Solvang: Prologue

The Solvang hadn’t been convened in going on 200 year. Long enough that nobody living could remember one, anyway. Oh, some of the old timers said they remembered their parents going off in the middle of the night to the sound of a deep, sonorous noise, but nobody really believed them. Not that the old timers were that bad with their memory. The exoRAM might have been a little out of date, but the bits were still intact.

No, the memories might have been correct. Thing is, nobody wanted to believe them. Nobody wanted to believe that their world might come crashing down around them. Nobody wanted to believe. But it was hard to argue with the ancient horns emitting a long, drawn out note felt in the middle of your head rather than heard.

Rookc the Dullard thought long and hard about the deep vibrations he felt. The wahlenstrom was coming. The Fulmen had failed. That, of course, left the Colony almost completely defenseless, an ‘allowable risk’ to the preemptive strike according to the Proven. They didn’t think or believe that the Fulmen could fail. Neither did Rookc.

Rookc Minreva was a notBright. Had been for a long time. That didn’t mean commoners didn’t come to him with their problems. They just didn’t respect his timelines or his decisions. They were among the most difficult of judgments to live with. Which meant they were of the hardest truth. Only the Proven could make those decisions quick enough, unfaltering. The trained Potential was damn near instinct, and almost completely inherent.

Rookc Minreva had been called Slown for so long that he couldn’t remember ever having Potential. The attention lavished on the Potentials, the jealousy that followed the crestfallen and disheartened wherever they went. The land, red and blown, was difficult to survive, and the Slown had the added weight of Laborlife to contend with. Most didn’t mind once the work was started. Actually, only one still did.

He was not dumb. NotBright was an easy classification to fall into, a system that was based on timing and memorization. The Martian Wind was lethal and sudden, a red violence that could whip the Common into a frenzy of activity, guided by the Word of the Trained and the Proven. The honed instincts of the Proven are the lifeline for the Colony. All depends on them. But now their skill would be bent to a new task: war.