People of the Sky

Book excerpt: “An entrancing, occasionally erotic novel of clashing cultures and alien biology” from the author of Ratha’s Creature, an ALA Best Book (Locus). Old technology survives and even thrives on the challenges of a new planet populated by ancient human spirits. Kesbe Temiya, a freelance flyer, accepts a commission to deliver an ancient but restored C‐47 (a Gooney Bird, in twentieth century parlance, named The Gooney Berg by its new owner) to a collector of rare aircraft on the planet Oneway. Dropped off by a starship, Temiya gets sidetracked by bad weather, rescued by a mysterious figure riding an alien flying creature, and stranded in a long‐vanished Pueblo Indian colony that follows the prophecy of the Blue Star Kachina and lives the old ways, isolated from technology and away from the white man. Despite her own Pueblo blood, Kesbe is an outsider; only by adopting the ways of the People of the Sky, including a ritual that may turn her, too, into a throwback and could even kill her, can she find the help she needs to fulfill her mission—and find the life that is right for her.