Topaz is forced to leave her homeworld Handor stealthily and in a hurry. In the years that follow, she travels all over the galaxy.
On Solja she finally meets Captain Sanderson and his crew, who are exploring this part of the galaxy with the Earth ship Pioneer. The young and frightened Topaz has become a self-confident woman who stands by her new friends in emergency situations. However, Topaz soon suffers from symptoms of illness whose origin lies in her past. To obtain the necessary information for treatment, she returns to Handor together with the Pioneer crew.
There the peaceful mission turns into a hunt for unscrupulous criminals.
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Reading rehearsal
Handor, in the year 340, new calendar
The young woman still sat shocked stiff between the trees. What she just heard involuntarily, left her aghast. Fear held her throat tight and rendered her incapable of acting. But slowly she woke form her paralysis. She had to get away from here and fast! Topaz let her view swipe the park. No, there was no one around anymore. She stood up fast and went home. On the way she forced herself with all her might to think rational. She tried to fight down her inner turmoil, she must not panic. Important was only that she left Handor this very night. While she headed for her home she pondered and suddenly she had the saving idea; Ioto! Yes, Ioto was good. Topaz nodded, lost in her thoughts. There were flights to this moon every other hour, because lots of Handori worked in the mines there but lived on Handor.
When she arrived home, she rushed to her computer console and noticed that the next flight would go in about an hour. Since there were only few seats left, she immediately booked one for herself. It wasn’t all that suspicious since there was a botanic garden on Ioto in which she frequently used to work. Even if Loran, though she highly doubted it, would get the idea to check the passenger lists tonight, he wouldn’t notice. Quickly she threw a few pieces of clothing into a small travel bag. Her cash reserves and a check card she stuffed into her pockets. While she looked around her room for anything she might have forgotten, a thought crossed her mind. If she would just vanish, Loran would immediately start searching for her. She sat down at her computer again and wrote a short note to him, telling him she needed to go to Ioto but would be back in a few days. Then she took her bag and got on her way to the spaceport. Here everything went smooth. She picked up her ordered ticket at the terminal and queued up to enter the Shuttle. It went on steadily and after a short time she could take her seat.
The flight only took half an hour. After landing she rushed to the next bank branch to delete her bank account. The clerk looked at her a bit confused but paid her savings without difficulty. Hastily she stuffed the money into her bag and went to the restroom to hide it in a small pouch, which she wore under her clothes. Just a small amount she put into her belt pocket, to pay her next flight and other expenses. Topaz went back to the terminal. One look at the departure display told her that already in ten minutes the next ship to Wollan would take off that would only make stops at Iaka and Togana.
She bought a ticket to the final station and was lucky enough to get a single cabin. Topaz went aboard, asked a steward for the way to her cabin and hurried to get there. With a sigh of relief she pushed the door into the lock. Now her whole self-control, that she struggled to hold up, fell off her. Tears ran down her face as she dropped onto the bed. How could she ever have believed a man like Loran would have loved her? All that she experienced today ran like a film in front of her mind’s eye again.
Today, like so often, she went into the near park after work. Life on Handor was not always easy for her and so Topaz enjoyed lying hidden behind dense shrubberies and old trees, gaze into the sky and dream. The Handori preferred to stay home after dusk set in, a habit from the olden days when Handors streets and squares were dangerous places. Tonight though she heard some unclear voices coming closer. She stayed absolutely still, to not raise any attention. Those persons would surely pass on and would vanish soon. When suddenly there was nothing more to hear, Topaz peeked through the branches. But she could only see two figures in close embrace heading towards the bush she was hiding behind. The two were already very close when they stopped to kiss. Totally perplexed she recognised Loran and Dr. Tulsa!
Tulsa pulled Loran closer again and said, ”I can’t wait until we finally can live together.” Loran explained to him. ”Be patient. The preparations for the wedding do take up quite some time. In four weeks I will marry this repulsive creature in all silence and after that lock her in her room where she can rot. How can this character just believe anyone could love her? But I will be a caring husband and bring a doctor into my house to permanently look after my oh so ill wife.” As he spoke on his voice had caressing sound. “And then we can finally live together without anyone noticing something my beloved.”
“Yes you’re right. But I find it hard to still wait that long”, confessed Tulsa. For a moment he looked at Loran in silence and said then: ”But you should reconsider the child. Do you really think it will give you the influence you hope for?”
“Yes I am sure this child will be very useful for me. When its mother no longer shows up in public everyone will surely only see the descendant of Halen and Diria in it, and will bask in all the glory and watch my career develop. Although you have to perform the fertilisation with Topaz. It already takes all my will power to just hug this creature. If I just think about...” Loran left the last part of the sentence unspoken, but it was obvious what he meant. On top of it he shivered and cringed his face in disgust.
“All right then!” Tulsa gave in and suggested then: ”But let it rest for today. It’s already dark enough. Shall we go to my place? Since we will not see us for a while now.”
Topaz could not only hear the desire in his voice, she could also bodily feel it with her telepathic skill. The two went back on the same way they came.
Topaz thoughts returned to the present, but these images wouldn’t disappear just so easy, again and again they flashed back into her mind. Vigorously she pushed these memories aside and eventually calmed herself down. But so began her self-doubt. Why in the world hadn’t she noticed after all she did have telepathic abilities? “Because you couldn’t have noticed” she answered her own question. Nobody could have looked behind Lorans facade, because like many other Handori in higher positions he got a special training to shut off his mind against telepathy. Topaz met Tulsa only once on the street by coincidence and Loran introduced him as his doctor. Why she didn’t notice anything of Tulsa's feelings she couldn’t say. Perhaps it was in the beginning of her relationship with Loran and she was way too busy with her own feelings. But what would it matter now? If she would have noticed something earlier, what would she have done? Confront Loran directly? This way she probably only would have made her fate come sooner.
While she was pondering all that, the ship reached Iaka. The slight tremble made her aware. Tense she lay on the bed and listened to every sound outside her cabin. The stay here was only one hour that felt to her like an eternity. Finally she heard the quiet humming of the engine as the ship departed again. A silent rumble made her cringe, but then she realised it was her own stomach. She called herself a fool and looked at her chronometer. It was long past midnight and she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Probably there was a restaurant aboard, though she didn’t want to show herself this long in public. There were certainly plenty of Handori on this ship, which put her in danger of being recognised by someone. She noticed a computer console. Topaz activated it and saw her assumption confirmed: there was an overview of the publicly accessible areas of the ship. There were a few shops on the promenade deck, amongst them two food stalls. There she would go to buy some food that she could take to her cabin. She thought briefly. During boarding she saw some passengers who had their heads covered. It would probably not look too suspicious if she would wear a headscarf. She took a big broad scarf from her travel bag and draped it around her head. A glimpse into the mirror told her she looked totally swollen from crying. So she took the scarf down again and washed her face, then she put the scarf back up and left the cabin.