Nightmare Kingdom: A Romance of the Future

Nightmare Kingdom: A Romance of the Future by Barbara Bartholomew Read Free Book Online

Book: Nightmare Kingdom: A Romance of the Future by Barbara Bartholomew Read Free Book Online
Authors: Barbara Bartholomew
but only a few others of his community were willing to support his militant views.
    Jamie wasn’t exactly surprised. His friends and neighbors liked living in the world as presented to them by Kevin where they could live comfortable lives with no extraordinary fears.
    The people who were now the adults in New London had been removed from beloved homes and families on Earth and deposited on this planet where they were to serve nothing more than a biological function for the Gare.
    Nothing about them, not their personalities, their intelligence, attractiveness, courage . . .none of that had mattered. The Gare wanted them only for the qualities their  blood could produce under torture.
    They didn’t want to believe that nightmare could come back.
    As the meeting was dismissed and an excited buzz of conversation broke out across the crowd, Jamie’s eyes met the gaze of his long-time friends. “Time to give up,” Mack said grimly. “I’m thinking about taking Karen and the boys and going to Kyria.”
    Kyria , the pirate planet. Certainly Karen and Mack, strong and self-reliant as they were, would have a chance of surviving there.
    Jamie gave a brief nod, dismissing them from his cause. “You do what’s best for your family. You can’t defend people who are blind to their own d estruction.”
    “Want to go along?” Mack asked bluntly.
    For just an instant Jamie considered, than he looked down to here old George and Isaiah stood together. They would never abandon New London.
    Besides, the irrational thought lingered in his brain that Claire, her task with the Gare completed with the young emperor’s death, would come here.
    Like the original settlers who had died so tragically before he and his friends arrived, he suspected she would come back here for sanctuary.
    And, in spite of all that had happened, he wanted to be here when the blue-eyed girl came home.

SIX
    Claire had intended landing on Capron as planned, but  only briefly as a ruse to confuse anyone possibly following them, and then rising again into space to travel on to Sanctuary.
    Without a far speaker, the great empire governed by a little boy and his regent was virtually deaf. Under Mathiah’s leadership, communications technology was in infant stages on the home world, but it was hardly sophisticated enough to reach a distant and disregarded planet like Capron.
    Grandmere had more important matters to concern her than an escaping daughter-in-law who had stolen the two princesses and taken off on her own. She had to keep the young emperor alive and secure the palace and its environs before she had time to reach out in space and pluck Claire and her daughters back into her control.
    Claire closed her eyes, knowing that New London and its residents would be on top of the new regent’s list. Little Michel’s survival depended on a quick and dependable supply of O negative human blood.
    A quick touch-down, refueling and resupply, and then they would be off to the distant planet on the edge of the empire where her friends lived.
    Instead their cruiser had barely been brought into dock when they were boarded by a mass of rough-clad men and women who quickly overwhelmed the small crew and laughed at the attempts Claire and her daughters made to defend themselves.
    She wasn’t surprised when they were shoved and yelled out, though Adaeze quickly hid her dismay and Lillianne stared at these strange Aremians who resorted to audible speech and were inches shorter than those they had known.
    She had always heard that the inhabitants of this unfortunate planet had regressed from the high level of civilization that existed on most of the planets of the imperium.
    They fought to stay alive on this harsh world and their bodies and brains were insufficiently supplied with nutriments and medicines.
    Their use of the Aremian language was not only unacceptably verbal, placing them in the ranks of such low-lifes as herself, but was also a mongrel version of acceptable

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