Free Return of the Matka-Zem (The Sorain Chronicles) by Deborah Chanley Page A

could do what she had done. She was an alien, in the literal sense.
    When the Greyhound bus sign came into view, she increased her pace and pushed through the crowd to reach her target. Purchasing a one-way ticket to San Francisco, California, she hurriedly boarded the waiting bus. Choosing a seat in the last row, she silently waited for the bus's departure. Fearing her enemies were closer than she hoped, she was thankful for her luck in catching the last bus heading south. Waiting for the next bus could possibly be her undoing.
    With a roar of its engine, the bus finally pulled out of the station. As the vehicle merged onto the highway, its sway began to relax her and she was able to reflect on her shrouded past. Taking a deep breath to let the tension seep out of her body, she closed her eyes and cleared her mind to allow the fleeting images to form. Bits of memory drifted into her consciousness, yet no complete recollection of her past life fully materialized. Only glimpses of unfamiliar places and faces flashed before her closed eyes. She could not bring into clarity many elusive memories.
    Fragments of information of an alien planetary system filled her thoughts. Remembered images of a huge gas giant composed of swirling red and white stripes spun before her closed eyes. A hint of memory teased her thoughts and she recalled twin suns setting in a lavender sky. Memories of two small moons rising in the darkening sky formed solidly in her mind.
    " Sora!" The word screamed inside her brain. Sora was her home planet. For the last ten years, she realized, she'd thought herself human. It was almost unfathomable that Earth was nothing more than a hiding place from some evil foe.
    " But from whom?" She glanced out the window and caught a glimpse of a young boy playing with a toy dinosaur in a passing car. She had never heard of the Glauc-tuko and had the feeling that the creatures were a nightmarish version of a pack of hunting dogs. Moreover, whoever controlled them wanted to control her too.
    Join us or die . Inga's words echoed in her mind. Join who? And why did they want to kill her if she did not? One question only bred another and no one could answer her. The knot in her stomach tightened at the thought of blindly returning to Sora.
    " Trust no one!" she could hear the Keeper's croaky voice in her mind and this time she was willing to obey. Looking back over the years at the compound, she realized the Keeper had been preparing her for her return with both physical and mental conditioning regimens. The old woman had insisted she learn the art of war as well as studying Earth's history, and she had drilled into her mind the importance of understanding all sides of a conflict, to try to solve controversies through diplomacy, but if all else failed to strike without hesitation or mercy. She presumed that there was some kind of political struggle raging on her home planet and she had a major role to play. All she wanted was to live a "normal" life, and the thought of returning to her real home caused her heart to constrict in fear.
    The sound of a child 's laughter brought Jane back to the present. She glanced around the bus and found the happy toddler seated across the walkway from where she sat. The little girl's Latin mother smiled at her, their eyes briefly meeting, before the mother returned her attention back to her child. As the mother hugged the toddler in her arms, a flash of memory of Jane's home world penetrated her mind. She remembered how children did not choose what they wanted to be, like on Earth, but were born into their positions in society. With a great ceremony once a year called a Branda, the children who had come of age would be absorbed into their respective guilds, no longer remaining part of their parents' lives. Most children would stay in contact with their birth parents, but they rarely return to their old homes.
    Jane stared out the window to watch the change of landscape. The memory of her world