WINDS OF CHANGE By Cameron Cooper

A Standalone SF Novella

Solarpunk Science Fiction Novella

Pre-Order now and receive your copy September 4th, 2025!

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Excerpt

EXCERPT FROM Winds of Change
COPYRIGHT © CAMERON COOPER 2023
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

.

On the third day after the Winterwillow Collective changed routes, they reached what should have been the Aberuthen Warren. The valley which greeted them was not as it should be, which didn’t reassure Saima.

She trusted Pallas. Of course she did. He was her husband. Only he had looked so strained lately, bent over his books and data. And he had argued so strongly with Director Brid, until it seemed that Pallas had forced the Director to declare the Collective would visit Aberuthen, instead of Director Brid coming to his own decision. Then Pallas had insisted upon walking behind Brid as the Collective travelled north-west.

Saima and Markas, her other husband, had walked with Pallas at the head of the file. They could scarce do anything else. They’d given their wagon to one of the relief drivers.

Now the slow-moving caravan of creaking salvage carts, enclosed living wagons and mongrel vehicles came to a halt behind Director Venkat Brid as he pushed back his hood, unhooked his face veil and stared out across the shallow valley they’d reached. Everyone gathered behind him and spread out across the low crest to study their destination.

Saima pulled aside her own veil and sniffed the air. It was close to dawn and the omnipresent ivory dust was minimal. She lowered the veil, but left her hood in place.

Under the thick, permanent cloud cover, there was no moonlight to illuminate the valley. Saima only knew what moonlight was because she had grown up on a platform. Yet the bone-white, bare, heat-baked and sterile earth told its own story, for it lay across the valley like a winding sheet, pale in the night and bereft of details.

“Where is the Warren?” Director Brid demanded. “The lobby should be right there.”

Saima rested her hand against Pallas’ back as he tensed. She soothed silently.

“What did their lobby look like, Director?” Markas asked. He spoke with the smooth, placating tones he used when examining witnesses and pronouncing judgements.

“It’s been twenty years. More!” Brid sounded disgusted. “I can’t remember. It was wider than it was tall. Corrugated steel and girders. Sturdy. It’s not there, now.” He held out his hand. An assistants thrust the battered, scratch and cherished binoculars into it.

Brid studied the valley in detail. “This is damned peculiar.” He lowered the glasses. “The entrance is there, but nothing protects it.” He brooded, weighing the safety and wellbeing of the Collective. He turned, his boot heel under the djellaba digging a round hole in the white dirt. “Pallas, did you know something had happened to the warren?”

Saima stroked Pallas’ spine, where the Director couldn’t see it, reminding Pallas that his skills were valuable, that he must trust himself and remain firm.

Pallas shook his head. “The data doesn’t give details, Director. The patterns merely suggested we should head in this direction.”

Pallas was an unregistered asset. He served formally as Markas’ secretary and archivist, for Markas was the registered asset in the Collective. But Pallas’ real talent was an ability to absorb and process huge amounts of data. He could see patterns in datasets, and across them, too. Unlike assets who could also memorize vast seas of information and spot trends, Pallas specialized in social and anthropological movements. He was very good at what he did, even though it often meant he was preoccupied with feeding his mind with data, a furrow between his fine brows. He consumed information, his narrow chin down by his chest, working to retain it. Sometimes Saima found it hard to draw him back to the real world, to share a meal with her and Markas.

“We’ll go down there,” Venkat Brid decided. “Find out what happened and lend a hand if they need it. Collectors, spread out. Let’s do a sweep across the valley. We might yet profit from this detour.”

He handed the glasses back, replaced his veil and dug his hiking pole into the ground. The Collective shifted into slow forward motion. 

Saima swayed so she could see Pallas’ face. He was a very tall man for a Collective-born, which meant their eyes were level. Over the top of his veil, his looked silver in the last of the dry, dark night. He picked up her hand. “I’m fine,” he assured her. He tugged her into following Venkat Brid down the hill toward the remains of the warren they had come to trade with.

•

As they approached the entrance to the Aberuthen Warren—a wide set of rammed earth steps heading down to the forum level—more signs of trouble reached them.

 The outrunners reported back that a motherlode of salvage was in the valley, but scattered like sand particles, not grouped in huddled remains of what once had been buildings.

Also, the warren steps were not shielded from the elements. Old girders thrust from the ground, bent and twisted, showing mangled, unweathered steel between rust. They marked in metallic Morse the shape of the building that had once protected the entrance.

The wall that staved people away from the rear of the stairwell pit remained. It was made of old, massive Hedonist concrete chunks bound together with rammed earth and slathered over with straw mud.

“No lobby, salvage lying across a valley that was picked clean a generation ago…” Brid muttered. He looked up at the sky. “Dawn, soon. We can’t linger here to figure this out. Pallas, you said it would be worth while heading here. Go down there and see if the weather seal is in place. Rouse them, if it is.”

Pallas pushed his hood back and unhooked his veil. Markas handed Pallas their solar torch. Pallas switched it on, then trod down the steps, the bright, focused beam playing ahead of him, before he and the light disappeared beneath the earth.

Another scout ran up. “Their power dish is misaligned, Director.”

Saima pressed her lips together. Power collectors were built to endure. What force had wrenched it out of alignment?

“Fixable?” the director asked. “Within the engineers’ skills?”

“They say yes.”

Brid nodded, as the solar torch lit the upper steps of the warren entrance once more. This time, many people emerged, climbing behind Pallas, all of them in the loose, many layered clothing of the warrens.

One of the taller among them lifted her arms. “Venkat Brid! I see and breathe!” She encased Brid in a hug determined to compress him into a sliver.

“Grazia Ederne,” Brid said breathlessly. “You’re leading Aberuthen?”

The stout woman stepped back. “Two years, now. I cannot believe Winterwillow is here at my door.” In the light of the solar torches springing up around them, her face looked worn, her eyes drawn by lack of sleep. “We are in dire need, Brid. Does your Collective still have a Judge Jurist among its assets?”

Brid nodded. “We do. You are in need of one?” He looked around the remains of the building that had once protected the warren entrance. “I’d have thought you’d be in need of engineers. Your dish is misaligned.”

“Those, too,” Ederne said, gripping Brid by the elbow. “But we are more sorely in need of a judge. We have trouble. Criminal trouble. Come. All of you. The warren is still awake. Let’s deal with this now…and our thanks will bow your food nets, I promise you.”

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