Chapter 12.
Imprisoned by the fanatic theocrat Pahid, Paula resisted abuse and attempts to drive her mad and brainwash her. Clark and Berthe rescued her.
At the Daybreaker camp, Tiyar and Akiva are trying to control their many followers a mob of refugees who have survived by pillaging. There's not enough food for all. They tried robbing tax wagons as a relatively peaceful solution, but the followers turned it to a slaughter.
Detonation of a brain implant killed Paula.
Pahid set fire to the Daybreakers' food supplies. He knows the name of Paula's father (the ambassador to Eyimalia).
Before that, things weren't going so badly:
Berthe joined the Daybreakers and decided to ally the women herbalists with them. Her metabolic anomaly makes her immune to the drug Clark was researching in Chapter 1. Eyimalians have been overdosing the water with it for generations.
Tiyar started organizing the dangerous new followers to make their camp into a real town.
Chapter 18
The story so far:
In space near Paffir Eket
Clark disabled the Eyimalian satellite that disrupts Paffir Eket's weather in rebellious regions. He returned on Huey's ship to Eyimalia, to find out how Paula came to have a brain implant. Teresa daFlora met him there.
Revolution on Eyimalia has deposed Paffir Eket's overlords and may change the terms of the Eyimalian "treaty" permanently.
The ship's story is continued from Chapter 8, and continues in Chapter 20.
Tiyar led his mob of hungry followers on a march to attak the main temple. He is fighting to keep them together and to keep himself in his right mind.
Fuego and Berthe led a small exodus to start a more peaceful camp.
Clark learned that Paula's father was the indirect cause of her death, and confronted him.
Tiyar led his mob of hungry followers on a march to attak the main temple. He is fighting to keep them together and to keep himself in his right mind.
Fuego and Berthe led a small exodus to start a more peaceful camp.
Chapter 21
The story so far:
On Huey's ship
Returning to Paffir Eket, Clark, along with Huey and Greyesar, was captured by Eyimalians.
Tiyar led his mob of hungry followers on a march to attak the main temple. He is fighting to keep them together and to keep himself in his right mind.
Fuego and Berthe led a small exodus to start a more peaceful camp.
END