Liberty's Heirs

Chapter 1

The purple iris blooms shown vibrantly in the sunlight, sparkling with the spring dew, indifferent to the stakes of today's class with Master Vera.  Separated from the cool of morning by the great floor to ceiling windows, Blion reclined on the dining couch looking pensively out at the flowers.  He finished his last bite of breakfast and heard the gentle clattering of little feet coming down the hallway.  One of the many insectoid robots that tended to all the minutia of the house took his dirty dish in its tentacle and carried it away for sanitization.  Another would be by in a few moments to clean the spot where he had eaten.  The machines kept an immaculate house and it would expect him to have moved out of the way by then. But, he didn't feel like moving just yet.

"You better get going." His mother entered the room fully made up and ready to leave the house, she had eaten an hour earlier.  "Don't be late for Master Vera, especially not today."  His mother noticed the worry on his face.  "Don't worry, Blion.  It will be fine." She gently ran her fingers across his spiky black hair.

"Hey!  I already did my hair."  She moved her hand and patted the teenager's shoulder.  Intellectually, he knew she had to be right, but he had a bad feeling.  It was nothing he could put his finger on but he didn't think that Master Vera liked him.  Out of his sculpture class, he was probably the best member.  Shlemuel might have had more raw talent but he kept making mistakes that he constantly had to correct.  There was also Karissa who was completely untalented but more than made up for it with pure tenacity.  Master Vera had a dozen people in his class and three would be chosen as his apprentices.  The rest would have to try again with other Masters; again and again until they were selected.

"Have a good day at work, Mom.  I'll send you a message when I hear Master Vera's decision."  His mother turned back and waved at him with a smile as she stepped out the front entrance.  Her long brown hair got slightly messed by a little breeze that was in the process of clearing away the morning fog.  His father was already long gone.  He loved to be at work early on Mondays.

Blion went back to the grooming robot to have his hair fixed and his teeth cleaned and went out the door to the landing pad in front of the house.  Surrounded by olive and oak trees, carefully tended by robotic gardeners, the landing pad was roomy enough for a dozen vacikarces which it had nearly held when his mother hosted her most successful party three years ago.  His unfortunate mother was very fond of parties and the company of as many people as she could get to come.  Unfortunately for her, her desire for people's company wasn't reciprocated and she wasn't very popular.  Blion's vacikarce was a beautiful azure color decorated by the animals and geometric shapes he was fond of doodling in his spare time.  He opened the door and got in.  Sending a command to the vehicle using a brain-computer interface in his headband, he asked to be taken to his classroom in the Burbank community center.

The vacikarce's fans lifted the vehicle into the atmosphere while Blion looked northward through its bubble-like windows.  The magnificent Tataviam Valley, once known as Santa Clarita, California, came into view replacing the trees.  Amongst the orchards, fields and scattered houses, was the Tataviam Community Center, home of the athletic fields, theaters, restaurants, and artisanal workshops in which the majority of the valley's residents worked.

The local Community Center was not Blion's destination; he was headed to Burbank so as the car rose, it gradually rotated to face south before beginning its horizontal journey.  At age fifteen and a half, Blion's precocious intellect and social grace had inspired his school teacher to help him get sculpture class with a Master, renowned in Tataviam for his granite-work.  Just a few weeks before the Master was going to announce his apprentices, Blion had been accepted as a prospective of Master Vera.  After he succeeded in persuading Flal, an Advocate and one of his father's handful of friends, to allow him to attend a different Community Center, he abandoned the first Master's class and joined Master Vera.  Master Vera was one of the world's best sculptors and an excellent mentor.  Any scorn from his former Master would be irrelevant as long as he obtained the apprenticeship with Master Vera.