Before he became known as “The Speaker of the Hetarek,” he was known only as Ira. An isolated man in an isolated community hoping to reconnect with humanity.
Ira grew up in a village of castaways. His predecessors a hundred years before survived the Gemini disaster. But Earth had no way of knowing that anyone lived through the catastrophe of its first attempt to settle a new solar system. Two communities developed, one on each of two planets, the Twins, orbiting each other as they orbited their own sun. Without technology, the two communities learned to communicate with mechanical signals. Ira contributed to his community by sending messages between his home planet of Pollux and its sister Castor.
In his role as messenger, Ira is the first to learn that Castor found a way to send a message back towards Earth. While the news gives hope of a rescue to many, others have become entrenched in their modest way of life as castaways. Ira must bring everyone together to prepare for what happens.
But the visitors they receive are not the visitors they expect. And Ira must make a choice: save himself, or save his community.
Novella Publication
“The Messenger” will be a series of science fiction stories published as a serial novella on Amazon’s Vella platform beginning February 3, 2024. New chapters will come out every Saturday.