Kim Miller
We start on a distant planet with an agrarian lifestyle where a boy meets a woman from a visiting space ship as she plays a flute at a community part. She gives him the flute. With further visits a quiet love story grows between the boy and the woman. This chapter could easily be a standalone short story. The prose is soft and languid and a sheer delight to read.
The young man in the love story becomes mayor of the town. Something crash lands near the town and they find a young boy next to the wreckage of a small craft. The boy either can't or won't speak. He is taken in by the mayor who gives him the flute and the boy shows uncanny ability to play it. They decide to send him to the capital for an official investigation of his origin and proper care. In a series of political moves, the woman of the initial love story, the captain of the ship, is asked to care for the boy for an indefinite time. She is sent beyond the reach of the interplanetary govt and told to wait for instructions, even if it takes years. The boy is the centre of some power play and it's thought he has a mysterious power that could change the whole of civilisation.
The boy is believed to have the power to think himself to any destination with immediate effect. This power is extremely rare and the authorities want to harvest it for instant travel between the stars. The central part of the book is taken up with the political moves to protect the boy or to capture him, one side being conducted by a visionary engineering pioneer who doesn't want to see the boy abused. This engineer is who designed the space stations that have become generation ship style environments for refugees from the dying earth. They are named after birds - the title of the book appears only in such hints.
The plan to keep the boy safe until he reveals if he has this power succeeds for several years, and he finds he can transport himself by his own will. The protection plan then fails because of a spy in the crew of the ship and the boy is captured by the authorities and drugged into long term sleep. He is vivisected to find the source of his power. And then he is reconstructed and wired into a system that will power space ships. His life support capsule is kept hidden in what is called Pocket Space, a parallel dimension used for fast travel. They develop a way to convert standard drive space ships into immediate travel. But each such journey links into the system and into the boy's ability. His life is slowly being drained by the system.
And through this time the engineer who was trying to protect the boy is apprehended by the authorities, her facilities on a distant moon are destroyed and her staff executed. She is left alone to die. She digs her way into an underground failsafe system that allows her to power up her facility again and make contact and draw in a ship. Having commandeered the ship she sets off in search of the facility that is controlled the boy and the instant drive system.
The long final act of the book is taken up with the ship's captain trying to find the boy and rescue him. In the time he was discovering how to use his ability he got lost on some distant planet. The captain, terrified for him and in grief, picked up the flute and started to play it. The boy heard the music and it guided him back. The captain once again plays the flute, hoping that he can hear it wherever he is and in whatever condition he is. She buys a ship fitted with the instant drive system and each time she plays the flute the boy's unconscious thoughts prompt the ship to jump. But each jump interrupts the overall system and can alert the authorities of her presence so she has to wait it out before the next attempt.
It takes many years and a thousand such jumps before it seems they are making contact. In that time the engineer also locates the control centre in pocket space. As the captain and the boy link up and he fights to rise above the drugs the engineer approaches. The boy sees his path lit up in his mind and he sends himself along it towards the flute's music, and at the same time the engineer's ship collides with the control centre and detonates explosives that blast it out of existence.
The captain sees a bright light racing from the horizon and there is a crash not far from her. She races to it and finds the boy, now a grown man and little more than scarred skin and bones lying on the ground. She picks him up and cradles him in her arms like when he was a small boy. He manages to say, "I heard you".
We start on a distant planet with an agrarian lifestyle where a boy meets a woman from a visiting space ship as she plays a flute at a community part. She gives him the flute. With further visits a quiet love story grows between the boy and the woman. This chapter could easily be a standalone short story. The prose is soft and languid and a sheer delight to read.
The young man in the love story becomes mayor of the town. Something crash lands near the town and they find a young boy next to the wreckage of a small craft. The boy either can't or won't speak. He is taken in by the mayor who gives him the flute and the boy shows uncanny ability to play it. They decide to send him to the capital for an official investigation of his origin and proper care. In a series of political moves, the woman of the initial love story, the captain of the ship, is asked to care for the boy for an indefinite time. She is sent beyond the reach of the interplanetary govt and told to wait for instructions, even if it takes years. The boy is the centre of some power play and it's thought he has a mysterious power that could change the whole of civilisation.
The boy is believed to have the power to think himself to any destination with immediate effect. This power is extremely rare and the authorities want to harvest it for instant travel between the stars. The central part of the book is taken up with the political moves to protect the boy or to capture him, one side being conducted by a visionary engineering pioneer who doesn't want to see the boy abused. This engineer is who designed the space stations that have become generation ship style environments for refugees from the dying earth. They are named after birds - the title of the book appears only in such hints.
The plan to keep the boy safe until he reveals if he has this power succeeds for several years, and he finds he can transport himself by his own will. The protection plan then fails because of a spy in the crew of the ship and the boy is captured by the authorities and drugged into long term sleep. He is vivisected to find the source of his power. And then he is reconstructed and wired into a system that will power space ships. His life support capsule is kept hidden in what is called Pocket Space, a parallel dimension used for fast travel. They develop a way to convert standard drive space ships into immediate travel. But each such journey links into the system and into the boy's ability. His life is slowly being drained by the system.
And through this time the engineer who was trying to protect the boy is apprehended by the authorities, her facilities on a distant moon are destroyed and her staff executed. She is left alone to die. She digs her way into an underground failsafe system that allows her to power up her facility again and make contact and draw in a ship. Having commandeered the ship she sets off in search of the facility that is controlled the boy and the instant drive system.
The long final act of the book is taken up with the ship's captain trying to find the boy and rescue him. In the time he was discovering how to use his ability he got lost on some distant planet. The captain, terrified for him and in grief, picked up the flute and started to play it. The boy heard the music and it guided him back. The captain once again plays the flute, hoping that he can hear it wherever he is and in whatever condition he is. She buys a ship fitted with the instant drive system and each time she plays the flute the boy's unconscious thoughts prompt the ship to jump. But each jump interrupts the overall system and can alert the authorities of her presence so she has to wait it out before the next attempt.
It takes many years and a thousand such jumps before it seems they are making contact. In that time the engineer also locates the control centre in pocket space. As the captain and the boy link up and he fights to rise above the drugs the engineer approaches. The boy sees his path lit up in his mind and he sends himself along it towards the flute's music, and at the same time the engineer's ship collides with the control centre and detonates explosives that blast it out of existence.
The captain sees a bright light racing from the horizon and there is a crash not far from her. She races to it and finds the boy, now a grown man and little more than scarred skin and bones lying on the ground. She picks him up and cradles him in her arms like when he was a small boy. He manages to say, "I heard you".