Jenna Starborn by Sharon Shinn Read Free Book Online

intimate, yet not imposing, something that suited my skills and my personality.
    At last I found it, the position that sounded perfect: There was a need for a generator tech at the outpost holding of an individual who owned property on a world called Fieldstar. I looked this up quickly on the StellarNet and discovered it to be a small, terraformed planet in the Kaybek system, far enough from the nearest sun to require independent energy sources, but successfully settled by a handful of commercial businesses and investor families. Once the planet’s thin, poisonous atmosphere had been stabilized by science, its soil had been found to be rich enough to yield self-sustaining crops, while the real business of the planet (mining dubronium) went on. Each landholder was responsible for keeping his own property contained and powered up, so each holding was equipped with its own generator. At Thorrastone Park, a new Arkady Core Converter was the one requiring a knowledgeable tech. The planet was somewhat isolated, the advertisement warned, though the spaceport was adequate and there would be opportunities for any new employee to get off-planet for recreation.
    I looked up. Ideal! I loved the Arkady converters, and I had no fear of being marooned on a lonely outpost with few compatriots about. On the contrary, after fourteen years on the crowded streets of Lora, I liked the idea of living somewhere quieter, less populated. Fieldstar was located centrally enough in the Allegiance shipping corridor that I could, if I wanted, take holidays at any of the great metropolitan centers of the universe, though I did not see that being a great attraction to me. I was not yearning for breathless frivolity now. Just something a little different.
    I checked the listing again. It had been posted a few weeks ago, which indicated that it was not a popular offer. Most of my classmates and students would be looking for that colorful, spasmodic life that appealed to me so little. But this was good news for me; if the owners had had few applicants, they would be even more inclined to view my resume with favor.
    Calling up the reply screen, I typed in my relevant information and posted my response before I could think about it too long. The instant my finger had left the “send” button, I felt my nerve fail me. Leave Lora! Leave my friends and my familiar, comfortable life! But I heard that small, much-ignored voice inside me say, “Yes,” very firmly, and so I went in to dinner with a great conflict of hope and terror raging inside my soul.
    And hope and terror, dear Reeder, are exactly what are embattled in my heart right now. For I received today my response from the seneschal at Thorrastone Park on Fieldstar, and it was an offer of employment. The salary is small but adequate, and there is a commercial cruiser leaving in three weeks’ time that will take me by a fairly direct route to my destination. I have turned in my resignation to the director of the academy, who has wished me well and already posted notice of my job opening.
    I am leaving Lora, I am leaving my old life behind. What lies ahead of me may be as dull and uneventful as what has come so far, but I find myself hoping that there is to be the smallest bit of color and excitement in my life after all. I am ready for it.

Chapter 3

    T horrastone Park on Fieldstar was a neat, pretty compound, well-kept and cared for, but somehow seeming to lack much real personality. I toured it in company with Mrs. Farraday, the seneschal, who took me out in a small hovercar the morning after my arrival.
    â€œHere, now, this is the northernmost boundary of our grounds,” she was saying, bringing the little car into an awkward curl with the skittishness of one who did not often handle mechanical controls. She was a middle-aged, comfortably fleshed woman with curly brown hair and faded brown eyes. I had assessed her immediately as kind but not particularly forceful. “You can