The alien planet offers special agent Yutaro rest and romance, until his own government's anti-matter bomb falls.
Burnt-out Yutaro just wants the vacation he needs. Cushy duty, and a beautiful alien woman as his guide. Heaven. When the anti-matter bomb threatens to destroy the entire planet, Yutaro must learn her crazy-making alien language and -- even more difficult -- to love a woman for herself.
In a galaxy full of aliens very -- er -- alien, the Lia fall quite close to humanoid standards. On their planet Yutaro doesn't need a spacesuit. He survives quite easily breathing its air, drinking its water, and eating its food.
Even better, Lia women appear quite beautiful, especially to a hardcore alienophile such as Yutaro. He doesn't even need to take special precautions during sexual intercourse.
However, the Lia language greatly concerns Yutaro's superiors. Previous explorers, who learn it as a matter of standard procedure, go insane.
Therefore, his boss orders him not to learn the language. Fortunately, one alien woman speaks Cyrillish, the galactic lingua franca. A gorgeous guide, Lavita. Yutaro needs and wants nothing else.
Until he receives the news via special message. During a test, an anti-matter bomb loses its hyperspace navigational signal. Instead of blowing up a lifeless planet in a remote solar system, it appears close to a planet where lives an intelligent species. It crash-lands in a wildnerness region of that planet.
Lia.
The missile's force field continues to keep the anti-matter suspended in a perfect vacuum. But nobody knows how much damage the crash caused, so nobody know how long before the force field malfunctions, allowing the anti-matter to touch ordinary matter -- ka boom!
No Lia.
His agency gives Yutaro the instructions to disarm the missile. But Yutaro must reach it himself.
He must travel through a hostile rain forest the Lia themselves avoid.
During the storm season.
He hires porters who see no reason to risk their lives.
Outlaws and powerful predators threaten.
And then another human shows up -- a woman. Vardi.
Yutaro knows she must represent Earth's empire -- his enemy. But how could she know about the anti-matter bomb? And would she really set it off, dying with tens of millions of Lia, and Yutaro, so his government gets punished for breaking intergalactic treaties?
Sworn to silence, Yutaro lies to Lavita, not realizing to Lia, truthful speech equals life itself.
To keep her on his side -- to save both their lives and millions of other Lia -- Yutaro promises to learn the Lia language.
He tries to grasp the concept of a language where every word functions as a verb.
And soon it begins to drive him insane.
According to Lavita, it drives him toward sanity -- for the first time in his life.
Can he reach and disarm the anti-matter bomb before the missile's physical condition deteriorates, the force field fails, and the anti-matter encounters ordinary matter, and therefore explodes, destroying the entire planet?
An interstellar space adventure novel and space alien romance story, Dreamflowering keeps you reading on the edge of your seat.
Genre: FICTION / Science Fiction / AdventureIt's in English, but occasionally uses words from other languages, especially Russian, because it takes place in a future where Earth's major Indo-European languages have combined into one language.
In stiff, accentless, almost too-perfect Cyrillish, she said, "That was my farewell dance. I'm glad you were here to see it. Did you like it?"
Stunned with shock, Yutaro could not speak.
"I'm sorry. I'm going too fast, aren't I? Da -- you don't know who I am. I'm Lavita, your translator."
"I've been waiting three earth-months for you," Yutaro said, sounding stupid to himself. This was too good -- too much to hope for.
She spoke in a breathless rush. "I'm sorry. When I heard you arrived, I was on the other continent. I came as fast as I could. We don't have spaceships like you, or jets or airplanes or even helicopters yet. We do our traveling by running on the ground. Or sailing on water. This dancing has been my second diou ever since Ashcroft stopped speaking Cyrillish. It helped comfort me, so I wanted to give one last performance before I started my first diou again."
"I'm very glad you did. I loved it, I really did." The sincerity in his voice embarrassed Yutaro. "Priyatno. We have a lot to do."
"Yes, I'm excited to get started. Do you like my good luck tattoo?" she asked, pointing to the glittering circle of green and gold with a red spot in the middle in the center of her forehead.
"I noticed that during the dance, but I thought it was some kind of jewelry. Tattoo? How do you get it to sparkle like that?"
| Language | Status |
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Italian
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Already translated.
Translated by Matteo Serrago
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Author review: Great job. My only criticism is that Matteo was too patient with me when I was wrong and needed a kick in the ass. |
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Portuguese
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Already translated.
Translated by Igor Yamanaka
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Author review: Thanks for your hard work, Igor. |
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Spanish
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Already translated.
Translated by Talía García
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