RETURN (THE FIVE WORLDS SAGA, BOOK 3) Al Sarrantonio Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press © 2012 / Al Sarrantonio Copy-edited by: Christine Steendam Cover Design By: David Dodd Background Images provided by: http://ed-resources.deviantart.com/ http://deviantvicky.deviantart.com/ LICENSE NOTES This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re- sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. Meet the Author AL SARRANTONIO is the author of forty-five books. He is a winner of the Bram Stoker Award and has been a finalist for the World Fantasy Award, the British Fantasy Award, the International Horror Guild Award, the Locus Award and the Private Eye Writers of America Shamus Award. His novels, spanning the horror, science fiction, fantasy, mystery and western genres, include Moonbane, Skeletons, House Haunted, The Five Worlds Trilogy, The Mars Trilogy, West Texas, Orangefield, and Hallows Eve, the last two part of his Halloween cycle of stories. Hailed as “a master anthologist” by Booklist, he has edited numerous collections, including the highly acclaimed 999: New Stories of Horror and Suspense, Redshift: Extreme Visions of Speculative Fiction, Flights: Extreme Visions of Fantasy, and , and, most recently, Stories, with co-editor Neil Gaiman, and Halloween: New Poems. His short stories have appeared in magazines such as Heavy Metal, Twilight Zone, Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Realms of Fantasy, Analog, and Amazing, as well as in anthologies such as The Year’s Best Horror Stories, Visions of Fantasy: Tales from the Masters, Great Ghost Stories, and The Best of Shadows. His best horror stories have been collected in Toybox, Hornets and Others, and Halloween and Other Seasons. He has had numerous book club sales, and his work has been translated into more than a dozen languages and appeared in comic book form. He currently lives in New York’s historic Hudson Valley region. OTHER CROSSROAD PRESS BOOKS BY AL SARRANTONIO: Novels: Moonbane Skeletons Campbell Wood October The Boy With Penny Eyes Sisters in Mystery House Haunted Masters of Mars Trilogy Haydn of Mars – Book I of the Masters of Mars Trilogy Sebastian of Mars – Book II of the Masters of Mars Trilogy Queen of Mars – Book III of the Masters of Mars Trilogy Five Worlds Trilogy Escape Journey Thomas Mullins Mysteries West Texas Kitt Peak Jack Payne Mysteries Summer Cool Cold Night Collections: Toybox Hornets & Others Halloween & Other Seasons Unabridged Audiobooks: Moonbane / Toybox / The Boy With Penny Eyes, Halloween & Other Seasons / Sebastian of Mars. DISCOVER CROSSROAD PRESS Visit our online store Subscribe to our Newsletter Visit our DIGITAL and AUDIO book blogs for updates and news. Connect with us us on Facebook. For The real Shatz Abel: Bill, you know who you are... RETURN Book III of the Five Worlds Trilogy Chapter 1 Trel Clan made an excellent child. He was obedient, clean of body, responsive to commands, unobtrusive, mild-mannered, forgettable. He ate when he was told, made his bunk with military precision as prescribed, went to bed at the appointed time. He never complained, which rendered him all but invisible. He didn't fight, was never chosen on the playground, did his lessons with precision and punctuality, was never in need of correction. When called upon in Lessons, his answers were textbook pure, delivered without a hint of boredom. His face was placid and pliable. He did his chores as ordered, and never drew attention to himself. Within, Trel Clan was angry, violent, hateful, spiteful, harboring of grudges, murderous, acrid, vengeful. His thoughts were full of mutilation and violence. He was a cauldron of animosity, nearly white-hot with ire. When he ate, he wanted to crush his Martian food; when ordered about, he longed for nothing more than to grind the nearest toy into the offending figure of authority. While he delivered his lessons in perfect rote speech, inside he tore the words to letters and scattered them to the four ill winds of his heart. When he made his bunk with military precision, he wanted to rend the sheets in his hands, tear the blankets with his teeth. He was an excellent child. He was an adult. Trel Clan was twenty-eight years old, an actor, a grown Titanian and distant cousin of the late ruler of Titan, Queen Kamath Clan. He was small, an expert with makeup, fourth cousin to Jamal Clan, the present ruler of subjugated Titan. Before the Half-Day War, Trel Clan had been twentieth in line to the throne. Now, due to the domino game of death the war had played, Trel Clan was first in line. And, due to Jamal Clan's late disfigurement and madness, Trel Clan was, at least in his own mind, de facto ruler of Titan. King of a world. A child. Murderous. Cunning. Alive. Waiting. On this particular afternoon, on this particular day, it was obvious in the play yard that something was happening. It was always obvious when something out of the ordinary was occurring. That was because ordinarily things were so . ordinary. The regimen on Mars for the children of Titan and Venus was so strict, so perfectly punctual, that any deviation from the norm was instantly picked up by even the dullest child. So finely attuned were these children to their diet of Lessons and Structured Play and More Lessons and Chores and Bed (punctuated at the proper times by Nutrition) that even the slightest alteration set their internal antennas abuzz. This Structured Play period, antennas buzzed all over the play yard. "Did you hear that we're not going back to Lessons, but on a trip?" one blond-haired Venusian child asked a young Titanian boy. Across the yard, instantly, another Titanian boy smirked and said to a Venusian girl, "You're not going, but we are! Only Titanians are going on this trip!" And magnified back across the play yard, as by amplification: "Titanian children are better than Venusian children!" "That's not true!" "It is!" A fistfight here and there; a single black eye; a sudden blare of the dreaded black siren atop its tall black pole—and then, from the siren's suddenly silent cone, the voice of the Prefect: "Attention!" There was a hush across the play yard, instant and unbroken, save for the girl with the black eye, who would not control her whimpers and was led off. "Listen!" All ears, all eyes were on the black siren with the symbol of Mars, black sickle within a circle of black iron, mounted above it. "You have heard rumors," the Prefect's voice announced, in the sternest of tones. A boy began to mewl, not in pain from injury but in terror. He, too, was led away by a monitor attendant. Trel Clan's ears and eyes were on the black siren also; inside he burned and fumed, but his face showed the placid attentiveness and immobility called for. "It is true," the Prefect continued, "that there will be a trip this evening, for the children of Titan only. Silence!" The few smirks that had broken out as Titanian children turned to Venusian children in triumph were instantly quashed. On Trel Clan's face there remained tranquility and placidity. "The trip will commence with dorm assembly at hour seventeen. Lessons will be doubled for the children of Titan tomorrow, with no Structured Play." The siren went silent; beside Trel Clan a Venusian boy shorter and plainer than himself turned briefly to grin into Trel Clan's face. "Ha!" he said. .