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WIP (short fiction)
Knocking out a requested (and hopefully to be bought) short story today.
Here’s a snippet:
“I’m sorry, Manny,” said RuDoLph. They were a trifrontal, with three separate skill loads and sets of emotional and logical responses sitting on top of a single subconscious Weltschauung. They were pretty, morphologically male with hair the color of polished mahogany and skin pale as the flower of an oxygen pond lily, serving as Second Officer on Marlowe’s Epigone, of late my own ship. Most importantly, they were also on the other side of a one-inch energy-reinforced plexi barrier separating me from the rest of the universe. “I mean, everybody knows, right?”
I was talking to Ru right now. Their side of the barrier was a grubby cubicle with faded graffiti on the walls and a strange stain just above the hatch which I’d already memorized. My side of the barrier was an antiseptic chamber three meters square which contained me, a flowmetal table with a reasonably comfortable chair, 24 degree climate control, a decent menu selection, and the end of my world.
“It wasn’t supposed to be me.” My gut twisted with the stupidity of it all. I’d heard this same damned speech a dozen times in my career, from other supra crew I’d known sitting on the wrong side of the same barrier — required by law it was. Fly and Die is very specific. There had been two lovers, three mortal enemies, and a captain among them. Now I was making the same idiot speech I’d heard over and over. “I could have quit any time I wanted.”
Posted: 5:30 pm Sun January 29 2006 |
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