"Kendle?"

Uncle Max stood over my bed, shaking me awake. At first, I thought it was all a dream and didn't pay too much attention. Unless my time sense was totally whacked by exhaustion and too much rich food before I went to bed, it was four in the morning. Uncle Max wasn't due back from his business trip to FAN headquarters on Gadara continent until ten. Besides, he hadn't even stepped over the threshold of my room in years.

Then it occurred to me that Uncle Max wouldn't have come back early except for an emergency, and he certainly would not break privacy and wake me up, except for a really big emergency. I rubbed at my eyes and rolled over, checking the chronometer in my headboard. Unfortunately, my time sense was as accurate as ever.

"What's wrong?" I palmed the light panel in the headboard and sat up.

"Nothing's wrong."

From the grin on Uncle's face, I got a little suspicious, and leaned forward to smell his breath. No alcohol -- but then, he could drink five Humans under the table without even starting to feel dizzy. Maybe one of those snarky executives at headquarters had slipped drugs into his food? This had happened at some of the other quarterly meetings that sometimes ran ten days to two lunar-quarters long. Other producers who were too progressive or radical were viewed as a threat by some of the higher executives, either to their authority or their bid for a higher pay scale. I simply never thought it would happen to Uncle Max. He was too alert, too aware of dangers and openings for attack. It was the nature of our lives, our heritage, our mission.

"What's up? Do you know what time it is?"

"Oh." He glanced at my chronometer and his grin flattened for a few seconds. "Kendle, do you have any more like this?" He waved a stack of printouts under my nose.

It took a few seconds for my eyes to focus and recognize my newest Meruk story, just finished the day before. I had finally written down the nebulous 'pilot' story, after it had stewed in my imagination for literally years. Being the niece of a Tri-V executive, I grew up thinking in entertainment visual parameters. Occupational hazard.

"A few." I had about ten percent of my private computer storage filled with Meruk stories. Considering the size of our family archives, legal and quasi-legal, that was saying a lot. "Ah & I left a mess when I went to bed, didn't I?"

I tried to visualize how I had left the living room when I tottered off to bed only three hours ago. I had worked myself to dizzy, blurry-eyed exhaustion, and I could not remember how many printed stories and dirty dishes I had left behind me, or even if I had turned off the Tri-V console. Since the last of my brothers had moved out and moved off-planet to follow several vague legends about Hoveni refugees as they scattered through the universe during the Set'ri persecution and Downfall Wars, the house seemed to be in worse shape with just the two of us living there. Silly me, I thought that no longer having three very preoccupied males to clean up after would make life easier.

"Mess?" Uncle looked up from the sheaf of flimsi-sheets and frowned, visibly yanking his thoughts back to the present moment. Then the frown turned to a grin, touched with sympathy. "Hard day yesterday, hmm?"

"I let myself get maudlin, that's all." No way would I admit to anyone, especially Uncle Max, how sometimes I prayed I would find out I was adopted, that I was Human, not Hoven.

Fat chance of that, since I had been able to shift shape since I started my second growth phase at age six.

Yesterday hadn't been particularly stressful. Since graduating from mandatory group schooling, I divided my time between taking extension classes through the planetary 'Net and the off-planet feeds from the Commonwealth Upper University, and tending to family business. I kept house for Uncle Max and made sure that the people who worked under him in our quest to reunite the Hoven race could contact him whenever necessary.

I liked the quiet in our house, tending to the family investments and properties via the planetary and inter-planetary links. I liked being the organizer, keeping track of records, researching the tiniest scrap of legend or rumor, acting as historian. Fyx daughters had been doing that since time immemorial, before the Diaspora when the Set'ri landed on Gemar and tried to destroy the entire Hoven race.

What I minded was the loneliness, the lack of other Hoveni my own age. Or even my own generation. Especially females. There were far too many Hoven males, in my estimation, and all of them were interested in a marriage alliance with the only living Fyx female. It was a good thing I was years away from physical maturity. I looked like an adult Human, but I wouldn't be reproductively able for another five Gemar years, which translated to nearly ten Commonwealth Standard years.

And all that aloneness and pre-adolescent angst led to necessary periods when I drowned my sorrows in off-planet sweets and created adventures in my head with make-believe friends. All Hoven, of course. Like Meruk.

Uncle stroked my cheek, as if to brush away a few tears I had given up shedding years ago. "It's rather lonely here for you, isn't it?"

"Just the opposite. With all the correspondence and vid-calls I handle, I'd love some isolation," I lied. "They all think I'm your personal secretary or something. And by the way, what are you doing back so early?"

"The Board ran out of gripes and the biggest troublemakers are either off-planet or feeling too ill to indulge in their favorite sport." He stood and slapped the stack of semi-transparent flimsies. "But this -- this may be what we need."

"Ah ... you didn't read that, did you?" I wanted to turn the lights down, or even off. My face had to be burning red in embarrassment.

"Of course I read it. Too keyed up when I flew in to just go to bed. And you did leave a mess -- which I was glad to clean up, to help me settle down." He chuckled. "How long have you been writing stories like this?"

"You mean Meruk?"

"Good Hovenu name, by the way. Yes, Meruk." He stopped pacing and sat down on the end of my bed. "Well, how long?"

"Ah ... a few years, now. Just scribbling. Sometimes I sit down and go through them, correcting inaccuracies, straightening up the continuity." I made a face at him, which elicited a chuckle. "You're a bad influence, you know? You're a perfectionist."

"Well, it just might stand us in good stead. Do you trust me enough to let me read the rest? Are they all about Meruk and his quest?"

"Most of them are Meruk," I admitted. An inner voice of panic tried to tell me why he wanted to know about my daydreaming scribbles. But I didn't want to listen. "There are a few about off-shoot characters. Their stories don't stop once Meruk passes by."

"Spin-offs. Kendle, you definitely have entertainment in your blood." Uncle chuckled, shaking the bed a little.

"Can I ask why you need to know?"

"Well, the more material I have to show the higher-ups, the better my chances of getting a go-ahead." He nodded and stood to resume pacing. "I think we should start out with a one-time, three-hour drama, and if the percentages are high enough, propose a series to the network. Maybe set up for production even before they give approval."

"Series?" I nearly jumped out of bed to shake him into talking straight with me. Since all I had on was a too-short sleep-shirt I should have tossed in the trash years ago, I settled for grabbing my robe and putting it on before getting up. "What the nethers are you talking about?"

"Don't you see?" He stopped and faced me. He had that look in his eyes I had come to know. Scheming and delight intermixed, along with relief from pressures burdening him. Pressures I had been learning about, and helping to handle, since the day I was young enough to understand the problems of our race. "Kendle, my dear, we are going to make your stories into a series for FAN. Even if it only lasts a trial alpha season, it will open doors and attract attention from all the right people ... with all our trusted friends doing the behind-the-scenes work, making contacts, smuggling information. Maybe even finding ways of smuggling people out of danger." He nodded, thinking that over for a second. "The opportunities here are boundless, all because of your stories. I'm rather proud of you."

"You're not turning my Meruk stories into a cloak-and-dagger scheme!" I blurted, and tried to snatch the flimsies from Uncle's hands.

"Kendle -- " He stepped back and slipped the stack behind his back, out of my reach. "It's a matter of survival. We need it." The light had left his eyes. Memories of pain and loss and danger seemed to leap from his mind to mine. The death of my parents during the quake on Quevilac Island was probably uppermost in both our minds. "It's just the cover we need to make our operations legitimate and safe. The upper level executives are growing desperate for something new and exciting for the upcoming alpha season for FAN."

"A series about Hoveni in this present day and age? Come on, nobody believes in the Hoveni nowadays, despite all the historical evidence."

"Nobody but you and a few hundred obsessives."

"And maybe descendents of the Set'ri? People who would like nothing better than to finish the blood quest against the last of the Hoveni?"

"That's true. Consider this: nobody believes anything presented on FAN is real. Yet at the same time, it will reintroduce the whole planet, and all the planets in the Commonwealth who subscribe to FAN, to the background of the Hoven race, and do half our work for us without even trying. Imagine all the secret messages you could write into the scripts for our friends to catch."

"Wait a minute. Me? Writing scripts?"

My resistance to the idea died away in the thrilling, chilling idea of writing for Tri-V. A paying job, at last! Not that I needed one, since the family-held investments provided enough money that Uncle didn't need to work, either. But the idea of fame, travel, an expense account for all the books I could ever want to buy -- that grabbed hold of me when little else could. Besides, getting paid to daydream? Who wouldn't take the chance?

"Caught you there," he said with a grin.

"They won't let me. I'm your niece."

"Nepotism is running rampant in the industry, my dear. Why do you think I paid all that money for art and drama workshops and your Upper University classes, let you study writing and theater and let you tour the Network grounds so often?"

"To spoil me."

"Besides that." He grinned, daring me to laugh. I lost, again. Uncle Max waved his hand, pushing my arguments aside. "Meruk's story is perfect, Kendle. Think about it, will you? I'll be in my office, working up the proposals." Uncle turned to go. He stopped in the doorway. "If you care to share any more of your stories with me, I'd love to see them. They could add weight to convincing the upper execs."

Then he was gone. I sat on my bed, thinking, listening to my heart pounding and slowing. My stories? The answer to our problems? Even the thought of writing professionally, of seeing my name in the credits for any Tri-V program, was not as frightening as the thought of my dreams spilling through the ether, in brilliant color, for the whole planet to see. And not just the whole planet, but eventually half the Commonwealth.

Anywhere that Hoveni might have fled to escape the genocide perpetrated by the Set'ri since before the Downfall.

Meruk was a precious dream for me, my ideal young man, born with the Hovenu gift to shift shape, and unaware of it until danger brought his talents to light. I was a long way from physical maturity, but Meruk was my choice for a future mate. Physically, anyway. And not just because he matched the profile of all the Hoveni I had grown up with, including Uncle Max, my brothers, and even what I saw in the mirror. Classical Hovenu good looks -- wavy hair in that deep brown that could look black in the shadows, or in the right light could look like the deep, dark red of dying coals or streaked with deep amber. He had the deep-set, changeable eyes of legend. Greenish, grayish, bluish -- dark in the shadows, vibrant in the light, revealing the strength of his spirit. Wide, muscular shoulders from hard work and outdoor living. Long fingers on wide, strong hands. Sometimes, I prayed for the double-edged gift of my ancestors. Many women in the Fyx line were seers, priestesses, visionaries. I thought about the day I would have to choose a mate -- there would be many suitors, just because of my family line -- and I prayed Meruk would be among them. Sometimes, I fantasized that my dreams were calling Meruk to me.

I had to face reality right now, sitting in my room at nearly five in the morning, with a long day ahead of me, and Uncle waiting to see more stories. My dreams were no longer my private playground. Could I let myself grumble over that loss? I could see clearly how Meruk's adventures, dramatized, would teach the rest of the planet about the historical truth of Hovenu history, culture, powers, physical limitations. It would fight, maybe even dissolve superstitious fears, and reveal the tragedy of the Set'ri massacres that had gone on for generations, before Hoveni vanished from sight. The other people on the planet who still cherished Hovenu history and artifacts would dearly love a series based on the history of our world, even if it was presented as fiction. We already had a built-in audience. Hoveni were no longer the fad interest they had been just after I was born, but the subculture and scholarly interest was still strong.

I had been brought up believing that nothing mattered as much as our mission. Not even personal feelings and dreams. And it occurred to me, as I went to my desk and started keying the printer for hard copies of all my Meruk stories, that if Uncle's scheme worked, I would not be so lonely and depressed anymore. Through the contacts brought in by the coverage of the program, I would meet Hoveni my age, maybe other females. I had friends among our neighbors, the girls I had gone to school with, but they were all Human. I wanted a Hovenu girl, to share all the fear and turmoil and fun of growing up. I grew up with three much-older brothers, and the few women among Uncle Max's contacts were old enough to be my mother or grandmother.

No more lonely days, writing and dreaming, eating myself sick and working myself to exhaustion so I would not dream disturbing dreams of what could not be.