Children of Hope (Seafort Saga Series #7)

by David Feintuch

Overview

The Seafort Saga continues with the shocking return of the predatory aliens and a powerful and unexpected new ally for Nick Seafort
The planet of Hope Nation has always loomed large in Nicholas Seafort’s life. It was there that he built a name for himself, saving the planet from civil war and from the insatiable, fishlike aliens. But not everyone in that colony appreciated Seafort’s efforts. Randy Carr, son of Seafort’s old friend Derek Carr, blames him for his father’s death and wants Seafort to pay for this bitter loss. Trouble brews for Seafort on Earth and on Hope Nation. A religious group called the Patriarchs fight to gain political control of Earth. The aliens suddenly reappear with an astonishing claim: They have peaceful intentions. As the aliens and their new human allies advance on Earth, hoping to calm its civil unrest, Nick Seafort must fight for the planet’s future one final time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781453295656
Publisher:	Open Road Media
Publication date:	01/08/2013
Series:	Seafort Saga Series , #7
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	650
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

David Feintuch (1944–2006) was the author of the award-winning military science fiction Seafort Saga series, which spans Midshipman’s Hope, Challenger’s Hope, Prisoner’s Hope, Fisherman’s Hope, Voices of Hope, Patriarch’s Hope, and Children of Hope. Feintuch came to writing late, previously having worked as a lawyer and antiques dealer. In 1996, at the age of fifty, he won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer from the World Science Fiction Society. He later expanded into the fantasy genre with his Rodrigo of Caledon series, including The Still and The King.     

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

UNS Paragon beckoned at the end of the corridor, its gaping lock mated to that of Orbit Station.

    The Stadholder of the Commonweal of Hope Nation paused at the hatchway. He gave me a fierce hug, same as always. "Take care, son. Be good and I'll bring you home an elephant."

    I broke into a silly grin. Even at nine, I knew it was impossible. Behind me, Mom laughed softly.

    The smile faded from Derek Carr's eyes. "You'll be ... Lord help us, almost eleven when I'm home." His eyes glistened. "Nearly grown."

    I swallowed, made a manful effort so he'd be proud. "Bye, Dad." I stood tall.

    "Always remember I love you, son."

    In another realm, a voice said, "Randy?" Insistent fingers prodded at my forearm. "They'll be leaving soon."

    "Go 'way." I buried my head in the pillow, desperate to lose myself again in my dream.

    "The ceremony won't wait—"

    I launched myself flailing from my bed.

    Kevin Dakko fell back from my onslaught. "Easy, joey!"

    I caught him a hard one in the temple. He squealed with pain, took deep breath, charged full at me. In a moment we were rolling on the floor.

    "Get off!" I bucked and heaved to dislodge Kevin's weight from my chest, but he was fourteen, a year older than I, and outweighed me by ten kilos.

   "Not 'til you calm down."

    "Prong yourself, you frazzing—"

    He raised a fist, but after a moment shook his head. "Nah. I like you, actually."

    "Then get off!"

    "Lie still."

    Fuming, I did as he ordered.

    Only when I was supine and passive did he roll off me. "What was that about?"

    I mumbled, "I was dreaming."

    He smirked. "Judy Winthrop?"

    "No, you goddamn—" I swallowed. I was furious, but there were limits. I really ought to curb my foul language, but some recess of my mind enjoyed the discomfort it caused. Though, if Anthony or any of the plantation staff heard me ...

    "What, then?"

    I studied the thick, scarred planking. "Dad."

    "Aww, Randy." For a moment, Kevin's hand fell on my shoulder. Sullenly, I shrugged it off, but felt better for it.

    The dream came often, bittersweet and awful.

    Mom and I had gone aloft to the Station, to see Dad off. The fastship Paragon would Fuse the nineteen light-years to Earth in a mere nine months. Dad hated to go, but his personal touch was needed for trade negotiations. Earth was Hope Nation's principal grain market, and we'd been battling for decades to reduce shipping rates in the teeth of the U.N. Navy's monopoly.

    And so, with a cheery wave, Derek Carr strode into the starship, and from my life. A year later, when Galactic foundered, he'd been aboard, at the behest of his frazball friend Nick Seafort. They say Dad died of decompression. Sometimes, when I couldn't help myself, I imagined what he'd looked like, afterward.

    I flopped on my bed, pulled on my socks. "Sorry."

    "So am I."

    "You didn't do anything." And I shouldn't have attacked him. But in my dream Dad's smile had been so close, his voice so warm ...

    "I'm sorry he died," said Kevin.

    "You never knew him."

    "I didn't have to. I know you."

    I took a long breath, and another, at last truly ashamed. "Did I hurt you?"

    "A bit." He rubbed a red mark on his temple. A fist-sized mark.

    I stared glumly at the new day. "Three more weeks."

    "The summer went fast." Kev, a city joey from Centraltown, was a summer intern, sent to the Plantation Zone on a government program I'd thought nonsense, until I'd met him. He'd taken to life on Carr Plantation like a fish to water, though I'd had to teach him nearly everything.

    I gathered my courage. "I'll really miss you."

    "Jeez, thanks." He glanced at his watch. "I'll tell Anthony you're on your way."

    "Fast as I can."

    Key's footsteps faded down the stairs.

    I climbed into my pants. The Balden Reservoir would be dedicated today, and the massive force-field damming Balden River switched on. Water would soon accumulate behind it, freeing our plantations forever from dependence on rain or irrigation pumps. I sighed. I supposed I ought to be interested. Hell, I was interested. If only Kev hadn't interrupted my dream.

    I'd have to wash, or face Anth's reproof. Gradually, in the last year, my grown nephew had taken charge, as Mom slipped more and more into her religious zeal and Sublime-induced chemdreams. In her better weeks, she was active in the Sisters of Faith Cathedral Auxiliary, to Anth's discomfort.

    I ducked into the bathroom, studied my face, yearning for the first signs of fuzz. Damn it, I was already thirteen. What was my body waiting for?

    Staring sullenly at the sluggish stream, I shrugged off Anthony's consoling hand.

    "Because I give waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen." Why must old Henrod Andori go on so? The Plantation Zone had no desert, and the Balden Valley was hardly a wilderness. Hell, our manse itself sat at the lower end of the valley, and look at the green of our lawns. All right, the valley had no power grids, and its only road was a rough trail, but ... "These people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth my praise." The gaunt Archbishop eyed us, bent anew to his text. I rolled my eyes.

    The reservoir would be quite something, despite old Andori's blather. It had been Dad's idea, originally. Hope Nation had water to spare, but the plantations that were our mainstay—like Carr, our home—were slaves to rainfall and the water table. We had three choices: atmospheric diversion via shifting solar shields, desalinization, or a dam.

    Andori scrolled his holovid to a new chapter. I nudged Anthony. "No more! Make him stop."

    "I can't." Anth's lips barely moved.

    "What's the point of being Stadholder if you can't—"

    "Shush. Scanlen's watching."

    "So?" But I subsided nonetheless. The Bishop of Centraltown was a powerful figure in his own right, and Andori's deputy in the hierarchy of the Reunification Church. Mother Church ran Centraltown, and to all intents and purposes, Hope Nation.

    I frowned at the Balden River. Not much of a river at summer's end, but by spring it would be a torrent. Well, last spring it had been, when Alex Hopewell and Sandy Plumwell and I had camped by the river.

    Never again. In scant months our campsite would be drowned.

    Please, God, quiet your Bishop. My feet hurt, and he goes on forever, and I want to go exploring with Kev.

    Fooling with the atmosphere was undependable. Dad had banned all further experiments after the meteorologists blamed the horrible March 2240 hurricane on forcibly shifted weather patterns. Desalinization would do the job, but it was expensive, and would need water constantly pumped upward from the Farreach Ocean to our fields. The cost of a traditional dam would be immense. But a force-field dam ... Anth had jumped on the idea, once the science was proven.

    "Amen." Henrod Andori switched off his holovid. Thank you, God.

    It was almost enough to make me a believer.

ChronoSpace

---

By ALLEN STEELE

ACE BOOKS

Copyright © 2001 Allen M. Steele. All rights reserved.

Editorial Reviews

The Barnes & Noble Review
Children of Hope takes David Feintuch's Seafort saga in a new -- and totally surprising -- direction. The story is told from the point of view of Randolph Carr, the 14-year-old son of the deceased Derek Carr, whose tragic death Randy blames on the former SecGen, Nicholas Seafort.

Randy is a headstrong kid who just can't seem to keep out of trouble. His only real family is his mother, a religious fanatic who is (more often than not) lost in a chemically induced dreamland, and Anthony, the young leader of the most powerful family on Hope Nation.

Within the first 10 pages, Randy already has himself and his family in deep trouble. During an important family meeting with the powerful Bishop Scanlen, Randy loses his temper and tells the Bishop to go blank himself. In the span of a few hours, Randy's infamous offense spreads like wildfire. He is kicked out of his house and becomes a fugitive from the Church. He holes up at a friend's house and tries to sort out his life, which is quickly spinning out of control.

While in the city, the two boys run into some young Navy midshipmen on leave. In exchange for showing the foreigners around the city, Randy and his friend get a quick tour of the spaceship Olympiad. Both boys are ecstatic -- they've never been in a spaceship, especially one this big. The trip to and all around the six-level ship is more than they ever dreamed it would be, especially when they fatefully meet the Captain, the legendary Nicholas Seafort.

Randy's friend has no idea about Randy's hatred towards Seafort. When the Captain graciously invites the boys to dinner, he's rewarded by Randy attacking him with a chair and putting him into a coma! The whole ship is thrown into alert and all of Hope Nation is on edge, braced for retribution. Randy is arrested, tried, and convicted of attempted murder of a Naval officer. His sentence: death.

Seafort awakens from his coma and recovers just in time to save the ill-fated boy from death. But the Church says that Randy is its ward and should be sent to a detention farm where he can atone for his transgressions. The struggle that follows escalates to include the Church, the families and merchants of Hope Nation, the Navy, and the fish!

Yes! The fish -- Feintuch's unforgettable, huge, goldfish-like aliens -- are back in the hundreds. But instead of shooting first and asking questions later, Nick Seafort actually tries to communicate with the fish and their strange outrider companions. With the help of Randy, who owes his life to the man he tried to kill, a crude form of communication is established. The rest you'll just have to find out for yourself, but I'm telling you -- it is unbelievable! A totally new era in the Seafort saga universe has begun.

Like the other Seafort stories, Children of Hope is extremely fast-paced and full of action, intrigue, and Biblical quotes. But the thing that makes this novel stand out in the series is the communication with the fish and what transpires afterwards. (Paul Goat Allen)

bn.com

...get set for some good, old-fashioned space opera by one of science fiction’s rising stars.

Lansing State Journal Book Review

Midshipman's Hope (1994), Feintuch's paperback original first novel, which helped win him the John W. Campbell award as best new SF writer, introduced Space Navy officer Nicholas Seafort, whose sense of moral inadequacy drove him to superhuman accomplishments that left him feeling even guiltier. After five books the series went into hardcover with Patriarch's Hope (1999), and the fascinating Seafort is at the center of this seventh novel, too. The narrator, however, is Randy Carr, a 14-year-old boy who first tries to kill Seafort but winds up as his adopted son. Randy is a mess. He's impulsive, overflows with teen angst and has a talent for seeing the truth and sharing it in the bluntest, most insulting manner possible. Like his adoptive father, he takes himself more seriously than anyone should. They aren't alone; everyone in this novel is obsessively driven. After a war that wiped out the alien, space-dwelling Fish, humans are struggling for control on the planet Hope. In particular, servants of the Church will do anything to rule in the name of God. Then the Fish reappear.... Amid the nonstop action, Feintuch skillfully pushes all the emotional buttons. Readers may feel like whacking Randy upside the head with a two-by-four, but they'll probably nod approvingly toward Nick Seafort. Fans of military SF will love the book, and Seafort addicts will be happy to know that there are plenty of loose ends to weave into Feintuch's next novel. (Apr. 10) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

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