Here’s another story excerpt, this time from my story called “The Last Silent Place.” If you like it and want to read more, it’s available for purchase from Smashwords and Amazon, and is coming soon to Apple’s iBooks store. I hope you enjoy it.
———-
The Last Silent Place
The rumors were strong, the strongest Kage had heard in years. After checking every related strand she could find on the weave—not to mention calling in a few irreplaceable favors to insiders at CitGov—she was persuaded to pack a duffle, steal her father’s aircar, and head northwest.
Bluebonnets rustled beneath the aircar as she shot down the side of Tower Hill, roaring past rows of derelict wind turbines. Few of the gigantic machines still worked, but an adequate number to produce the power needs of grumpy old homesteaders like her father. They stood as silent sentinels of an age when mankind believed the natural world could provide for their consumptive needs. Now, those dreams were as empty and dry as the West Texas oil fields.
When the first Interloper scouts came to visit earth, ecological concerns were set aside as vestigial naivety. Survival has a funny way of turning scientific consensus and popular opinion on their heads.
Her father’s rough voice barked threats over the com. When she refused to respond he tried to initiate his return commands. When those failed he tried his guillotine code. Kage was a thousand steps ahead. There was no way a non-implant oldster like him could outmaneuver one of the best biohackers in the Southwest.
His final impotent threat was to report her theft to the SPs. She’d hacking into NavCom’s central database just before her preflight, having planned for that very move. She substituted her ID info for his, switching the aircar’s registry to her name. There was no trace of the aircar ever being associated with him in any way. If he pushed too hard, the SPs would arrest the drunken bastard for filing a false report.
“Enough,” Kage murmured, mentally severing the connection and cutting off his bile. Silence filled the tiny cabin, at least what passed for silence in this age. The weave still sang with information, all of it pressing against her skull like a tornado bearing down on a house.
She crested a final hill, shooting between a pitted turbine shaft and a gnarly old mesquite before rushing into the old I-20 corridor. A gentle warning pinged on her console as she approached the Grid. Kage signaled her acknowledgement and sent her destination request to the regional NavCom.
Another ping signaled approval, and she gave up control of the aircar to the NavCom. She settled back in relief as the HUD threw a map of her route up on her windshield. The autopilot maneuvered her north between the old Avenger Testing Grounds and the Midlands Shipyard. The sparsely populated and highly restricted nature of the West Texas plains would allow for a nice nap.
Shutting off her connection to the weave, she blackened the windows and settled back for some much needed rest.
I learned about Jean Craighead George’s death via twitter yesterday. I honestly didn’t know much about her beyond the fact that she wrote children’s books, and that my youngest daughter is reading one of them now. I chatted the news to my wife, and she jumped on Wikipedia. I was impressed by some of the facts she was sharing with me, and I remember saying, “That’s what you call a writer.”
Why did I say that? Well look at her life and career as a writer. She was born in 1919, and she graduated from Pennsylvania State University in 1940 with degrees in both English and science. (Do the math on her age there.) She was a member of the White House Press Corps as a reporter for The Washington Post in the 40s, and was a writer and editor at Reader’s Digest from 1969 to 1982.
George wrote over one hundred books. My Side of the Mountain was a Newberry Honor Book in 1960, as was the 1990 sequel On the Far Side of the Mountain. She also won the Newberry Medal for Julie of the Wolves.
Her first book was published in 1948, her last in 2010. She was still writing, speaking, and involved in other projects until her death. (As an aside, go and read her charming writing advice here.)
There’s no doubt Jean Craighead George would be considered a great success by any standard. She was published over one hundred times where most writers struggle to get published once. Sure, it sounds like she had an above average mind and talent, but I don’t think that’s the most important factor in the equation of her success.
It was perseverance.
Look at a her prolificacy. You can be sure she was writing long before she published that first book. You can be sure she was writing long before she started work for the newspaper. You can be sure she was writing long before she went to college and earned an English degree.
Look at how she never stopped. From 1948 to 2010 she published a book every year or so, sometimes several in one year. This was in addition to writing for the newspaper or the magazine. This was in addition to her duties as an editor, a naturalist, a mother, a grandmother, and myriad other responsibilities.
She kept writing.
My daughter has a friend she met on an online writer’s forum. He’s about 20 years old, and he’s self-published several books and stories through Amazon. If I told you his name I doubt you’d know who he is. He’s making money every month from his books, mainly because of the sheer volume he puts out. He’s developed a catalog of works, and is constantly adding to that catalog. Will he ever breakout and become a best-selling author the likes of Stephen King, or Joe Konrath, or Amanda Hocking? Who knows, but at least he has a chance because he’s doing the work and putting himself out there.
This is a lesson for me. Too many times I’ve gotten discouraged or frustrated and given up on my writing for a while. I invariably pick it back up again with excitement, but I need to learn to stick with it and persevere no matter the circumstances.
Here’s an excerpt from my short story, “The Cure.” If you like it and want to read more, it’s available for purchase from Smashwords and Amazon, and is coming soon to Apple’s iBooks store. I hope you enjoy it.
———-
The Cure
Howard set his foot in the face of the rock and pulled himself up to a position comfortable enough to look down at his wife. She smiled up at him, her face flushed from exertion and joy. The sun was ebbing on the final day of their anniversary trip, a second honeymoon spent free climbing in the Colorado Rockies.
Her laugh pierced the clear air as she scrabbled up the dome of exposed granite, sweat glistening on her dark skin. Howard lost himself watching her, reminded how much he adored her, and how she’d returned his love these twenty-five years.
“You’d better get moving,” she chided, “or I’m gonna pass you up.”
He stuck out a playful tongue then turned back to focus on the climb. His next pair of hand holds forced him to stretch up to his left, making him push his limits for the first time. They’d spent half of their days free climbing the formations near their secluded chalet, working daily toward ever more difficult climbs.
No strangers to rock climbing, they’d planned the trip for years, hoping to push their bodies as far as they could. Few people their age could boast about being free climbers.
Howard worked the rope through his ascender and pushed himself up again with his feet. He’d maneuvered his way underneath a jutting outcrop of stone, a path he’d chosen to push his abilities to the limit. Loela had chosen the more direct vertical ascent, saying she’d rather set an easier pace and enjoy the view.
A sudden tremor ran through Howard’s hands, gone as quickly as it began. The park custodians had posted warnings about unusual seismic activity, nothing dangerous, but enough to unnerve most climbers. Run through half a day’s training upon arrival, they’d taken instruction on using the park’s system of auto-belayers and brake ascenders—free soloing being prohibited within the park’s bounds.
He glanced over at his wife, finding she’d ignored the micro-quake and kept moving. The latest of several short-lived tremors during their stay, it was easy to dismiss as anything worrisome.
A small shelf of granite bulged out a few feet beneath the larger overhang. Howard pulled himself onto it, stopping for a breather before tackling the hardest segment of the climb. He thought letting her get to the top first might be worth the ribbing for poor form she’d give him later. As pained as he was to admit it, he might need some help with his final ascent.
Another tremor shook the mountain, longer and more intense than before. Rather than subsiding after a second or two, the quake rumbled on, making Howard’s improvised seat collapse beneath him. His rope zipped through the ascender as he slid down the rock face, jerking him to a stop when its clove hitch finally clamped down.
Unconcerned with his own safety, he steadied himself and looked for Loela. Eyes wide and breathing hard, she hugged the granite, holding fast to the rock with trembling fingertips. Terrified, she still had the presence of mind to make herself small as a cascade of rock tumbled down from above.
Howard scrambled back up the hard stone a fast as he could manage. He starting yelling over the growing noise, trying to break through her fear and get her moving. “This way! Get under here! This way!”
His voice snapped her out of her fugue. She tried to scrabble laterally. Rubble rained down, forcing her to dodge while searching for handholds. Howard wanted to help her, but training told him he’d only slow her down. He’d be no help if he was injured or killed trying to get to her. Better to hold back. Be ready to render aid when the danger had passed.
Loela inched closer, only a few spare feet separating her from Howard’s outstretched hand. “C’mon, baby,” he encouraged, “you’re nearly there. Just a little more.”
Gazes locked, she smiled at him, defying the terror reflected in her eyes. She pushed away from the rock face in an attempt to swing toward him. A sharp crack sounded on the outcrop above. Dust and grit showered Loela, followed by a larger shadow.
The shadow followed by a larger bolder, and a sickening crunch.
Gasping and disoriented, Howard struggled to remember where he was. It was a dimly lit room, painted in muted earth tones. Soft music, meant to soothe him during sleep, played from some unseen source.
He was still aboard the transit ship to the moon.
Tears rolled down his cheek, and he snagged his oxygen tube with his thumb as he tried to wipe them away. He murmured a curse as he struggled to set it right again. His roiling stomach had finally settled, signaling the return of gravity, be it ever so slight. He thought of the possibility of real meal instead of the nutrient drip he’d been administered to carry him through the near thirty hours between Earth and the moon.
The ship docking must have jarred him awake. Too bad it hadn’t happened earlier, he thought, saving him from reliving the nightmare of that day. Vivid, it was a recurrent dream, and more frequent since he’d gotten sick. He tried to shake the memory away as he reached up to loosen the straps securing him to the bed.
He rolled over as best he could, working to slip his legs over the side and get his feet grounded. The oxygen line tangled between his legs, and he spent several curse-filled minutes working to unravel the snarled tubing. Finally freed, he reached over and pulled his wheelchair out of its gravity locks, and set the brakes on the wheels. With a deep breath, he took one handle in a white-knuckled grip, set his other palm down against the mattress, and hauled himself to his feet.
Though he’d hoped the movement might improve his mood, sudden waves of vertigo nearly drove him back to the bed. Wobbling, unsteady, he clenched his teeth and fought to stay upright, leaning hard against the wheelchair’s handles. Soon enough, the queasiness passed, and he set his mind toward the next endeavor.
For the first time in weeks, Howard Lukins took a step unaided. Weak from atrophy and illness, the moon’s low gravity allowed him the dignity of walking under his own power. A gift so powerful it nearly made him weep, the doctors had promised so much more. Another week and he doubted he’d have been well enough to make the trip. He’d put it off as long as possible.
He was working his way along his bed when someone knocked on the stateroom door. With something like a spring in his step, he moved to open it, then realized his oxygen tube was too short. A few steps backward found him struggling with the heavy straps holding his canister to the bedpost. Though the lower gravity gave him freedom of movement, it did nothing to cure the deterioration in his hands. Curses filled the air again as his visitor grew concerned and let herself in.
“Good morning, Mr. Lukins,” came her saccharine voice. “You’re out of bed.”
“Observant as always, Meila,” he sneered back, not bothering hide his disdain. Howard sighed when he saw her, dressed as always in a faux-Tolkien costume—a long velvet dress in deep blue with gossamer sleeves and heavy embroidery along the bodice. It was an affectation elves had adopted in an attempt to make humans feel more comfortable, but only served to fuel Howard’s contempt. As if looking like Arwen while standing in a spaceship on the moon’s surface in a dying man’s stateroom made any sense.
Fatigued, not only from physical exertion, but also from the absurdity of his situation, he let go of the wheel chair and sat down hard on the bed.
“Do you need assistance, Mr. Lukins?” Meila asked as she moved toward him. His inclination was to snap at her. He didn’t want help, least of all from an elf, but he heard Loela’s voice chiding him in his head. The elves were at fault for his messed up life, but they were also his only remaining hope.
For the sake of his wife’s memory, he swallowed his pride and waved a hand at the nurse. “It sure took long enough to get here.”
“I apologize for the delay, but transit from the elevator node takes time.”
“It’s fine. I needed some rest after two days in that infernal elevator car.”
Howard’s eroding condition pressed his doctors into opting for one of Earth’s twin space elevators. They believed the acceleration necessary for escape velocity aboard ship would be too taxing on his heart. He rode up the elevator to the terminal node where an elven transit ship picked him up for transport to the moon. Though safer, the slower speed consigned him to spend two days in makeshift accommodations with Meila and her incessant hovering.
“I’ve come to transfer you to the Celeborn,” Meila said. Howard rolled his eyes at another Middle-earth reference, but the elf missed it as she started gathering his belongings. He sat by helplessly as she packed them up in his duffle bag, explaining they’d be picked up by the ship’s steward. She unstrapped his oxygen canister from the bed with ease, transferring it to its cradle alongside the wheelchair. Then, with practiced care, she slipped her arms around him and helped him move over to the chair.
“Ready?” she asked too cheerfully.
“Sure,” he said. “After all this work, what else would we do?”
Meila was silent as she pushed him out the door. He didn’t know if she just didn’t have an answer, or knew when she was being baited and refused to participate in his childishness. He should really be nicer to her, he thought. She’d done nothing but care for him for several days straight.
When she rolled him out into the ship’s corridors, he was struck again by their stark appearance. Back on Earth, he’d made fun of all the fantasy-style designs they’d adopted in an effort to win humanity’s trust. Meila had warned him he might find true elven architecture jarring, and the ship’s interior showed him why.
Entire sections of the walls were covered with roiling colors often at odds with the floor’s surface. Interspersed here and there were portions of colorless gray or off-white trimmed in muddy brown. Elves could see into different spectrums of light than humans, so he supposed there was more going on than he could perceive. Perhaps these blank spaces were covered in the elven equivalent of inspirational murals.
Howard’s stateroom was near an airlock, so he soon found himself exiting the transit ship to emerge into the moon colony’s giant concourse. The elven base was home to several thousand permanent residents of all races. Though built and maintained by the elves, the ISA had a major foothold there, using it as a jumping off point for space exploration and research.
More like Central Park than an artificial base jutting from the side of an airless moon, the entire concourse was alive with activity. Elves lounged under trees, talking and sharing their afternoon tea. Dwarves passed by in raucous clumps, never caring what anyone around them thought of their banter. Humans scurried to and fro, always in too much of a hurry to notice the wonders around them.
Far overhead hung one of the elves’ engineering marvels, a one-piece, transparent dome protecting the entire colony from the vagaries of vacuum space. It filtered sunlight somehow, presenting the illusion of a boundless azure sky overhead.
Sunlight washed down through a forest, leaving dappled shadows on the wide walkways below. Birds flitted through the trees as squirrels scampered about their business. Dragonflies hovered over the water of a nearby pond. Butterflies and honeybees moved from flower to flower near the sidewalk, going about the mundane business of pollination.
Howard’s breath caught. Honeybees! He hadn’t seen any since he was a child. Extinct on Earth, he’d read they still thrived on Otherworld. Now here they were on the moon. Perhaps the elves were working to reintroduce them to their home world.
Meila pushed him on ahead, passing more and more wonders as they went. Howard counted at least five extinct species along the way, and wondered how many more were hidden deeper in the trees. They branched off onto a smaller path winding through a thick copse of willows. The sunlight dimmed until the path opened back up to reveal a small white building.
Nestled on the side of a grassy slope, the little structure overlooked a pond full of koi. Above the door hung a sign showing one of the few elven glyphs Howard knew. Physician.
“What’re we doing here? This isn’t the Celeborn.”
“No, Mr. Lukins,” Meila replied. “Our chief physician wants to examine you before you depart for Otherworld. Though characteristically smooth, he wants to make sure the transition into hyperspace is made as easy for you as possible.”
“In other words, he’s afraid I’ll croak on the spot from the stress. Well, isn’t that comforting.”
Meila’s smile dimmed, a sight Howard usually took as a victory, but he saw Loela’s frown in his mind’s eye and felt ashamed.
“I’m going soft,” he muttered to himself as she rolled him inside.
The little cottage was sparsely furnished. A small writing desk laden with paper—actual paper—sat against one wall. A distinguished, gray-haired elf in flowing green robes stood to greet him.
He remembered the last time he’d seen those robes.
