Tag: science-fiction

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Musings and Plans

Posted on by jennrae

I decided to look at some famous writers who happened to have been born in November. There were some good ones, Madeline L’engle was tempting, but I think I covered her a long time ago. Mark Twain’s birthday is coming up too. I happen to be a descendant of his younger half sister from his Dad’s second marriage. There are no direct descendants because all his daughters died without having children. So, I guess I’m as close as one gets? Consolation prize?

But, I am just not feeling it. There are a lot of influential sci fi writers from the classical era that I could cover as well, Spider Robinson, Gordon R Dickson. But I am just not feeling like doing the research on these guys. I know of them, but I would need to read up on them more to do them justice. And, I just had a long workout at the gym. Feel like maybe I overdid it. Probably going to be feeling it tomorrow.

I am sapped energy wise. Probably should have written beforehand. Oh well, guess that is a lesson learned. I appreciate people reading this blog and plan on doing more fiction soon. I am also thinking about compiling my short fiction into a collection. I have to polish them up first, and then decide how to go about that.

I may attempt something drastic with the novel. I may cut the beginning until I find it interesting, switch the main protagonist to the character that I find the most interesting. It will change the tone and feel quite a bit. But it isn’t like I don’t have a hard copy of the original if I hate it.

I could try to plot out a new novel. I have some ideas. I just am trying to get the wheels turning and feel like I need some WD 40 to get it working. Thanks for being here and there. Your support means the world to me and I take nothing for granted. Thank you. JennRae.

Posted in Fiction, Uncategorized, Writing

Miranda – Science Fiction Short Story

Posted on by jennrae

He entered the rocket ship determined to make his mark on the world. He tried not to think of the future, or the past. What is gone, is gone, and can never be again.

******

A melancholy settled over her as she recalled his youthful figure stepping into the entryway. The large metal door sealing shut; shutting him away from her life forever.

Some told her that he didn’t really love her. If he did, he wouldn’t go. She knew this was important to him. This trip into space was always his goal. She was the unforeseen unplanned accident. And while she liked to think he may give up his dream for her, she also knew she didn’t have the strength to ask it of him. He might resent her, loath her even. She might feel guilty every time she saw his gaze wander aimlessly, searching for the stars.

Instead, she chose to suffer. He might come back early. It was possible. Of course, life on earth would move as it always had. But for him? Everything would be preserved, and prolonged. Would he still want her?, she wondered.

*********

He strapped himself in the cryogenic chamber carefully. To study the nearest solar system even from a distance would require a long sleep. Miranda was dead to him. He had to think of her that way. There was a chance he could come back in her lifetime, but he felt that he should prepare for the worst case scenario. He locked the hood which would fill his sarcophagus-style bed with cold. He would sleep a while, unless an accident happened to the craft, whereas he would be awakened. Assuming, that was in working order.

He knew the dangers. Being an explorer has always been fraught with disaster and near-death. It was this that made up part of the appeal for him. Even if he wasn’t frozen, time would be slowed for him compared to the frenzy upon the earth. Freezing him just gave him more years to get into the proper position.

The craft was designed to send signals to earth once a year to relay its progress, and to remind the earth that it was there and would return.

*****

At first the days were long, and filled with loneliness. She missed him, and life became a matter of routine. One ate because that was expected. One worked to help fill the hours. And the nights were for dreaming, her favorite time of day.

******

He was awakened by the sensation of warmth spreading through him. He felt like he just laid down and now was cheated of a decent night’s rest. He was beyond sleep, more like the eternal sleep of the dead, and now he was resurrected to serve his purpose.

He glanced out the port window and gasped at the apparent closeness of the binary star system. Two suns sharing power equally over what looked like an expanse of nothing. He panned the lenses further away and verified the few planets. They were rocky and small in appearance. He guessed there may be a gas giant further out, much like his own system. He didn’t see the paradise of water and clouds, but then he hadn’t been expecting to. One sun was too hot, and the other too cool.

This mission didn’t have to be manned. He knew that, but he wanted to be the one t o see it with his own eyes. He had to know that space travel, albeit limited, was still possible. Strange, a thought of Miranda’s smile crept into his mind. He dismissed it easily. He felt he had only said “Good Bye” yesterday. He knew this wasn’t correct, but his body’s system of time couldn’t mourn her yet.

He took many pictures, and sent probes to gather samples of soil from the planetoids. He requested that one be named Miranda, then destroyed the request. This was larger than any unqualified sentimental feeling. He never meant for her to get that close. He never meant to hurt her. He shifted the guilty feeling away. She knew of his plans. She knew how important this was to him. He calmly waited.

**************

The day came when she couldn’t quite remember what his voice sounded like. She couldn’t cry anymore. It all seemed so vague, like it had happened to someone else. She looked at photos in an attempt to refresh her memory, but she could no longer conjure up a scene, or see the glint in his eye which she had suffered so much for. Sometimes he haunted her dreams, but in the dream nothing had changed. She knew it was all ready too late.

*************

He returned earlier than expected. His rocket was carefully received. He had sent the information back and the earth got it shortly before his own arrival. The last ten years or so for him felt like little more than a week. He knew that more than ten years of time had passed here. The people dressed differently, looked at him with boredom and disinterest despite his long journey. The crowd was small, mostly comprised of scientific minded academics. He stepped off the launch pad in a state of fear. It was as if he had landed on an alien planet.

No one knew him, no one cared about his achievement. They had  mathematically deduced the location of the planets around the binary system he had viewed. The pictures were nice, but the people had seen artists’ renderings which were more stunning.

He had no real home, and no friends. He thought of Miranda. One of the more zealous academics had arranged a hotel room for him, and he gladly accepted. He slept as if he hadn’t slept in years. The rest of the dead doesn’t have the satisfactory drowsiness, only an emptiness and lack of dreams.

He awoke and was handed some artificial tasting coffee by a sudden robotic arm. He had clothes in the new free flowing style laid out for him on the bed. Perhaps by another robotic arm or an apologetic maid who carefully avoided waking him from his deep slumber?

The academic waited for him in the lobby with an old woman, who looked ill. The academic stared at him like a child in a museum filled with dinosaur bones. He stood, and cleared his throat noisily. “I would like to introduce you to someone. She has given most generously to the scientific community, through endowments and organizing some awareness of your particular program.”

The woman looked about to faint, and not at all pleased to be making his acquaintance. Her eyes stared in horror, as if his visage was that of a monster, or a ghost. There was something vaguely familiar about her, but he couldn’t place it.

“Miranda,” the academic was the only one smiling now, “Derrick.” It all made sense in a horrible sort of way. He had known this might happen, but he had hoped she would be dead. He wanted to remember her beautiful. He didn’t know this lady. She had her hand on her heart, and slipped to the floor. The academic ran to get help, while Derrick stood dumbfounded. Her hand reached out toward him. He backed away from it like it was some sort of sentient lizard groping toward him.

“I don’t know you. You aren’t her.” His mind swirled in confusion. Hadn’t it been only days since he saw her radiant young face? He knew this would happen, yet there was no preparing for this moment.

********************************

She felt her tears slide down her tired face. The pain in her chest returned. This young man before her, looking at her in disgust and fear appeared the same as when she last saw him. His face brought back the dim memories. The lack of recognition caused her long dry well of tears to miraculously renew. She had been dead inside all the years he was away, and now that he was back she had forgotten how painful life was. He looked ready to bolt from the room, yet he didn’t move. She reached out with the strength left in her, and he yelled at her some words that her mind could no longer translate.

This act of dying was long overdue, and the kind professor did all he could to save her. What the doctor and the professor, and all the nurses and robots didn’t know was that she didn’t want to be saved. She didn’t want to picture that awful look on his youthful face.

She wished the professor had let her remain anonymous, yet seeing Derrick one last time was something she had to do. He had ceased to be a real person to her, but more of a dream. A loving, kind dream. The reality of the strange boy was all it took to bring back the pain, and the loss.

****************

They named the first verified planetoid of the binary system Miranda in her honor year’s before. Her name would always come up in discussions about the expedition, and he would be reminded of the frightened old woman instead of the Miranda he wanted to remember.

He tried to live life as normally as he could, but he felt he hadn’t ever quite made it home. Too much had changed while he did not. He was isolated in this foreign alien world.

****************************

The professor thought he would give Derrick a long overdue visit. No one answered, so he knocked louder. Finally, getting concerned, he called the police to open the door. They found him seated at an old fashioned wooden desk, with an antique gun in one hand, and his bloodied head on the desk, laying sideways as if he was taking a much needed  nap from some taxing academic endeavor. He had been dead for some time, but not having any close friends or loved ones no one thought to stop by until the professor.

 

Posted in Fiction, Uncategorized, Writing

Timed Write—Between the Cliffs of Venus Part 2

Posted on by jennrae

Adi woke up, her head aching and pounding. The hulking giant beast man leered at her in the copter. Was she dead? Was this some messed up after life? She patted herself down, the plans were gone, as was her lasgun. Damn. Of course they would have stripped her clean. She was a goner for sure.

“Hey, where are you taking me? I don’t suppose there is any use trying to make a deal with you, is there?”

The creature’s face remained the same weird leer, no recognition seemed to enter the thing’s eyes. The person driving the copter remained silent. Was it Harris? Or did she imagine that? This could be her chance to take out the mastermind behind her people’s destruction. This could be it, the only chance to get so close to the villain of her generation.

But, they had removed her weapon, and her head pulsed in agony. She remembered being shot. It seemed ages ago. Her arms were painfully tied behind her back with thick cords. “Okay, you got me, so what now?”

“The silent treatment? Are you Harris, then? Kinda impressive that you came out here to Venus on my account.”

“The silence really gets to you doesn’t it? Must’ve been very lonely out here on your own.”

She heard the voice from the front of the small airborne vehicle. He didn’t turn around. She couldn’t verify for sure that it was him. It would seem strange that someone so important would come in person. But, she could have sworn she saw his face.

“Your father was once a friend of mine, many years ago.”

“You knew my father?”

“Sure. I knew a lot of folks in the early days when we just started to develop this place. I modified that lasgun to stun only. I didn’t want to kill you. Not yet anyhow. I would like to know, what exactly you know. Where the Blue Rim is hiding out, for starters. Or, how about how you survived out here, all by your lonesome.  That is quite impressive.”

“So, you rescued me, to disarm me, and torture me?”

“It doesn’t have to be torture, does it? You gotta be lonely. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a friendly chat, you know, for once?”

She couldn’t gauge whether he was serious or joking. His voice was muffled by the whirring noise of the machine and the wind whipping around them. She would never give up the rebel’s location. She would rather throw herself out of the copter and fall into eternity. The hulking man beast was blocking her path to the door with its crooked smile. Glassy eyes staring at her, not seeming to understand beyond its orders of watching her.

“While we are just chatting, friendly like, why don’t you tell me where we are going?”

“All in good time, Adi. We are almost there.” She felt the copter shudder to a still and land with a plume of dust rising to cover the windows. She squirmed attempting to free herself from the cords, feeling her skin painfully being scraped away in the process.  The pilot got out of the copter, the door shutting behind him. Another man beast yanked the door near her open and roughly grabbed one of her arms, dragging her forcefully from the vehicle into a dusty area that served as some kind of landing pad.

The man she assumed was Harris walked in front of her with an escort of beasts with lasguns. Her beast man dragged her along while her boots scuffed a dust trail behind her. Her mind was trying to figure out where she was. If she could get free perhaps she could tell the others of this place.

“Bring her in, and shut the door.” The man said without turning around. The floor was made out of some sort of smooth laminate. It was smooth and white and a large machine was in the middle of the room with a chair in the middle of it. She dug her heels in.

“Come on, Adi. It is almost time for our little chat.” The man removed his helmet gently, handing it off to a person who seemed to come out of nowhere to take it for him. “Oh you don’t like my little chair. I just wanted you to be comfortable, and in a place where we wouldn’t need to argue or fight, or waste needless time. This handy device records thoughts, and thoughts don’t lie. Oh, they can at first, but after a while, the truth will out. You can’t run forever. I assure you, it is comfortable. And you won’t remember a thing. You will wake up refreshed and be on your way.”

“You are Harris. Why are you doing this?”

“The burden of keeping secrets and of people trying to undermine what I am trying to do here is getting tiresome. Don’t you see, that I am trying to do the best for everyone? Why can’t you appreciate that? That information you were going to smuggle out? Yeah, it just would have sabotaged everything. Set me back a long long way if your little group blows this facility up. Earth is on its way out, the future is here, but it is my future. The future I envisioned. I won’t let you ruin it for everyone else.”

Another man entered with a tray of tools for the machine. He left quickly but not before she caught a glimpse of his face. “Wait, what? That is Harris too? How can there be more than one of you?”

“Same technology as the beast men. All about cloning and technology. It is how and why I, Harris, can personally get you from the sky, all the while another Harris is still running things on Earth, and another Harris is running another laboratory far from here. You cannot stop us. There is, fortunately, only one of you.”

Was it all truly hopeless? Her head hurt, her arms were chafed and raw and bleeding on the white floor.  She had to free her hands. She had to get out of here so she could warn the others.

She looked around the room, it was circular and there were several doors where the other Harris’s seemed to go. The beast men stayed by the door. She watched as the Harris in front of her loaded a syringe with a clear fluid, getting the straps on the chair like device ready.

She somersaulted backwards suddenly aiming for the lasgun in the hands of one of the beast men behind her. She knocked it out of his surprised hands as he grunted confused. His companion looked on moving slowly toward her.

Harris turned around pointing at her but she didn’t wait to her what he said. She had the lasgun in her mouth and and hopped out through the door which she opened by slamming her shoulder into it, running for the copter.

She used the lasgun to shoot the cords sizzling some of her skin in the process as she clenched her teeth in pain. The hulks were coming up behind her. She fired the lasgun at them both which slowed them down but did not stop them as they felt very little pain.

Luckily for Adi, they were pretty slow. She reached the copter first, yanking open the door and shutting it loudly. She locked the doors. Her com and beacons were removed from her jacket by Harris or his goons. How to get this thing started up without a key. She felt the hulks shaking the copter.

She opened the compartment below the main unit and carefully removed some wires, rewiring them and making new connections. She would need to hurry, she heard a crack in the glass and saw it form like a snowflake from her days on Earth. “Father I need your strength about now. Please, guide me to the Blue Rim.”

The copter powered up, lights a glow, and lifted off the ground. One of the creatures was hanging onto the tail and she spun it around to get him off. She noted the coordinates of this place in her mind, the only tool she had left.

She only had so much fuel she noted looking at the gauge, and she had to get away from here. Where were the others? How could she reach them now? She didn’t have her beacon, besides it alerted Harris to her location.

She might be all that was left of the resistance. But she had to hope. Her life had to have a purpose. She set off in a direction away, seeing other figures on the ground shaking their fists at her as she drifted further from the building.

 

 

“The critics and reviewers of a hundred years from now, if they remember any of us at all, may have opinions much different from those of today.”
——Fred Saberhagen
Quote• Posted on by jennrae
Posted in Fiction, Uncategorized, Writing

Writing Prompt — When It All Comes Crashing Down

Posted on by jennrae

Aimee looked out the large picturesque window of trees and vines and rolling hills of grass. It was pretty, it was seemingly solid. But, she knew it was all an illusion. She remembered a boy a long time ago that died jumping off the edge. How much she wanted to follow him even knowing she would not survive. Some days that was all she wanted to do. She was head of the council for the city and they all looked to her for guidance now.

She had no idea how great she had it being a carefree child running about the world without thinking of the future. That boy woke her up.  She recalled all the grown ups whispering in hushed voices. Certain people disappeared and no one would tell her why back then.

Now, she was an adult nearing forty and she knew things now she wish she didn’t. Her neighbor cities in the sky had started having little issues at first. Repairs were becoming more frequent now.

She clenched a paper in her hand, wrinkling it, twisting it. She could throw it in the garbage by the table of the conference room. She smoothed it on the table reluctantly. She straightened her suit jacket, adjusted her collar. Aimee breathed in deeply, letting the air out slowly.

People began to file in with their coffee cups and idle chatter. They took their seats carefully, pulling their small black chairs out and pushing them in. She watched them fill the room slowly.

“Mrs. Hailey, I believe we are all here now. You have the chair.” Ben Howard gestured toward her being the last to take his seat, the rest had their memo pads with stylus looking serious but unconcerned. The typical expression of the community.

The world’s problems were left down on the Earth. Their issues were usually simple ones, who would coach the girls volleyball team or who would replace the technician for the lawn maintenance machines. Aimee kept thinking back to that boy and his backpack. He thought he was saving her world but perhaps he was just putting off the inevitable.

“You are all here because I have been informed of a problem that has been occurring more and more often among our neighbor cities. I am sure you all know we do  not want general panic. So, what you share must be minimal.”

“I’ve heard some rumors. Some cities don’t respond to calls anymore. Maybe a technical issue with the screens?”

“Oh yeah, I haven’t reached Cerberus in days.

“Had that trouble with Nova City, too.”

” Yes, there have been a lot of problems. However, I just got word that it isn’t the screens failing. We have confirmation from a survivor. Someone with their own personal aircraft. The system that allows the flotation devices are failing.It has been failing for awhile.”

Everyone grew silent, looking around the room in quick glances and looking at phones and watches and screens.

“Don’t allow this to leave this room. We do not want panic. However, we need a plan. Our neighbors are all gone with their survivors back on Earth which is a wasteland. They need supplies and we do not know when or how much time we have left here. We are getting more isolated all the time and I am not sure how much supplies we will have left.”

“Mrs. Hailey, what is that paper about?” Rita Tollingford asked pointing at the crinkled paper.

Aimee took the paper again and crumpled it up putting it in the trash. “Nothing. I don’t want you to worry. We just need to prepare. We need to figure out what we can spare. And we need to make sure we have an evacuation plan that works.”

“Where are we going to go? What’s the nearest city?”

“There are no longer any cities nearby, the nearest one is New Bakersfield, and it is in the same condition we are in. We would have to head down to the Earth where the other survivors are.”

“How do we know any of this is real? What if it is some scam to get free supplies from us? The ground dwellers have done this sort of thing before.”

Aimee sighed. “Ben, not everything is a big lie. You are just going to have to trust me.”

“Like we trusted your parents? How many people disappeared? All over what some kid claimed? Some kid from down there no less. My father just gone one day because of some crayon scribbles in a backpack. And, now you are telling me some people down there need help, and that we are in danger. The information coming from earth dwellers can’t be trusted.” Ben got up abruptly walking out. Others watched him leave some reluctantly getting up others remained seated nervously tapping their stylus.

“I guess we are done here. I will try to convene another meeting later today on a plan.” She watched the others go. Some were unconcerned walking out the same way they walked in. Others were anxious.

Aimee looked back out the window. Picked up her glass of water and took a sip, setting it back down on the table. She felt the world tilt slightly. That has happened before and it always rights itself. It was fine, she thought to herself, watching the trees and the grass as a slight breeze started to sweep through.

Her water glass slid from the table and crashed into the wall sending shards of glass out violently. Her hand reached out for the table to grip something but the table also slid against the wall pinning her hand in place. She felt a surge of pain in her hand and felt the blood begin to ooze slowly. The bookcases tilted over next spilling discs and covers onto the floor in a cascade of paper and plastic. An alarm began to blare piercing into her brain as she sat with her hand shoved into the wall by the heavy table.

she knew this would be the end of her, but hoped that her family was aboard their ferry going to safety. Don’t wait for me, she cried out quietly, her voice dimming as the lights flickered and went out one at a time.

” Maybe I will see you again, my friend. Perhaps you knew more than I gave you credit for.” She said thinking of the boy who threw himself off the edge of the world.

Posted in Fiction, Uncategorized, Writing

The Need to Write and Upcoming Birthdays…

Posted on by jennrae

There are a lot of  May birthdays for writers. So, I am going to list who is coming up. And of course, there are always some authors whom I have not written down or miss because my brain is imperfect and fallible. But, the ones i have on my handy dandy list are Roger Zelazny May 13th, one of my all time favorite authors. He happens to share a birthday with Stephen R Donaldson who wrote epic fantasy. So, most likely will do a shared post there.

May 27th is the birthday of Harlan Ellison, science fiction writer who also could be quite humorous. May 18th is Fred Saberhagen, another great science fiction writer.

A big oversight for me was skipping Robert E. Howard, the author of Conan the Barbarian. His birthday was on January 22nd in 1906. Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs both influenced science fiction and fantasy in their earlier days and would influence the authors that would follow them.

I might deal with him on Burroughs’s birthday because I equate them in style and time period to each other. So, that might be a good place to address Howard.  Much like Tolkien and Lewis, writers of a certain time affect each other and the future and sometimes it is better to comment on them in a joint post anyway.

Part 2–That Need to Write…

I got lucky with a day off in the middle of the week from my day job so I find myself with the desire and time to write. I need to write. If I stop for too long a period I feel like a part of me is missing.

It may be hard to understand to those that don’t write. Although people in the habit of journal-ling I would think could understand, or anyone with a routine that is part of their being. For some it might be running or exercising. For others maybe it is going to the same restaurant at the same time on a regular basis. Whatever is part of your routine, you just feel off sometimes when you aren’t participating in it.

For about a week I got the great feeling of doing what I love to do on a regular basis. Now I am back to work and trying to fit it in around the cracks. I have always had issues finding the balance between work and play, important and not important. But, now I have a sense of urgency in that I don’t want to lose this thread I am on.

I want to continue this writing streak even if it means scribbling on napkins in a spare moment or jotting down ideas in the middle of the night. It is part of who I am and how I see myself. Being a writer is more of a calling than a job. You don’t have to write to survive technically.  But I do get more irritable and agitated the longer I go without it.

It is like listening to the perfect song for the mood you are in. It is work you do for yourself like a good meditation. It is cathartic and soothing. It is like I am letting things out that I have kept trapped in a little cage.

I need to write. It is part of who I am. And, I know I will find a way to keep it going because it means a lot to me.

I appreciate all who come by this way or follow me on twitter or word press because it means so much to a writer to have an audience. It makes it all seem so much more important. It is like the difference between speaking in a mic to a roomful of people or singing in your shower all alone.

Both can be great. No one will judge you in the shower, but it is important if you want to improve to get actual feedback. And as  a writer I am constantly looking for ways to improve. Not just my writing but my health, my life, and how I deal with the realities of a complex world. So, thank you. Thank you so very much. Hugs to all.

JenRae.

 

 

 

Posted in Fiction, Uncategorized, Writing

Writing Prompt — One Possibility

Posted on by jennrae

*This is inspired by James Mascia’s Other Worlds: Writing Prompts for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer.

 

“It is so beautiful here, isn’t it?” Aimee swung her feet casually over the ledge back and forth enjoying the whooshing sound.

He held back, reluctant to look down. “Come on, there is nothing to be afraid of. Where you come from, is it so different?”

“Well, Aimee, I came from a dirt town, on the ground. We would be lucky if we had a tree tall enough to climb. This place is beautiful, and I am not used to it. That is a long way down. Wouldn’t your mother be scared to know you were sitting on the edge like that? I mean, shouldn’t we be heading back?”

“My mother isn’t worried. She knows I won’t fall.” Aimee smiled an innocent friendly smile. She had short blonde hair, freckles and green eyes that were large and luminous. Butterflies and birds flitted about and the majestic birch trees added to the picture of intense beauty.

They were on a very large platform way above the earth where the air was still pristine, where plants and animals could breathe and flourish. Not like the deserted barren place he had been living.

He won a lotto pass to live here. Every now and then the elite threw a bone to the lower classes allowing a fraction of them to ascend to the cloud cities. He was one of the lucky few. It was breathtaking but frightening.

And then there was the task left to him by his brothers. He looked away from Aimee. Her family was his foster family. He was staying with them, eating with them. Sharing little moments like this. Yet it was all a sham.

When it came time to have a position here, he would at best be the janitor while she would be a councilwoman or Professor or some other such profession where her hands wouldn’t need to get dirty. He was here for the grunt work, the work they didn’t want to do.

He was also older than Aimee. Older in years, older in experiences, older in all ways. He felt like he had lived a couple lifetimes all ready. Sometimes it was too much. What was expected of him by his family. What he wanted to do, versus what he had to do.

There were others here who were also planning, and they had contacted him not long after he arrived. He watched Aimee kick her legs a few more times, the birds chirping above them. It seemed like the garden of Eden, paradise on Earth. Only this garden could come crashing down all too easily. Maybe more Tower of Babel, Or Sodom? Not all here were as innocent as Aimee.

In fact, it was the fact that there were Aimee’s running around, laughing skipping, and jumping that gave him pause. His mission would be so much easier, so much  more fulfilling if somehow God could come down and save all the Aimee’s. All the innocent children could somehow be spared.

But that was  a fool’s dream. God doesn’t work that way anymore. Besides, these children would grow up to be monsters. Perhaps it is a kindness, he rationalized. Yes, better for them to leave the world pure of mind and heart. They will go straight to heaven like the angels they are.

They will not ever know suffering, starving, pain. They will not know what it is like to watch your baby brother be burned alive by bombs, or have a mom who is crippled by a landmine that wasn’t defused from some past conflict.

Or a sister who was raped repeatedly and eventually ended her own life in shame. A father who no longer spoke, having witnessed most of this. And, then like magic, his family perhaps because of all their sufferings gets the elusive and rare lotto pass. But why did he not feel lucky?

Sometimes he felt that some strings had been pulled; he was not put here by accident. He was here to serve a purpose. God himself may have willed it. But, there was definitely some mortal man’s hand on it. He could not believe his family would ever be so lucky. Luck had left them a long time ago.

“Aimee, lunch time!” He heard a voice call out. Aimee reluctantly got up, brushing the grass off her leggings. “Aimee!” The call came again with  a tinge of annoyance added. “I’m Coming! Sheesh!” She yelled back, shaking her head and rolling her eyes.

“You don’t know how lucky you are, Aimee. To have a mom that cares about you.”

“I am sure your Mom cares about you too. All mom’s care.”

“Oh, of course, my Mom loves me dearly. But, she needs to be taken care of, she cannot take care of me anymore.”

“Is she sick?”

“In a manner of speaking. She stepped on something that blew up her leg. So, now she is bedridden, and we take care of her.”

“I’m so sorry that happened to you. That must be awful. I will send some good thoughts her way, that maybe she can be healed and good as new.”

“That would be very kind of you.” Aimee gave him a strange look and ran in the direction of her mom’s voice. He watched her recede. He knew no one would be calling or waiting for him so he took his time taking the view in. He took a step toward the edge and looked down. He could see clouds, and sky and a receding base of metals and vines going into nothing, for eternity.

His heart started to beat fast, and he backed away. It was too much. Man should not reach out to heaven like this. There was something artificial and wrong about this. That his people should be starving and these people should have paradise. What did they do to deserve this?

They had a birth lottery, where they were born into paradise. Maybe it was time to even things out. But Aimee’s smile. She didn’t deserve this. Why was he chosen for this mission? He just wanted to be a kid himself and not have a care in the world, run after Aimee and have cheese sandwiches and juice and then be sent out to play once again.

That life appealed to him. It would be so simple. Just agree to everything, and then not do it. Just act like the kid he was supposed to be. Just play. Live and play. Forget the past, forget that others are still out there suffering. Just enjoy his lucky situation.

Would the others let him walk away? Probably not. They might tell on him. He was just a kid. Who would believe his word over an adult’s? He felt stuck. He had to follow his mission, but he didn’t want to. What was the right thing?

Aimee ran up to him out of breath, her blonde hair all over the place. “Aren’t you hungry? We got peaches and cream, and orange juice, and some grapes. Why didn’t you come? The food is for you too.”

“I’m sorry, Aimee. I’ll be a long in a few minutes, okay? I just have a lot to think about, and if you could tell your Mom to just save the food for later? You’re a good person, Aimee. A good friend, I hope you know that, and never forget that. You have helped me more than you will ever know. ” She looked at him confused, and ran back, shouting, “Okay.” on her way back to deliver the message.

He walked over to his backpack that had some crayons and a coloring book and some trail mix in it. He ripped out the last page out of the coloring book and took the black crayon and started to as carefully and simply as he could write out his brief story, and who were the conspirators in the plot to blow up the suspension system. He made sure and wrote names down so they would know.

It wasn’t our job to end life, that was God’s. And, he felt that Aimee had shown him the way to what he must do. He added at the bottom, ‘Please do not blame yourself, Aimee. You are the best, and you showed me the path. I will miss you. God Bless.’  He put it on top the coloring book where it would be seen and carefully zipped up the backpack.

He placed the backpack carefully where he knew she would see it when she came back. He walked up to the edge, and looked straight ahead, and calmly, walked off the edge of the world into the clouds. People would believe him now he knew. He would be with the angels because his conscious was clear.

 

Posted in Uncategorized, Writing

Andre Norton Female Pioneer, plus Patricia McKillip: It’s All about the Name, and Victor Hugo: Social Injustice Warrior, oh and in honor of Hugo, a Hugo Worthy Random Tangent…

Posted on by jennrae

I actually misplaced one of my lists so that is my excuse for missing Andre Norton, who influenced me a great deal. One could argue that without Norton, women and science-fiction would be mutually exclusive. She was the pioneer unless you want to count Mary Shelley. But Shelley had no idea that there would be a genre of Science Fiction, she was just writing a weird little short story on a dare. If it failed, oh well, she had a good time with her friends. Since it succeeded of course, that makes it a defining event in the history of Science Fiction and women writers.

Ursula K LeGuin I would argue is also a pioneer because she was perhaps the first, the first that I know of, that didn’t have to hide her gender behind initials or a pseudonym. She was unashamedly female, and it was obvious, blatant and there for all to see. Not many men named Ursula. I don’t know any, but who knows.

Andre, who was actually in real life named Alice Norton, used a male first name. She was the first female to be inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy hall of fame. She was a pioneer. Sadly she passed away in 2005. One of my other favorite authors, C.J. Cherryh used initials to hide gender, although I am sure everyone knows C.J. is a woman nowadays as well as Andre Norton, but when they were starting out in the fifties and sixties and even seventies, it was thought that most science fiction readers were male and would balk or not be as likely to read or purchase work written by a female.

I would argue the stereotype of sci-fi readers is still a largely white male base. Whether that is reality or not, I have no idea. But I grew up reading Andre Norton, C.J. Cherryh, Ursula K LeGuin and Anne McCaffery and Patricia McKillip. Katherine Kurtz was also big in the eighties, which by then gender wasn’t considered a bad thing or anything to worry about. Ursula had managed to knock that assumption of what readers would do to a female genre author completely out of the water with the success of her Earthsea Trilogy.

Vonda McIntyre is another one that I can recommend, and there are many, many more. Some of them wandered into historical fiction like Morgan Llywellyn and Colleen McCollough, some went to fantasy like LeGuin and Cherryh. I will say though, for these last two, I adore their fantasy, but I love their science-fiction even more.

Margaret Weiss who wrote many many fantasy novels with a fellow writer Tracy Hickman, called DragonLance which were largely inspired by Dungeons and Dragons, eventually tipped her toe into the waters of science fiction and wrote one solo trilogy plus one. Four books total, a planned trilogy and one additional book. They are called the Star of the Guardians books, and if you haven’t read them, you should. They have been at the top of my list for so long, and there is even a spin off series that I had to hunt down to find. I think I still might be missing one.

They deal with genetics, monarchy versus democracy, politics, and even transgender type issues in the spin off series mostly. They are phenomenal, and are so much better, sorry Hickman, from anything she wrote with anyone else.

Random Tangent Worthy of Victor Hugo…

Her sci-fi was what Hickman affectionately termed “Galactic Fantasy” what I have heard termed space opera in the past, basically if there is a divide in science fiction and you had basically two bins to place them into, one would be Star Trek, and one would be Star Wars.

And yes, I am simplifying it immensely. In reality there are dozens of sub-genres from Cyberpunk, to dystopia, to hard sci-fi, space opera, alternate history, and I am sure several I am forgetting. But if you have to, you can condense it into two bins. Star Trek, okay, you have some science in there. Here is your Heinlein, your Asimov.

In the Star Wars bin, you would have your Battlestar Galactica, your Stars of the Guardians would go here. Sure, it is in a futuristic place, and people seem to go places in space, things are mentioned but not too much. Basically, people use a light saber type of weapon, and it is all about the drama and the people and what they are doing.

In Star Trek, there are people, a few core indispensable characters but it is mostly about the situation. It is about the futuristic problem that they have run into. The plot is driven by the reactions to the futuristic environment or the situation they are in.

In Star Wars, it usually is a situation that is good versus evil and fate and destiny, and it is about how the characters find a way to come out on top.They typically aren’t reacting to the setting, the setting is the window dressing or the background, the problem usually revolves around a dictator, king, emperor, or evil guy, and the good guys must rally and find a way to free their planet, or people.

Basically, you can take this plot to Earth in the far past, or to a Middle Earth type setting, and voila, it still works. If you take Star Trek and do this, you get Star Trek 4, A Voyage Home. Not a bad movie, but it essentially is making fun of Star Trek, showing it as funny and ridiculous and contrasting it with the known world.

The science fiction becomes the joke, the part that is silly. It becomes soft sci-fi as opposed to hard sci-fi. The science is there, in how they explain how they get back in time, and go forward, but like most science fiction that needs to gloss over things, you don’t focus on how it works, it just does and you just assume the writer must know what they are doing.

/end of rant. Now, Back to the Post…Yes, Hugo does this in Les Miserables, he says, and now back to our characters….after going on a lengthy diatribe about society…talk about author’s presence being felt. Not subtle, at all. 

So to sum up, Andre opened the door, and Ursula knocked the door completely off the frame, and any genre writer who is also a woman, should be grateful to these two because if they hadn’t broke free who knows when it would have happened. They made what Weiss would do later possible.

I happen to think it would have happened eventually, but so much great fiction in genre or speculative fiction was published in the eighties. It would have been a tragedy if none of that had happened. So, I for one, am very grateful to these two, and the others who came before and have come since. We all make it easier and more possible for future generations of writers.

Part 2 –McKillip

Now, the other birthday I missed I was about to do a post on, and I let myself get distracted. I am blaming Mardi Gras. Although, it is really just poor planning. Patricia McKillip’s birthday was right at the end of February. Her Forgotten Beasts of Eld for a long time was one of my favorites. I had a rare edition, which I lent to a friend. The friend got the impression I gave it to her. And, it disappeared into the nether. I believe it got re released and I bought the new edition, but of course it isn’t the same. The picture of the cover art in the quote post is from the edition I originally had. One thing I learned from this, I have not lent out a book that I care about since.

If I let you borrow a book, trust me, that book isn’t precious to me. I believe McKillip also wrote the Riddlemaster of Hed, and I used to have an edition of this, I think it got lost in the great paperback trade in fiasco. It was also an old edition. I do have some old paperbacks still that survived.

Off the top of my head I still own The Gormenghast novels from the sixties, 1984 an edition from the 50s that unfortunately is falling apart, Cards of Identity which I believe is from the sixties, my LOTR editions which are from the sixties, and my Jack Vance books that are from the seventies or early eighties. First edition Lyonesse? check. Green Pearl? check. And an Avon edition of the Grey Prince from the seventies. I need to go through and see what else remains.

I live in a small apartment, so my paperbacks have been in storage, and so, knowing what I have isn’t something readily available to me at the moment, but maybe someday I will have it organized. That edition of Forgotten Beasts of Eld was from the late seventies and for a while would have been worth considerable money depending on its condition. A pristine copy could easily go for over seventy dollars. Considering i found it was the Salvation Army for maybe 50 cents at the time, it was a great loss.

Unfortunately, I had a fair amount of rare books that I gave away without realizing it. It is a lesson that I hope I have learned for good now.  McKillip was a good writer, Forgotten Beasts reminds me of Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn. Both deal with exotic beasts, and the importance of having an identity. McKillip focused on the name. The name of something had magical power, and knowing the name of the being could give you power over it. The power of a name is an old one in fantasy. At least back to Tolkien, and I would say back to the original tale of Rumpelstiltskin; names and knowing names have always been a big deal.

LeGuin’s Tombs of the Atuan also largely dealt with the power of a name, and naming things. So, this is a well tread idea, but McKillip makes it the most important feature of her magician, his power is in knowing the names of things. I would need to re read it to do a fair review of it, since it has been years. But, her books taught me a lot, in more than one way.

Part 3– Victor Hugo, Moral Crusader of the Nineteenth Century

Another birthday I missed was Victor Hugo. I all ready went on a rant about Les Miserables, which I have read, unabridged, translated into English. His style is the typical style of the nineteenth century. Nowadays we like our authors to be hidden in the background. A good author will blend in the background and not draw attention to his or her presence.

Well, Hugo’s hand prints are all over his work. His presence is very much there, and he stops the narrative more than once to go off on what he sees as the decadence of society and how this moral depravity affects the downtrodden. He was a lot like Dickens in that he saw it as his duty to show society what it was doing to the less fortunate. He used his platform to expose and highlight the problems in society.  Les Miserables deals heavily with several serious issues among them, poverty, prostitution, homelessness, and injustice.

The main character is imprisoned for stealing bread because he was starving. This simple attempt at survival follows him like his own shadow, he cannot escape this fate. This act always hangs over this character.

Fantine’s fate made me cry more than once. A girl who is in love with a boy. She falls in love, the boy was just playing around. She gets pregnant and is abandoned. There is no safety net back then, and being a single mother is not considered okay. Back then some women were even put in sanitariums for out of wedlock births, and often babies were put into other relatives care or orphanages, or into a baby minders’ care which often did not bode well for the baby.

In this situation, Fantine does everything in her power to take care of her daughter, she cuts her hair off, and sells it, she has her teeth yanked out, and sells them, she eventually sells her body and eventually gives up the daughter because she cannot take care of her.

Cosette ends up in a bad place but eventually she meets up with the main character, Val Jean, and he ends up adopting her and they go by another name and she ends up getting a schooling with some nuns and eventually ends up marrying and being okay.

But, it is her mother that always makes me so very sad. In today’s world, Fantine would have had some recourse; some way to get assistance. In her world, she made a mistake of believing her lover would marry her.  Hugo seems to feel bad for her, and shows step by step how she was forced into this awful life and how circumstances just kept getting worse. He doesn’t seem to condemn her for her actions but seems to blame society for allowing it to happen, and he doesn’t seem to believe Cosette deserves that fate and intervenes to prevent it.

He puts a spotlight on this problem as well as later on when there are many gamins running around wild. Gamins are street children who have no family and just fend for themselves, often they survive by begging or pick pocketing, and he seems to describe a ton of these, and these groups of children also appear to exist in Dickens’s world as well, so I can only assume that this was typical of the city during this time period.

No mandatory school, no welfare, no programs, you just ran about looting, and stealing  and hiding from the police. Cosette breaks out of this cycle because Val Jean gets her an education. Most of these gamins would not have access to this and outside of a charitable institution and occasional assistance, they would just be a drain on society as a whole for their entire lives, growing up into the criminals that must be jailed.

All in all, I found Les Miserables a dreary tale, but I suppose in the end there was light in the tunnel but it seems like sheer chance, and I can’t help but think had this been a true story, Cosette would have ended up Fantine Part 2. Being a fictional novel the author could get her out of that fate. Reality isn’t always that pretty.

What I learned by reading Hugo is also what I learned by reading Melville, and Dickens. There are more than one way to tell a story. And what may be fashionable now as far as language and structure, does change over time. Not everyone can read these books. I can but it takes serious dedication and work. You have to want to read them. In contrast, Jane Eyre  and Wuthering Heights are relatively easy to read.

So, it isn’t necessarily the era but perhaps the overbearing style of these writers. You get the feeling they know better than you and they have the moral high ground. They come across a little pretentious. Who knows what the future readers will think of our current works? Which ones will stand the test of time? Who will get taught in school? Will future students be studying Stephen King,  or something more obscure?

 

Posted in Fiction, Uncategorized

Writing Prompt –Parallel Universe

Posted on by jennrae

Inspired by James Mascia’s Other Worlds.

Your character or group of characters has walked through a dimensional rift and finds himself/herself in a parallel universe where almost everything is the same except for several minor details. However, these details have a huge impact on the way the world has formed.

“Okay team, you ready to go through? This is only the second time the rift has been opened. We tracked Mushroom the monkey for a week before his transmitter failed so we know the rift itself won’t kill you. What is on the other side, well, we got a hand full of images sent back before the signal died. And, the good news is the place is so much like here, except it appears the air and water quality are much better. This might be the future. You have been chosen to assess the risks and possibilities.

“The goal will be to explore, but make it back here in exactly a week’s time, at 0500 hours. That is when it will be open again, so it is imperative that you make it back to the rendezvous on time. Else, you will have to stay until we send another team. If one of you is compromised, make sure the equipment makes it back with somebody to the point so we get the data.

“We can plan a rescue mission if need be, but we need that information.” The old man took a moment to drink from a glass of water, handing the glass to an assistant who quietly walked away with it. “Any questions?” The five of them looked at the  blue and purple swirling mass a few feet away, scientists and robots zoomed about making adjustments.

This was it, another universe so like their own. The future lay in the hope that this may be the answer to their prayers. “One question, sir.” Lilly raised her voice looking directly at the old man, the leader of this mission. A mission that few knew about, but could affect millions. “Yes, Ms. Neil?”  He glanced at his watch, a timer for the rift set and ticking away.

“Do we know what happened to Mushroom?”

“No, he may have disconnected his collar walking around, we have no recordings or information of violence. It just stopped sending, so it is hard to say. If you happen to find Mushroom, it would be useful to bring his gear back so we can find out what happened. If not, your information should of course be enough. I will say again, this only works if someone makes it back. So, no unnecessary risks.”

Lilly and the rest of the team nodded, facing the rift before them. This was their duty to their country. It was an honor as well. Gershwin and Trombone were military and trained for survival, whereas Lilly and Severn were more scientific minded intellectuals. Nigel was sort of a cross between the two, a former military NASA astronaut. He would lead the mission as he understood both parts of it.

Should something befall Nigel, Lilly was supposed to take charge, although she hoped she wouldn’t have to. Gershwin and Trombone had largely been silent and uncommunicative with her. She couldn’t help but wonder if they had special orders that were kept from the rest. Again, she hoped she wouldn’t find out.

“Good luck ladies, and gentlemen, take your packs, there should be enough rations to survive a week. If you  befriend any locals, even if they seem just like us, be aware that they aren’t. We don’t know their motivations or even if they will react kindly to our arrival.”

They each picked up a heavy hiking style backpack with rations water, and an emergency kit.  They were a well oiled machine. They had been preparing for months for this moment. They lined up and slowly walked up to the portal and one by one passed through it.

Lilly felt a cold sensation and a pin prickling feeling all over and before she could think much more about it she was on the other side with the rest of the team. They backed away from the portal as it flickered and finally disappeared. They were alone.

It was a rocky area with shrubs. Reminiscent of Arizona, she thought. “I used to go running and hiking in Arizona.” She said aloud to no one in particular. The sky was a vivid blue with fluffy white clouds. She breathed in deeply. Fresh clean air. She let it out feeling the sensation in her lungs.

“Let’s set up camp, set our receiver here. We cannot afford to lose the rendezvous point. After we have a perimeter set up, we can explore a little in teams. Meet back here in ten. Everyone has a walkie on them right? We have to keep in touch, any sign of Mushroom let me know. So, first set up, then we explore a little, don’t go too far out.” Nigel looked at each one of them. Lilly set her pack down, started to get the tent out.  She saw the others do the same. Severn started to wander off.

“Severn? Where you going? Nigel wants us to set up first?”

“I am not going far, I thought I heard something.”

“I think we are supposed to go in pairs or not alone.”

“You see where I’m heading right? I am not going far, I promise.”

Lilly watched Severn go over the hill and walk down with rocks sliding about and he disappeared from view.

“Hey, Lilly, you need a hand setting up?”

“No, I’m okay, I just watched Severn head down there.”

“By himself?”

“Yeah, he claimed he heard something.”

Nigel frowned a little. “Hey, Gershwin, can you go after Severn? Just make sure he doesn’t get himself in trouble, he went that direction.” Gershwin nods, shouldering a rifle, and his pack setting off carefully in the direction Severn went.

“Don’t worry, Lilly. Gershwin is a great tracker, and I am sure they both will be fine. In the meantime, we gotta get the fire going, and all the tents up, plus our receiver and beacon so we can transmit. This looks like a pretty empty area, which is good, we won’t have to explain any of this to the natives. ”

Lilly smiled and tried to sound unconcerned. But, something about the way Severn acted seemed off. She hadn’t heard anything. Yet, he heard something. They were just told not to go alone and to keep in touch. “Nigel.”

Nigel turned around and looked at her and saw where she was pointing. Severn’s pack lay on the ground, his walkie peeking out of it. “Why would he not take water? Why leave everything?  Can you help me get some kindling, not much here, but some brush, maybe we can use that. Try not to worry.”

“He didn’t seem right, he didn’t seem like himself. Something seemed off.”

“You think going through the rift made him forgetful?” Nigel laughed as he went about breaking pieces off the sagebrush with a snap. Trombone was setting up a perimeter fence, a  serious frown on his face. “How much do you know about Trombone and Gershwin?”

“I know those aren’t there real names. I know they are military of some sort, and we need some people who know how to protect us. I trust them. They are all about the mission. And it succeeding.”

“What if their mission isn’t the same as ours?”

Nigel shook his head. “Are you sure the rift didn’t make you paranoid? We have only been here, maybe 30 minutes tops, and all ready you are worrying. I know as much as you do. It is just information gathering.”

Lilly nodded again, keeping him close. “Shouldn’t Severn have been back by now?”

“You know how he can be, if he is on the trail of something he can lose track of time. That is why it is so important to take your walkie. The only cell tower we got here is our receiver and it fires information into the portal at intervals where they open it briefly. So, we have to do it the old fashioned way, with radio frequencies, which is why I am mad at him for not taking his.”

Night was beginning to fall all ready, the air began to take on a chill air. Trombone and Nigel worked on the fire, while Lilly finished setting up the receiver. There was still no sign of Severn or Gershwin. The receiver had a green light come on as the generator kicked into life, generating a heater. She held her hands to it. “Who knew the desert could be so cold.”

“Do you want the actual answer to that, because you should know how that works, you know, once the sun sets.” She smiled at Nigel. He was the only likable one on the team since Severn had left.

She found herself increasingly nervous. The fire crackled and spit sparks. It was a safe distance from the machinery. It was mostly to keep any animals away. The heat from the generator plus the electricity it provided for their tools and materials and machines would ensure they stayed near. The fire also helped light up the edges of their perimeter, where Trombone was on duty pacing it with his rifle at the ready, watching and waiting.

“I hope he doesn’t accidentally shoot the others.”

“Gershwin and him have a signal, I am sure they won’t shoot each other.”

“What about Severn?”

“Do you always worry about him so?”

“Nigel. Severn is my brother. Half brother, actually. or Step brother. My father remarried, so, yeah, I have been worrying about him since he was like nine. I haven’t ever really stopped. He has always been a dare devil. But, he is normally more cautious. He isn’t stupid, nor is he usually careless.”

“You need to stop, Lilly. You are worrying way too much. As far as we know, there is nothing to be afraid of here. We have seen no evidence of any settlements. Nor even any animal sightings. Have you checked the soil readings yet? We know the air is pretty good, and we haven’t found any water yet, but there must be some around here, because Mushroom found some.”

“We also do not know what happened to Mushroom.”

Suddenly she heard a loud squeal, it sounded like a whistle or an animal call. “What was that?” Nigel laid a hand on her arm briefly, putting a finger to his lips gesturing for silence.

She saw him glance toward the fire, seeing Trombone’s silhouette, rifle out. He had stopped pacing, was listening as well. Suddenly an arrow whizzed by their heads. “Get behind the apparatus, hurry.” Nigel picked up the arrow and got to the ground, pulling Lilly along, and pushing her down into the reddish dirt. He handed her the arrow. “What do you make of that?”

“It’s. It’s an Indian arrowhead. Like the kind that was used in the nineteenth century against Custer.”

“Quiet. You got any kind of weapon on you?” Lilly flashes a small knife. Nigel looks at it, and kind of frowns. He slowly gets a small gun out, cocks it and makes sure it is loaded. They hear gunfire near the fire. “Trombone.”

Suddenly they hear horses. The hoof beats were loud and the warriors were making loud noises as well and more arrows and additional gunfire erupted around them.  Lilly got nearer to Nigel, her hand shaking gripping her knife. “We have to get them to open the portal now. Have to enter the emergency code.”

“Nigel, if you get up now, you will be killed.”

“Can you fire a gun? You can cover for me.”

“They have guns too, there’s more than just Trombone’s shots going off.”

“This explains why the air and the water are in such good shape. The British settlers, the Europeans in this place did not make it. They must have died off from diseases instead of the native populace. Or some other situation. These people continued to live as they always had, except with guns and horses of course. So, there had been an invasion, but it was unsuccessful here. But they must remember, because of this hostility. They know what invaders are now, they aren’t naive or trusting. Nor are they taking any chances.”

“I don’t want to die like this.” Lilly looked up at Nigel in fear, he handed her his gun. “Then don’t. Cover for me, let me get us out of here.”

“But my brother?”

“Lilly, we have to get out of here now. We will come back, I promise.”

“He’s dead isn’t he?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

They heard Trombone’s gun click, saw his silhouette go down to hatchets and shrieking. “It’s now or never.” Nigel jumped up and ran to the console. Lilly slowly got up pointing the gun at the natives who were surrounding the fence and knocking it down in places. She saw one warrior place a pike near the fire. He held up Trombone’s head and placed it on it, loudly. Lilly felt her stomach start to grumble uneasily, choking down her vomit tasting the acid bitter taste.

“Almost done, Lilly. They don’t seem to be paying us any mind anymore.”

“Maybe it is because we aren’t shooting at them.”

“Well, I think they were distracted with Trombone, as soon as they realize we are here, I am not sure they will bother talking to us.”

Lilly watched a couple warriors setting fire to the tents. She grabbed up her satchel with her notes in it. “We didn’t have time to get many samples.”

“We can’t worry about that now. It’s okay.”

“You promise?”

The rift flared open, at the same time an arrow thudded loudly nearby. Lilly ran for it firing an occasional shot. “Nigel, come on, it’s open!”

He was slumped on the panel, an arrow in his back.”Go, go ahead. Run.” Lilly stopped and turned back toward Nigel, firing shots in the direction of the natives until the gun went click. She dropped her satchel, grabbed him by the arm and with her adrenaline running in her veins pulsing and  throbbing in her ears enabling her to find strength and speed unknown to her, not thinking merely doing, her legs poetry in motion she carried him like an oversized sack of potatoes. Arrows and bullets whizzing here and there, fire consuming the tents, the receiver began to spark wildly and the rift started to flicker and on she ran.

“Only a little farther, you should just drop me and go. The mission.It is more important.”

She didn’t reply because she couldn’t spare the breath or think of the words.  She sprinted carrying the man she knew in this moment she would love until she died. They both crashed into the rift into a pile on the other side, the metal floor crashing into their bruised bodies. Soldiers had guns pointing at the portal as it was shut down an arrow whizzed into the room. Lilly felt her brain go fuzzy, and things started to go blurry and dim for her.

“Get these two some medical attention, now.” The old man bellowed.  He picked up the arrow looking at it carefully. “So much like our world, but more pristine. Unplundered, unpolluted. Underpopulated. No sign of Mushroom, I take it?”

“Sir, both of these members of the team are unconscious. We are still receiving a signal from the other side, further away from the campsite. Are we to assemble a rescue team?”

“Wait until we have these two debriefed. They might give us more information on possible survivors or what exactly happened. Mushroom could still be out there since he isn’t a human, they might not have killed him. I still think his collar was removed or damaged. The signal is coming from Gershwin I suppose?”

“Yes. He was following the other scientist, I think that scientist was attempting to track Mushroom, actually.”

“Interesting. Well, we will try to get these two fixed up and see what they know, and go from there. This just got interesting, gentlemen.” The old man handed the arrow to his assistant who again took it quietly and walked away with it much like the water glass earlier.