Short Story Development

Based on my interpretation of James's Frey's 'The Key', I used his Myth Method to attempt to improve some of my old short stories. While this story is still a work in progress, it still illustrates the method and the result. So, you be the one to decide if this is helpful or not, but here goes:


DEVELOPMENT:


TIME ENOUGH - by L. K. Pinaire


GERMINAL IDEA:


The leading scientist and past chairman of Zinor's General Assembly has a life changing experience when he meets members of their world's lower cast who have discovered a vast spaceport in a remote region. Now though the scientists have been studying their star for a thousand millennia and will complete their task in the next two thousand years or so, they want to leave.


THE WORLD OF THE ORDINARY


Lars Maandsten is an astrophysicist who studies Zinor's dying star. The last of hundreds of generations of scientists on Zinor, he has outlived his wives and perhaps his usefulness. Their star is about to go nova in the next 2 to 2,000 season-cycles and the scientists are awaiting the end. No one knows Zinor is a Dyson sphere and have been taught since antiquity that everyone awaits their star's end.


THE CALL TO ADVENTURE

Lars receives a visit from an old friend, Grayson and a lower cast woman, Lola. They beckon him to visit the farmlands beyond the city where they have made a wondrous discovery that will change the course of Zinor's history. They need to discuss it with him there. After being haunted by dreams, which warn him not to go, he and Lola leave.


OVER THE THRESHOLD AND INTO THE WOODS


In the Farmlands, the rules are different:


· People live primitively with little electricity, few buildings and work the fields with beasts of burden.

· Organic material covers the ground.

· The lower cast believes in All, but do not recognize that the Ancients built Zinor for the single purpose of studying their dying star.

· They believe there is more to the universe than this world.

· They are discontent, angry and considering violence to achieve their freedom of choice. Many want to leave Zinor and explore the cosmos, whatever that is.


THE HERO MUST BE TESTED – THE TRIAL OF TRIALS


· Lars visits the fields where he meets Lola's sister, Lister. They show him the dreadful life of the lower cast.

· Lars visits the spaceport where they show him that the Ancients kept the ability to leave, and therefore must have considered it.

· Lars visits a hospital where the lower-cast die without benefit from science.

· Lars returns home with Lola and rediscovers his world.


DEATH, REBIRTH & CONFRONTATION W/ THE EVIL ONE


· Lars falls for Lola while he visits the country dwellers and sees the plight of their lifestyle and that the ancients apparently had planned to leave at some time. He and Lola return to the cities to disclose his revelations.


THE ARRIVAL HOME


· After a few weeks of living together in the Science Center, he is shocked at the anger and prejudice against her cast.

· He decides to throw his support toward the farmers and recommends they be allowed to leave.


THE HERO: Lars Maandsten


Zinor's leading astrophysicist

6'0" Tall

Hairless

Pale skinned

180 lbs
Photo omitted.

HERO'S PHYSIOLOGY (Body)


As an adult, Lars Maandsten is six-foot (1.83 meter) and 185 lbs (83.9 kilograms) with a thin, body. He is healthy and still works at 144 season-cycles of age. He is completely hairless and has brown eyes and looks like a man half his age.

Lars has a pleasant face, good teeth and a pleasant but reserved smile. He, like all the scientists, was bread for intelligence and his occupation. Like the other scientists, he seldom walks, using his seat for all transportation and his muscles show significant atrophy. He loves his star, likely more that the wives he's had over the years. Now, he lives alone. Lars is a steady as their sun and like it, now wanes in his latter years.


HERO'S SOCIOLOGY (History)


Lars was born in the capital city of the Planet Zinor. Born from sperm and ovary donors based on their genetics, he lives and works in the Science Center where they study the star.

Lars has outlived his five wives, but due to genetic issues, female life spans on Zinor were typically only half that of those for males. Besides, Lars had never been good at being a husband, virtually living in his laboratory to better study their star.


HERO'S PHYCHOLOGY (Needs)


Lars loves his star and has never been really interested in anything else. His wives have all been provided to take care of someone as important as him. For ten years he also took the position of Chairman of the Zinor General Assembly, but has since retired back to the labs.


He believes that sentient life is All's gift, and his duty is to study their star. The years he spent in the General Assembly did teach him that he had a duty to all those on this world. He always did his best during that time to practice fairness as long as it fit with the goals of All.

HERO'S WRITTEN JOURNAL – IN THEIR VOICE


Here I am, a hundred and forty, I've gone through five wives and I'm alone now. I'm not sure I care anymore. They still might bring another one in, but I don't know why. All I need is my star. It's really troubling, though, that I was born in time to study the beginning of it's end, the purpose of our existence, but I might still miss the big event by two millennia.


I just can't understand all the recent changes, the dissent from the peripheral regions and people questioning the laws of All. It doesn't make sense. You'd think that as long as people have been studying the star, people accept their roll in things. The ancients didn't build this world for nothing.


HERO's Lover: Lola


Farmer

Educated in the hospital, trained medical volunteer – studied eight years

37 season-cycles old

5'8" tall

Long blond hair in a bun when she works

Pale skinned

135 lbs
Photo omitted.


LOLA'S PHYSIOLOGY (Body)

As an adult, Lola is five-eight and 135 lbs with a thin but muscular build. Intelligent and fit, she works in the fields each day and in the big nearby clinic most evenings. She has long blond hair and blue eyes


LOLA'S SOCIOLOGY (History)


Lola was born in farming community that supports Zinor's capital and the Science Center. Her father was Steverston, a leading agriculturalist and esteemed farmer and her mother was Saras, a physician at the local clinic. Both she and her sister Lister, work together daily on the family plot.


LOLA'S PHYCHOLOGY (Needs)


What makes Lola special is her education. Few from her cast are taught more that farming, but because of her mother, she has learned medicine. She believes, like most farmers, that the cast system must go. She's aware that many want to leave and she's seen the spaceport. Because of her endless long hours, she is lonely.

LOLA'S WRITTEN JOURNAL – IN THEIR VOICE

Here I am, farming the land six days a week and working in the clinic until I'm so tired I drop to sleep without eating. Then, she considers all the people in the cities whose lives are as painless and effortless. The scientists ignore us and begrudge us the slightest convenience in our lives. Why? Then, there's the matter of the spaceport. If the ancients had intended us to stay on this world forever, why leave us ships that can travel beyond this world. I just wish that I could once, talk to these people. Maybe I could shake some sense into them.


TIME ENOUGH STEPSHEET


1. Begin in the word of common-day. The call to adventure has already been accepted.

Lars awakens from a dream where someone is warning him not to follow Grayson and the woman out of the city.

2. The Threshold

During the seat-flight to the farmlands, he worries whether his associates will pay their star the attention Lars normally gave it and why the farmers didn't see that their social order was the will of All.


3. And Into The Woods


They visit Lola's home, a farming community where people have never used seats and believe in All, but not the myth that the Ancients built Zinor to study their sun and stay till the end when it goes nova. They meet Lista, and Lars is revolted by the poverty.

Then they visit the spaceport where other primitives argue that the old story about All wanting the population to stay forever and study the star to its end was wrong. Someone, millions of people, had at one time planned to leave. They explain their desire to leave and need explore whatever else there is besides Zinor. They believe there is something beyond their world of steel.


Lars and Lola become involved and he convinces her to visit the city.


4. The Arrival Home, Death, Rebirth & Confrontation W/ The Truth


Lars brings Lola back to the city where he shows her the important aspects of his life:


· His star – where she learns to understand him.

· His Spartan apartment – where they grow closer.

· His friends – who, including Grayson, disapprove of their relationship, of her living in the city, of her genetics, education, culture and caste.

· The city – where passersby shun and ridicule her.

· The council – where he announces his support of the separatist movement.


After numerous attempts to leave, the discontent faction find and open the space door. Lars and Lola's daughter, Isidora, commands the last ship through the portal to explore the universe.



STORY (as it currently stands)



TIME ENOUGY – by L. K. Pinaire


Lars Maandsten gasped, unable to catch his breath. His heart thundered and his chest heaved, desperate ... starved for air. His eyes opened. Awake in his sleeping net, he turned his face to the side.


The room, his apartment, remained unchanged from last night, empty but for a few mementos, some simple furniture and a kitchen he never used. Safe, alive and at home, he waited for the perspiration on his body to dry.

Though awake, he grasped for the fading memory of the dream he just woke from: their star, his star, going nova and exploding. He knew it was too soon for that -- or was it?


***


They burst from the port and the scenery turned to a rainbow blur. Balanced on one of Zinor's great standing waves of EMF flux, Grayson's trans-seat, hardly larger than something to sit on, led with Lola's slaved to his side. Lars followed into the great outdoors, smiling at the firm inertial tug -- and trees and soil, hiding Zinor's floor. From his feet, through his body to his arms and hands and head, he felt alive and invigorated and enjoyed this very much.


A soft breeze sifted through the front field generators against his face. Their seats darted upward on the fluxways, toward the clouds and away from the city, their capitol and the Science Center.


Lars was more excited than he'd been in ages. He could feel a shit-eating grin covering his face.

Still, while wondering how Grayson and Lola talked him into this, he was grateful. He opened his comm. "Thank you both. I've never had so much fun."

"This is important, Lars. There are things we need to see, things you must see."

Lars didn't want to argue. Not with all this around him. And the girl, Lola. She excited him, and he was a hundred and forty-four, but now his life had slowed.

He really hadn't expected to find life, covering and hiding Zinor's surface, but surely their food came from somewhere. Rich smells, warmth and softness came from this thing they called the soil, and this day of revelations had just begun.

He leaned back and relaxed, until they swooped down toward some sort of activity and stopped a few meters above the surface.


A tall, dark and muscular female approached, walking naturally, as though she could stand on her feet forever.


Beside Grayson, Lola waived her hands and grinned with joy. "Lars, this is my sister, Lista."


The girl -- barely a woman and wearing only a loincloth, raised her hands to All, palms flat and forward, as a greeting. "Welcome to our farm."


While Grayson and Lola hovered, Lars nervously approached where Lista stood and faced her with one palm also aimed forward to All. "I'm Lars. Praise All." Then he saw the great beast, grazing behind her.


Trying to ignore Lola's half-naked sister, Lars turned to Grayson and pointed at the creature. "Why is that monster here?" He'd never seen such a thing before.


"We are tilling the land." Lista smiled back and Lars found himself excited for the second time, today. She climbed onto the back of Grayson's seat with her legs straddled around his and her arms wrapped around his chest. She rode there until they stopped, a meter above the ground, between a stand of towering flora near a small structure built from some mineral-like stuff.


Lars released his restraint, slid off his seat and stood. The pull on his legs made him wonder how anyone could do this more than a few minutes a day. Whooh! By the time he crouched and entered the place Lola identified as her dwelling, he had to catch his breath again.


They sat around a stone table on chairs carved from something dark and grainy that once might have lived. Lola stirred the cauldron while Lista dipped porridge into ceramic bowls. Lars gripped the wooden spoon but set it down when the women stood.


Hands raised to All, Lista gave a prayer of thanks. When they sat, Lola picked up her spoon. "Please enjoy your meal."


Lola's blue eyes glimmered with excitement. "Thank you, Lars, for coming to visit our part of the world." She smiled.


Lars couldn't get over the strength and beauty of these women. "Since my retirement from the General Assembly I've spent most of my time working in the lab. I appreciate the diversion."


A few chunks of meat danced in a thick broth. While a bit lean, its spicy flavor brought tears to his eyes. He smiled and wiped his mouth with a bare arm. The expressions on the sisters' faces suggested they were sharing a delicacy.


Lista sat up straight and looked his way. "Does the Assembly govern all the cities or just the Science Center?"


Lars smiled. "Oh, no, my dear, we govern all of Zinor." Her ignorance amazed him.


Then, Lista jumped back in. "Then why do you know so little about the part of your world that feeds you?" Sharpness had crept into her voice.


Lars caught his breath. "I don't know."


He glanced around at walls painted with rainbows of color, stuffed mats in the corner, and a hearth for cooking. In spite of the terrible poverty of this primitive life, they shared the best of what they had.


Grayson interrupted, "Lola, what did you think of our city?"


Now Lola remained speechless. Then she took an awkward breath and pushed out a smile. "It was an interesting and marvelous place, but so different from our world in the fields -- " She looked at Lista. " -- and our people."


Grayson interrupted again. "I know Lola doesn't want to talk about everything yet, but this trip, Lars, is of true importance and might effect all our lives."


Lola stood. "We will have plenty of time to talk once I show you more of our world, but now, we have work to do ... in the fields."


Lars swallowed his last bite before they returned to the seats and then to where they left the beast. Again, they stood.


While Lista and Lola pulled back on the beast's harness to attach it to a metal blade, Lars did his best to remain standing. He couldn't pull or lift or help in any way he could see, but he tried. If he were just a little younger.


Between the four, they hitched the beast to the blade and Lars managed to get from their way and stay standing while Lola and Lista tilled the field. Then, Lars collapsed next to Grayson from the worst exhaustion he'd ever known.


"How can you do this?" Lars asked anyone who might listen.


The women laughed, and Lola brought water to the men. Meanwhile, Lista guided the blade across the field, splitting the soil as it moved, releasing a soft fragrance that wafted around them on the breeze.


Nearly the victim of sensory saturation, Lars tried to grasp the myriad of ideas and experiences dancing in his head.

Lola looked into Lars' eyes. "Do you see? Our lives are a struggle."

Lars nodded. What could he say?


At the day's end, they returned to Lola's lair, and she pointed to the bedding on the floor. "You should rest. Tomorrow, I'd like for you to meet some of our leaders at the hospital."


After the best sleep he could get on a matt on Lola's stone floor, especially with all the light, he awakened to the sound of something alive, flying through the woods.


The girls had left, perhaps to work the fields. Lars arose, left Grayson still sleeping and steered to the den's flat stone roof. Above the hills and trees and away from the confines of the cities, bright orange flooded the sky and ground from all directions. Above anything that might block the light, the new day stunned him, but of course it would be like this -- until their star winked out.


When Lola and Lista returned, they bathed in water from her cistern and changed clothes. Their lack of modesty troubled him.

The clinic sat on a hill less than two klicks away. They landed and walked in, joining three older men in white gowns near a table with six place settings in a building lit by electricity.


When they sat, the older of the physicians, he guessed, stood with palms forward and out.


Then, Lola stood. "Our Clinical Director, Mr. Haastic will bless our meal."


"Welcome, gentlemen," the tallest of the men-in-white said. "After breakfast, there'll be a brief tour of our facilities and then, I believe, Lola has an agenda of her own."


The tallest man-in-white, a thin fellow, wore full facial hair. Lars had never seen that before. In fact, he'd never know any man with facial hair of any kind. Very odd.


Lars ate something dark and juicy in a bed of vegetables, as good as he'd ever tried. He'd ask Lola later if he had the chance.


In spite of the pain, they walked, touring operating rooms. Lars cringed. There, they cut people open with knives and -- shudder -- babies were born from their mother's wombs. Not much genetic selection that way. He struggled to keep his silence while Haastic explained the function of each clinic section.


Lars looked into Grayson's eyes. His friend since childhood, he had been the only one who could have convinced him to visit this place he heard of as a child but discarded as myth. "How could we allow this to happen?"


"I don't know." Grayson's words trailed of underscoring his frustration.


They finished in a long chamber with fans and beds where patients recovered from recent procedures. A nearby one caught his eye.


A preadolescent boy lay covered with course, white linen, and tubes ran from bags of fluid to a needle in his arm. A few oscilloscopes and meters traced his progress. Barbaric by any standards.


Lola moved both hands, as though to gesture to the whole room. "I'm sure your technology surpasses ours by measures that I can't even imagine. Remember, I saw your world."


"Of course, it does," Lars spoke before he could pull back the words. As though this poverty and the affluence in the cities were balanced by their study of their star. His heart twisted in deep regret.


"I'm sorry." He put his hand to his mouth. "I'm at a loss for words right now." Today's revelations had shaken him. He'd never felt so ill equipped to deal with a situation. Something long ago had gone terribly wrong here. "Let's go."


Lars' stomach turned sour. The sudden urge to walk away pulled hard. Lola took his hand and led him into the next room.


She smiled. "We're done here, unless you'd like to see more." Her expression faded.


"Just how could this have happened?" Guilt turned his eyes away. Lars took a deep breath. "I didn't know."


"I saw how you lived and more, when I visited your city." She also dropped her eyes. "I knew then: I had to show you."


They walked to meet Grayson, who maneuvered his seat and its slave-craft to meet Lars'.


"With the flesh raised where eyebrows might have grown," Grayson said, "You see? We had to bring you."


"I see," Lars shrugged.


"I knew I couldn't do this as well as Lola." Grayson pursed his lips.


Lola smiled. "I'd like to spend the remainder of the day here in the village and then we'll set out in the morning. I'll show you something that might change all our lives." Her eyes almost twinkled. "There are no seatways where we are going."


Lola and Lars took the joined seats back to the farm.


***


“This region must be the only place on Zinor with soil on the surface," Lars said. I’d never seen such a thing before, or the trees.” He took a deep breath at the sight of a jungle of broad leaves, swaying above them, stretching from stalk-like plants, forming a low canopy. Living growth, brilliant reds and blues, hung from the spines of the plants like some saprophytic tag-along softening the delicate view. And the fragrance… Another deep breath and he could sense something of their essence without the slightest touch.


Lars and Lola slid from their seats and waded though knee-deep growth, some clinging from his clothes, toward Lola's den, a stone hut against a hillside, with a flat roof. Flowering plants surrounded its base and everything nearby. Grayson and Lista remained at the clinic.


“Lars, you came today with your mind troubled and you’re body weary.” She touched the back of his hand with her fingers. “Have you forgotten the joys of living? Do you not have fun? Or love? What kind of life do you live?” She shook her head and led him inside. "You show the sign of All, but you don't seem to have Her joy in your heart.”


“Hon, I worship All, but from what I see, I suspect our beliefs might be different.”


She sat in the single-room dwelling and pulled his hand. "Thanks again, for leaving the Science Center. Being the senior scientist, the council will at least believe you when you tell them what you've seen." When Lars knelt beside her, she placed her lips against his and kissed him like a lover. The sight of her, the softness of her lips, and the closeness of her body, all took hold, and he lost the power to refuse.


In minutes both were intertwined like tangled leaves in the autumn, twisting and moving until the end. Then, he lay with her naked body against his, youth against antiquity. He never felt better in his life.


“Many of my people want to leave Zinor, you know,” she said before she kissed him again.


The blasphemy caught him off guard.


"I don't understand. Where would they go? What else is there but Zinor and our star, the sun?" How could they go against the Law of All?"


"Do you still believe All placed us here just to study our star?"


"It is true. How can you question that? What else is there to study?"


"Zinor itself? Something beyond? I don't know."


"Perhaps our beliefs are more different than I thought."


"My beliefs have changed." She was a steady, cool breeze on a hot day, a brief diversion from his life, but she did say the strangest things. He had to return, soon. His star awaited him.


Lars placed his fingertips on hers and then traced the shape of her lips with his forefinger. “Lola, I have never met anyone like you.” He kissed her for the longest time then released her.


“Spend the night with me. Tomorrow I'll show you what we found.” She ran her fingers over his chest, and her smile disarmed him.


He nodded and then fell back into the nest and they became closer acquainted until sleep took them.


***


Lars slid from his seat, and strong pain climbed his legs, the reward for so much time on his feet. He stood, proud he could still do this at his age. Many couldn't. Grayson also grimaced while Lola climbed down.



"Follow me down to the dock." She led and they did their best to follow until all three came to and sat down in a small covered sailboat, guided by two men.


The first standing water Lars had ever seen reflected all of Zinor back into the sky. The boat gradually gained speed and moved forward under the endless sky of silver.


"Your world is full of the unexpected." Lars stared at the channel, deep and longer than one could see.


Lola silently raised her palms to All and turned back and forth as though to show them a new miracle. From both sides, a lush jungle sent humid air across their bow. While they sat and talked, the scenery shifted, and the chirps of living creatures serenaded them for hours until she leaned into Lars' arms and slept.


Lars opened his eyes to Lola tugging on his wrist. "Okay! Let's go. We've have lots to see."


They'd anchored at a large concrete dock that ran at least a klick toward the bend of the ground. Synthetic bumpers separated their boat from the structure.


Lola climbed up and offered Lars then Grayson a helping hand. From there, cylinders with rounded noses appeared above the dock and pointed at the sky.


Lars' jaw dropped and he turned to see Grayson, smiling.


"I see you got to see everything first."


A sea of these tall objects broke the view as far as his eyes could discern. Lars remembered to exhale and shook his head.


"You see," Lola said. "These are starships, and something is not right. We've been lied to. When All guided the ancients here to build this world, more than a few of them planned to return somewhere. This law of All that we stay here till the end of time must be false, or why would they leave all this that we see? This is a spaceport." Her face wrinkled. "Something must have gone wrong."


"How long have you known?" Lars rubbed his chin and turned to Grayson. "How could this be a secret as old as time?"


Lola folded her hands into each other. "This place cannot be seen from your seatways. The only way here is still by boat. All your science is focused on that one single star. You give nothing else on Zinor a serious look."


Lars sat on the ground, astounded and exasperated. "Lola, we study our star to learn how it grows and ages. Duty binds us to wait for its final days. I was born and bred for this purpose. Why else did the ancients build Zinor?"


Grayson joined him.


Lola looked down. "I was also taught that All built Zinor, but I'm not sure what I believe anymore. We've been exploring this place for quite a while. Best we can tell, thanks to Grayson's analysis, they are ready to go minus a little fuel and recharging of the batteries. We contacted him to help us when we decided we didn't have the knowledge to go any further. They run using antimatter for fuel and there's a remarkable amount of it in storage, controlled by technology that looks more like magic. It's been running and repairing itself for eons. Welcome to our future."


Lars silently attempted to absorb all the changes. Now, this certainly alters the course of things. With their entire society structured around the science of this one star, the idea of change struck fear in his heart.


Lola offered a tour of a ship, but after a short time, Lars again felt ill.


He looked into Lola's eyes. "I suppose your people do want to leave here."


"I don't want to go anywhere, but many do." She paused. "Lars, I'm not sure if those who stay will want all your technology, but they should have a choice."


When the vortex of events slowed, Lars considered what he really wanted. "Lola, I'd like you to come back with me to the Science center at least for a while. I'm going to try to set things as straight as I can."


The smile across her face grew into a grin. Her expression made him look the other way with joy.


"I don't know how well I'll be received, but I can try to fit in."


Before they left, Grayson moved his seat to Lars'. He leaned forward and whispered. "You know, Lola will probably never tell you, but this was all her doing. She found the spaceport, came to the city for me and orchestrated the whole thing."


Lars only smiled.


***


Lars sat at his desk with the observatory shield open, their star framed by the windows' shape. Instruments purred in the background while Lola brushed her hair against her naked flesh. They'd been here nearly a season-cycle and been married almost as long. He'd never seen such a beautiful woman, certainly not the previous wives the council had made him endure for his own good. His only regret, that he would never be as much a husband to her as she'd been a wife to him.


She smiled at him, and he couldn't look away.


"Tomorrow, I'll be addressing the Assembly. I think the time has come. Please join me." He shuddered, having dreaded this for a long time.


"I'd be very proud to." She stood tall and self-assured.


In all his season-cycles, he could never have imagined the welcome he and his new wife had received, but the everyday citizens of the center had clearly spoken their minds every day since their return. Lars gritted his teeth.


***


Lola and Lars walked through the city, no seat or slave for his bride. Above them, like streaks of motion in the sky at every level but the surface, and in every direction imaginable, seats carried his fellow citizens to their every destination. As Lars went on, some would notice, as they always did. They'd slow and swoop to see this oddity first hand. At first, the taunts were distant but soon grew more personal and close. "Mutant! and "Savage!" and "Liar!" filled the air. Then the chants came again ... and again. Sometimes they rang out in unison. Lars had heard this all before, every day since returning from the farms. His heart grew heavy, as it always did in public. For the first time in their lives, the people of the cities had learned fear. They now knew the terror of change and had focused on this innocent woman. Why?


After a brief jaunt in a vertical transit shaft, he walked through the shimmering holo-curtains and steadily to the General Assembly forum table with Lola at his side.


The chamber, where he'd served ten season-cycles, and all the electorate, went silent, with only an echoing cough, then a seat bumping into the arched table beyond which everyone else sat.


Lars spoke, "This occasion brings me both joy and sadness. Thank you for your time. I am overjoyed by a chance to be here again, but this time, you see, I'm standing." He looked into the legislators' eyes and saw the same fear, but they had brought this on themselves.


Lars went on to remind them the story about those who lived in unimaginable poverty to feed the people in the cities. He mentioned the spaceport with more starships than this world had people.


The hush deepened.


"The sad story here today isn't so much that the ancients didn't tell us we could leave. I do know that thousands will choose to depart for whatever rests beyond the limits of our world. The real sadness in my heart has come from our people who regard my wife as half-a-person and not quite human, like all those on which we do so depend."


A noise moved along the table and through crowd of seats hovering beyond the assembly. The muttering, grumbling, hissing rumble grew angrier.


Lars inhaled and went on.


"I had planned to recommend that we allow a few of the outside people to leave to search and find what lies beyond our world." He swallowed. "Now, though, I've changed my mind. We don't deserve that they stay to feed and support us." He paused. "It is you that have changed my mind. It is your narrow-minded anger that has broken my heart. I am no longer one of you."


The crowd's volume grew and grew as seats raised and fists shook.


"I say let them go." Before the crowd went wild, he paused again. "Thank you."


Lars and Lola walked away from the jeers and hoots and never returned.


Walking out, Lars held up Lola's hand. "I don't expect I swayed anyone, today, but I'm sure I've set them thinking. It may take a while, but the seed I've planted will grow. Too many of them worked too closely with me to ignore my words. Eventually, things will change."



***


Isidora sat across from her pilot, helmsman Isogreg in the last ship departing Zinor.


"We're nearly there, Captain."


"The door should be directly ahead."


Nearly a season-cycle out from the spaceport, traveling under full thrust, Isidora was ready.


"It's coming into view on the holo." Isogreg pointed to the suspended image.


The great door in their metal world hung centered in the view. No further from their star then the place where she'd been born, Isidora shivered with excitement.


"Can you imagine the reaction of travelers aboard the first ships to leave when they found this opening on Zinor's opposite floor?" While she waited, the great gateway parted like a metal jaw with four opposing sets of teeth.


Vast expanses of starlight rained down upon them from outside the expanding door. She realized: the gap between intellect and understanding sometimes proved very large. In this case it stood gigantic as she began to grasp her world.


"Each one of those is a star like our sun?"


"They are not exactly the same." She stood, filled with excitement.


As they passed through, the apparent, flat, gray surface revealed itself to be a metal sphere. The door to the stars slipped shut, and as it did, she took her last glimpse of their sun vanishing behind it. Darkness took its place, and with no more than the light from the myriad of stars in the heavens around them, this metal world that contained her father's star could no longer be seen.


"I don't mean to pry, Captain, but with you parents as instrumental as they were to this exodus, don't you think they'd be proud of you."


"Oh, I don't know about that. Neither of my parents ever wanted to leave. All Father ever wanted was to live to see the end of our star. He always said that my birth was the most extraordinary thing either of them ever did."


"Oh." The helmsman grinned.


"I always got a laugh out of that, as well," she said.


Isidora thought of her parents. Both had passed in recent times and their memory sustained her as she left. She would never forget the story of how they met in the farming region outside their city, and in time changed their world forever.


She remembered their walks in the city. Father had always said that the only way to teach others was by example, and every day she could remember, they went out and walked the streets among the seats and angry people. Then, one day, the folk in seats finally quieted. In her heart, her parents' bridging the gap between the societies had been their greatest feat.


Isidora looked forward into the myriad of stars ahead, to her new future and worlds beyond her wildest dreams, and as Mother and Father had always told her, she knew that All had not built Zinor, but maybe she’d find who did.


The End


I'd love to hear what anyone thinks about how this method works.


Larry