Wrong Place & Wrong Time

Agents Ravensroke and Joole at Blazon spaceport

Back in 2012, I started down the dangerous road of dabbling in the creation of Jack Vance fan fiction. For Assignment: Marune, I imagined that Jantiff Ravensroke was about 7 years into his career and working for Ryl Shermatz.

As a Field Agent in the Connatic's Special Services, Jantiff was sent to the planet Marune. With the help of his wife, Glisten, Jantiff discovered that when given back his memories by the Fwai-Chi, Efraim was actually given a Phari endosymbiont.

The League of Yrinna

I've now written Jantiff and Glisten into The League of Yrinna, my latest Vancian fan fiction story. The League of Yrinna is a sequel to Assignment: Marune, continuing Ryl Shermatz's investigation of the mysterious Phari.

The two main characters of The League of Yrinna are Glinnes Hulden and Duissane Drosset. The events of the story follow immediately after the end of Jack Vance's novel, Trullion.

Exodemic
Of course, I've placed The League of Yrinna within the Exodemic Fictional Universe. I imagine that the Phari are a type of artificial life form descended from the first humanoid species that ever spread between the stars of our galaxy.

Phari: Collectors of Worlds
The Phari are ancient, having arisen billions of years ago, before the arrival of the pek in our galaxy. Glinnes and Duissane become caught up in a struggle between the pek and the Phari for control over the fate of the human species.

Deep Time
The League of Yrinna takes place within a previous Reality, back when time travel technology was still available to R. Gohrlay and her tribe of positronic robots. In that Reality, the pek are struggling to find a way to end the Time Travel War and establish a truce with R. Gohrlay.

Sci Fi
Ultimately, the pek discover that the only way to end the Time War is to create the science fiction genre during the 20th century on Earth. Thus, science fiction story tellers such as Isaac Asimov and Jack Vance become of great interest to the pek. The pek "immortalize" a few key Earthlings so that they can help establish the science fiction genre. Among this select group of immortals are Asimov, Vance and Clarke.

image credits

In Deep Time, Clarke was born as Arabella Clarke, a woman.

Now, several thousand years into Earth's Space Age, Arabella, as an artificial life form composed of hierions, can use the Bimanoid Interface to interact with the pek endosymbionts that exist inside humans. Arabella "meets" Glinnes and Duissane while they are traveling to Numenes, the Capitol world of Alastor Cluster. Arabella begins the process of preparing Glinnes and Duissane for the role that they will play in making contact with the Phari and resolving the conflict between the pek and the Phari over the fate of Humanity.

The Iidi

Duissane
Duissane is a trevanyi, one of the peoples of Alastor Cluster that have been bred and crafted so as to be compatible with Phari endosymbionts. Like Glinnes, Duissane discovers that she is not in the correct place in time. However, at the end of the story, these two time-twisted lovers meet Grean the Kac'hin, who sends them back into the past, where they belong.

Phari vs Pek
The Connatic often uses a "cover" identity: roving investigator Ryl Shermatz. As part of the Idite clan, he has been a host for a Phari endosymbiont his entire life. However, he has no ability to use the Bimanoid Interface and communicate with the aliens.

Pharism

Similarly, some members of the Gensifer clan of Yrinna are able to function as hosts for Phari endosymbionts. By controlling and guiding the behavior of starmenters and Connatics through thousands of years, the Phari have been able to carry out a human breeding project aimed at creating a new race of humans that are capable of efficiently using the Bimanoid Interface. The pek plan to make use of some of the key human gene combinations that have been discovered by the Phari.

Next: how the children of Glinnes and Duissane solve Grean's puzzle

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