Helen Fowler Writer

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Aballonia. 25^th century.

Famine is ravaging the universe. And journalist Cathy Prior’s world is in a mess too, with her long-term lover saying he’s leaving her, complaining she drinks too much. For inexplicable reasons, crops everywhere are failing, millions are dying; only the ultra-rich can afford enough to eat. Unlike more conventional crops, however, bamboo is still running rampant, its root system growing with extraordinary speed and strength.

When Cathy hears from respected scientist Zoltan McNicholl of a mysterious food product using bamboo that could solve these problems, she’s delighted. And promptly writes a front-page story about bamboo-derived food for her paper.

Loses job, reputation destroyed

Problems start when the friendly scientist disappears and everyone else denies the story. Starting to look and feel foolish, Cathy loses her beloved job and her reputation is destroyed. Making matters worse, Ed finally leaves her – for good, this time, he says. Her only hope of ever getting her job back and her life on track again is to locate Zoltan, so she can prove she wasn’t making any of the bamboo story up, despite what people are claiming.

The main obstacle to Cathy locating Zoltan is that the cartel has harassed him so much he’s fled the planet Earthen and is impossible to contact after going into hiding. People say he might be found back on his home planet, Aballonia, at the other end of the universe. Nobody’s sure, though.

Aloof and fussy

Desperately unhappy, Cathy throws what limited funds she has left into travelling to the distant planet of Aballonia so she can track down her missing contact, the rather aloof and fussy Zoltan. With her is her new translator/interpreter, Istvan, a man whose rugged physique attracts her almost as much as his temper frightens her.

So elusive is Zoltan, especially in his native Aballonia, that Cathy is about to return home to Earthen in despair when she learns, almost by chance, of a strange new ‘hospital’ facility on the planet.

Missing arms and legs

The consortium shuts down the facility before Cathy can find out much more, but before that happens she manages to catch a glimpse of wounded medical patients missing their arms and legs, making her resolve to keep chasing the story so she can help them.

The conflict builds to a crisis when Cathy, along with a young orphan named Oxie whom she’s helping, travel further afield to get to the bottom of what’s happening. To avoid their enemies tracking them, Zoltan stages a pretend ‘kidnapping’ of Cathy and Oxie. Cathy is injured during the flight but refuses to let that stop her.

Worse than imagined

Arrived at Zoltan’s mountain hide-out, she’s horrified to see hundreds of food experiment victims in the makeshift tents being used as a hospital there. Zoltan explains that he and his men, all Aballonian rebels, have managed to rescue patients from the evil consortium using them to make food out of bamboo. By this point, Cathy understands better why the story has caused so much trouble; the picture on Aballonia is much, much worse than she could ever have imagined.

They have unwelcome surprise when they spot a visitor roaring up to their compound on an air trike. Yes, it’s Istvan. Seemingly determined not to let Cathy out of his sight for longer than twenty minutes, (if that), Istvan has used sophisticated tracking devices to follow her. Cathy’s unhappy to see him again.

Wounded in food trials

Even more surprising than Istvan turning up is the strength of his reaction to seeing people wounded by the food trials. He’s more shocked than Cathy’s ever seen him before. Deeply disturbed, in fact. Normally he acts laid back about almost everything. Naturally, he asks who’s behind the injuries.

Another revelation emerges when Istvan, still shocked by the revelation about what the cartel is doing, haltingly confesses to Cathy that he’s actually an Aballonian spy – not just the humble fixer she originally thought. She feels betrayed and hurt by all his lying and deceit but wants to give him a chance to prove he’s really had a change of heart and is serious about helping her and the rebels. Together, Cathy and Istvan work to help the injured by getting word out to their allies of massacres on the planet – no easy task when communication is banned, computer chatter silenced and their powerful enemies, well, their enemies are angry enough to want to kill them. Can Cathy and Istvan survive? Will she ever make it home? And where is home nowadays, anyway?

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Off Course, H.A. Fowler, Amazon, £8.99. Please note that it’s me, Helen Fowler, writing under a slightly changed name.