There was a flash and a high-pitched whine; Prestran squinted at the blur above him; it looked like a wisp, but it was much, much larger. It was a brilliant cyan shot through with ripples of bluer color, and it was pretty much invisible against the sky except as a slightly brighter crosswise shape. He […]
Content
Random thoughts, settings, characters, situations, perhaps leading somewhere
File: Squibs
Forms of Energal Control, a third-year course. Unassuming in name, but the scuttlebutt said otherwise. The instructor was legendary. He was a deep tan, medium-height, a little heavy, bald as an egg. Seeing him from a distance, or in line at the school commissary, you’d never guess him to be faculty unless he was wearing […]
In a properly-arranged cibation, there is no acceleration, no feeling of movement until you look around and you’re already gone. But the difficulty is arranging it properly. If the congelation is too slow, or there is residual xanthosis on the chalk disks, or one of your bodies has moved out of trine and into quadrature […]
I love sitting in the shade of the supplants, over in the corner of the plots with a nice lawnchair set up on the firebreak stones. Some of the other gardeners won’t come over here, so it’s nice and peaceful, and the bees hum contentedly along with my iPod. I got the adapter, so I […]
At some point in time, there were no energals. Geomancers could point to general lines in a cliffside: a horizon of rock where higher forms vanished, another where wisp spines no longer sifted out, and a final line where the tiny aerolith fossils petered out. Before that, only solarals: plants, fungi, animals. The debates raged […]
“Dockside” brings up scenes of salt spray, bobbing hulls and screaming gulls, but it’s just about the furthest from the truth in my line of work. Maybe in Solyi Pergani or Isildan, but not in Solyi Avanhoi. Dockside there is sand burn, whipping winds and croaking chensureets. It’s about repacking bearings and training talents. There’s […]
Nothing was getting through. English was not an option. The guy looked at me quizzically, a sympathetic smile forming on his mouth. I said, “Well, maybe I’ll show you where I’m from, that will help.” So I pulled out a pen and a piece of paper, placing it on a flat part of the vehicle […]
You’re never late for maintenance. It’s not just mandatory. It’s unthinkable. People literally don’t think about maintenance, they just do it. Except for immigrants. Immigrants don’t realize that the only way to make a home out here is by unceasing human effort. Nothing is provided by a benevolent biosphere that may give storms, predators and […]
Bright sunlight woke me. I blearily raised my head from my tucked arm, and tensed. I was in the beginning of a bad novel. I was sprawled facedown on sacks of garbage, their dark green plastic warming in the spotty sunlight and emitting their customary fragrance. Concrete gritted under the tips of my shoes. Steel […]
It was long sunset, and the wind was high. The sound from the drezo grove was a vast, encompassing sussuration, at once loud and subtle, and gently modulating in a slow oscillation. Sprinkled in the sound was the pealing of childish laughter. Simone pulled herself from her bitshifting and went to the side window. Although […]