If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE.*Note that I haven’t read most of these books (my reading is eclectic and “craving led”,) and apply the usual cautions to buying. I reserve the right not to run any submission, if cover, blurb or anything else made me decide not to, at my sole discretion.– SAH
FROM MEL DUNAY: Wolf’s Trail (Hunter Healer King Book 1)
The name’s Chloe Fortebat, and I am in trouble. I left my father’s ranch on the plains to come to the Old World: a place of airships, steampower, and monsters nobody talks about. Now I’m dodging giant werewolves with fangs the size of my knife, and the hunters crazy enough to go after them. The most dangerous of these doesn’t look the part: a quiet, sharp-dressed medical man with a tired face….
My name is Dr. Maxim os Storm, and I hunt the beasts that haunt the night. The leader of this pack of werewolves has set his mark on Miss Fortebat, but this brave lady would rather fight him than let him make her his tool. As far as I am concerned, that makes her my ally. My only chance of curing her lies with an ancient machine, hidden by my people in the caves beneath Wolf Island. We must keep that artifact out of the werewolf’s grasp at all costs, for he would put it to a terrible use….
FROM ROY M. GRIFFIS: Holding the Line: Book One of The Long Watch
𝐆𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐮𝐩 𝐰𝐚𝐬𝐧’𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝟏𝟖-𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫-𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐃𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐲 𝐌𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫.His mother had died so long ago, he could barely remember her. Now he lives with his alcoholic janitor father in the basement of the 150-year-old New Territorial Military Institute. Growing up at the prestigious, low-profile military academy, Danny had watched as the Territorial discretely provided a college education for the sons and daughters of politicians and royal families across the world, as well as the children of the rich and dysfunctional.
Beginning his freshman year at the Territorial on a “child of an employee” scholarship, Danny has a simple plan: graduate, leave behind his widowed drunk of a dad, and get the hell out of Wyoming.
That was before his home exploded. Before he met the sickly, spooky Tatiana who could See. Before the whispers in the night.
And that was before things got really weird.
“𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐛𝐲 𝐑𝐨𝐲 𝐆𝐫𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐢𝐧 𝐚 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝. 𝐈𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐬 𝐚 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐚𝐭 𝐚 𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐥 𝐧𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐠𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐰𝐤𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐚 𝐜𝐨𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐩. 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐰 𝐢𝐧 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐥, 𝐚 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐤𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐮𝐭. 𝐈’𝐦 𝐞𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐥!”“𝑨 𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒗𝒆𝒍𝒐𝒖𝒔 𝒎𝒊𝒙 𝒐𝒇 𝒇𝒊𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒔𝒖𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒏𝒔𝒆!”
“𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒊𝒔 𝒂 𝒔𝒐𝒍𝒊𝒅 𝒂𝒅𝒗𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆 𝒘𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒏 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝑮𝒓𝒊𝒇𝒇𝒊𝒔’ 𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒌 𝒉𝒖𝒎𝒐𝒓 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒃𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒌 𝒑𝒂𝒄𝒊𝒏𝒈, 𝒂𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒈 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒂 𝒅𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒇𝒖𝒍 𝒓𝒐𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒏 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒐 𝒊𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒑𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒆 𝒇𝒂𝒏𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒈𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕 𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒔.”
FROM PAM UPHOFF: In Plain Sight (Chronicles of the Fall)
A short story taking place after the Fall
Bryanne Volkov is sixteen and moving from a small town to the capital of the Alliance, as her Grandfather is about to become the head of the entire Volkov Family. And her new home is not much like what she expected . . . the servants, odd, and an Executioner much too interested in the family.
FROM ALMA T. C. BOYKIN: Threads of Empire: Merchant and Empire Book Ten
“Return with coin or not at all!”
Dagnija Modrisdatter brought nothing but bad fortune to her family, or so they believed. When a merchant offered to hire her as spinster and weaver, her father sent her off.
Adrians Eckelbert searched for the master weaver who made ornate belts. He found her on a remote land-tongue, and brought her back to Rhonari.
Dagnija discovers a different world, one filled with possibilities she had never dared to even dream of. But she must learn to navigate the shoals of Rhonari, seat of the trade lords of the Northern Empire. Spinning comes easily to her hand. Speaking for herself and balancing trade law and family duty? Far harder.
FROM BLAKE SMITH: The Hartington Inheritance (The Hartington Series Book 1)
Almira Hartington was heir to the largest fortune in the galaxy, amassed by her father during his time as a director of the Andromeda Company. But when Sir Josiah commits suicide, Almira discovers that she and her siblings are penniless. All three of them must learn to work if they wish to eat, and are quickly scattered to the far reaches of the universe. Almira stubbornly remains on-planet, determined to remain respectable despite the sneers of her former friends.
Sir Percy Wallingham pities the new Lady Hartington. But the lady’s family will take care of her, surely? It’s only after he encounters Almira in her new circumstances that he realizes the extent of her troubles and is determined to help her if he can. He doesn’t know that a scandal is brewing around Sir Josiah’s death and Almira’s exile from society. But it could cost him his life, and the lady he has come to love.
FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: The Mesopredator Hustle
A dying star, and a station harvesting its planetary nebula for resources vital to a centuries-old war.
Amidst this beautiful but deadly stellar environment, a spy has infiltrated the star-lifting operations, creating “accidents” to take the lives of the crew. Can two troubleshooters from Engineering, one a human and the other a member of the feline Chongu, track down the killer when Security is certain the real problem is carelessness?
A short story of the Chongu Empire.
FROM MARY CATELLI: Curses And Wonders
A collection of tales of wonder and magic.
A prince sets out to win his way to the dragon’s lair.
A woman fights a curse on her lands.
A man returns to his castle, bringing a magical sword, and worse things.
And more tales.
Includes “Dragon Slayer”, “The Book of Bone”, “Mermaids’ Song”, “Witch-Prince Ways”, “Sword and Shadow”, “Eyes of the Sorceress”, “Fever and Snow” — and “The Emperor’s Clothes”, which is not sold separately.
FROM KAREN MYERS: The Chained Adept: A Lost Wizard’s Tale
MEET A POWERFUL WIZARD WITH UNANSWERED QUESTIONS–AND AN UNBREAKABLE CHAIN AROUND HER NECK.
Have you ever wondered how you might rise to a dangerous situation and become the hero that was needed?
The wizard Penrys has barely gained her footing in the country where she was found three years ago, chained around the neck and wiped of all knowledge. And now, an ill-planned experiment has sent her a quarter of the way around her world.
One magic working has called to another and landed Penrys in the middle of an ugly war between neighboring countries, half a world away.
No one has any reason to trust her amid rumors of wizards where they don’t belong. And she fears to let them know just what she can do — especially since she can’t explain herself to them and she doesn’t know everything about herself either.
Penrys has her own problems, and she doesn’t have any place in this conflict. But they need her, whether they realize it or not. And so she’s determined to try and lend a hand, if she can. Whatever it takes.
And once she discovers there’s another chained adept, even stronger than she is, she’s hooked. Friend or foe, she has questions for him — oh, yes, she does.
All she wants is a firm foundation for the rest of her life, with a side helping of retribution, and if she has to fix things along the way, well, so be it.
The Chained Adept is the first book of the series.
FROM SARAH A. HOYT: Odd Magics: Tales for the Lost
Odd Magics
This is a very strange collection of fairy tales, recast for modern life. In it the prize isn’t always to the fairest, the
magic is rarely to the strongest.
But lonely introverts do find love, women who never gave it a thought find themselves at the center of romance.
Doing what’s right will see you to the happily ever after.
And sometimes you have to kiss an accountant to find your prince.
Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.
So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.
We recommend that if you have an original vignette, you post that as a new reply. If you are commenting on someone’s vignette, then post that as a reply to the vignette. Comments — this is writing practice, so comments should be aimed at helping someone be a better writer, not at crushing them. And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and grammar.
If you have questions, feel free to ask.
Your writing prompt this week is: NORMAL
According To Hoyt 
Situation Normal.
I decide that the Promos won’t happen today, so I go ahead and purchase an eBook.
Then the Promos show up so I just “have” to purchase another eBook. [Wink]
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In Firefly, my favorite character is neither Zoe nor Mal, but River.
Bought both of the Wolf’s books. Already have several of the promo’s works, bought through earlier instances.
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thank you!
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Have you considered automating the promo posts?
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The only way we know Sarah (and Holly) are not both already automated simulcra trained up the each’s collected writings is that some of the Huns reportedly saw actual human version (a least of Sarah) at that con.
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Lol. What I meant was a little script to scrape the Amazon links, spit out some HTML, and upload it to WP. A little less mucking about with WordPress every week, if the API cooperates.
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We’ve tried.
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we’ve TRIED. WordPress is a stone b*tch and won’t let us.
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That’s a bummer. I had a Python script to upload posts to my own little blog, but at some point, XML RPC stopped cooperating. I haven’t tried it with the REST API. It’s an indictment of the future we’re living in that it isn’t already trivial to do this by just telling your computer what you want.
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I thought about putting something up last week, but it wouldn’t come together. I tried again, and I think it’s better.
———————————
Everybody watching Al-Jazeera was surprised when the news broadcast was interrupted by two rude Americans. The man jerked his thumb over his shoulder and commanded, “Take a hike, sister. We’ve got an important announcement to make. You can get back to spewing your bullshit after we’re done.”
The woman was stunningly beautiful, with long purple hair, wearing purple-and-silver armor over a long purple dress, the skirt shining with white light. She didn’t quite shove the reporter away from the microphone, but made it clear that she would. She took her place and fixed the camera with a stony glare.
“Last week, the Iranian theocratic regime perpetrated a terrorist attack against us. We consider that an act of war. So be it. You started this war, now I will end it. I have located fifty-four hardened military facilities within Iran. I have provided a list, with G-P-S coordinates. You have two hours and five minutes to evacuate those sites.”
“I intend to give some extra attention to the bunkers where you’re enriching and storing uranium, and trying to build atomic bombs. Thirty seconds after the initial strikes I’ll drop three more around each crater to bury it under a few million tons of rubble.”
The reporter had gotten over her shock at this intrusion and spat out a short angry remark, then switched to heavily accented English. “Devils! We do not bow down to your threats!”
The woman turned a smile upon her which was not nice. Not nice at all. “Oh, you don’t understand. This is not a threat. This is a notification. You’ve got incoming.”
She returned her gaze to the camera. “We launched our attack eighty hours ago. Our weapons are now a hundred and forty million miles from Earth, and there is nothing you can do to stop them. In two hours and four minutes every target on that list will be obliterated. You have that long to evacuate. If you choose not to…that would be just too bad.”
She held out her hand, and a dead-black sphere the size of a baseball appeared from nowhere. “This is one of my weapons. I know, it doesn’t look like much. Just a one-kilogram steel ball with a ceramic ablative heat shield. Sitting here in my hand, it’s quite harmless. You will find them much more impressive when they hit their targets at a tenth of the speed of light.”
“They will unleash an impact energy equivalent to about a megaton, and penetrate more than two hundred meters of solid rock. I recommend a minimum safe distance of twenty miles. Oh, and, don’t look back. Each of these will punch through the atmosphere in twelve milliseconds, compress and heat the air in its path to a million degrees. The flash will be a thousand times brighter than any lightning bolt, and cause permanent eye damage.”
The ball vanished and she dropped her hand. “While you’re waiting for those, I will deal with your other assets. My cloaked drones will spend the next two hours completely eliminating your ability to make war. Starting ten minutes from now, they will destroy every base and airfield, every missile and launcher, every artillery gun, every military vehicle and aircraft, every ship and gunboat, every armory and warehouse containing military supplies. Along with the factories that build your weapons, and the trucks that transport them. You’re going to be out of the war business for years.”
She glared silently at the camera for a few seconds. “Well. That’s all I’ve got. You may now return to your regularly scheduled lies.”
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Very nice to imagine. But needs one more bit. (feral grin)
“Someone” needs to tip off the various Tranzi orgs, to play human shield to Stop the War.
Actually two bits. Live video feeds from the better “shielded” sites.
Actually three. Miscalculate arrival times by 10-ish minutes early. “oops.”
(kzin grin)
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“She lied!” the scientist shouted as he rushed into the Supreme Leader’s office.
Puzzled, the ayatollah looked up from a half-empty bottle of Scotch, and muttered, “What?”
“The infidel woman. She lied about the impacts – they will not be one megaton, as she claimed.”
The ayatollah brightened. “Then … then we’ll be okay?”
“Not exactly. If the impact is normal to the surface, we’re only looking at about 100 kilotons.”
The ayatollah’s jaw gaped. The tumbler hitting the floor went unnoticed as a blinding flash consumed the palace.
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Hmm, I might have gotten that wrong. E = 1/2 MV² but Einstein’s famous equation is E = MC². Was he wrong to drop the 1/2? A long time ago I used the Einstein equation to calculate that a kiloton is equivalent to converting 37 milligrams of mass to energy. A mass of 1.1 KG (not all of the heat shield material will burn off) hitting at 10% of light speed would yield about…300 kilotons. Oops. Imagine my red face.
If the 1/2 is correct, about 150 kilotons.
I welcome other viewpoints on this matter, so I can get it right the next time I calculate kinetic impacter yield.
Still, 300 KT, or even 150 KT, is a lot. Plenty ’nuff to obliterate Fordow.
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Dr. Doorne did not look pleased when she arrived for our statistics class. “Today we need to talk about terminology.”
She tapped the controls for the electronic whiteboard and two words appeared at the top of the display: EQUIVOCATION and PREVARICATION.
“I am sure that you are aware that, in natural language, many words have multiple meanings. For instance, there may be a colloquial meaning and one or more technical meanings in various fields.”
That got nods all around.
Satisfied that she’d made her point, she continued, “When someone uses a term in one sense, then switches to another sense without being clear about this change, this is called equivocation. It can be used for humorous effect in a joke, but it can also be used in a malicious manner, to obscure meanings or to humiliate another speaker by switching meanings in a manner that makes that person look ridiculous. It can also be used to lie by implication, at which point we cross into prevarication, which is a term for disguising a lie in rhetorical dirty tricks.”
Now people were starting to get uncomfortable, to shift in their seats, to look at one another or around the room.
Dr. Doorne tapped the controls again and on the digital whiteboard appeared a third word, in big red letters: NORMAL.
“Here in statistics class, we use that term in reference to a Gaussian distribution, the bell-shaped curve. If you were to take a health sciences course down in Medlab, you’d learn another definition specific to health and wellness, and if you took a geometry class in the Math Department, you’d learn a third technical definition. And of course there’s also the colloquial sense.”
The discomfort in the room grew, as she cleared the digital whiteboard, then displayed several quotations from news media. For the rest of the class session, she minutely dissected how the writers and speakers were switching between the statistical or medical definitions of “normal” and the colloquial one, without any overt indication of the shift.
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Can’t write. Must sleep. Work in five hours. Stop complaining, story brain!
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Remember, everyone: you can be a FORCE MULTIPIER.
Rate and review after reading! Even short reviews help.
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Calm yourself, Violetta thought. You have been to balls, with all their glitter, before.
Florian spoke with Sonia as if being partnered with her was the most commonplace thing in the world. Giles, by Emalie, laughed.
Helena appeared beside her. She looked pale, which reassured Violetta, and then Augustus and Jasper walked out.
The ball was more formal than the ordinary days.
“My lady,” said Augustus.
“Your Highness,” said Violetta, managing to make it audible.
He offered her his arm, and she took it. She hoped, daintily. They led off their small company toward the lights of the dancing hall.
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It didn’t, she reminded herself. Nothing could be expected in the combinations she thought of as normal. The country roads, even, were perhaps better than she would expect in the nineteenth century. Certainly nothing earlier had such roads.
She should be glad it had a hospital and gathered the patients.
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What is a comfortable average number of words for a short story? How many short stories and/or essays should be in an anthology?
And if I end up spending the time to write up my stories instead of studying for work-related stuff, is there a nice place to look for getting self-published?
I assume Amazon is a good 1st place to start; but I was hoping for advice from folks I like, first.
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Any help gratefully received.
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Is there a particular reason why you wish to write to a length?
The typical length for a short story is anything from 0 to 7500 words.
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Just a quick query to DDG gives 1500-10,000 words as a suggested length for a short story, with 5,000 seeming common.
Anthologies seem to range 5 – 20 stories, but lots of variability.
Raconteur Press anthologies seem to be 10-12. There’s 54 of those today, and they seem to be staying in business. I have just 10.
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Looks like I have not yet successfully written a short story. My first attempt wound up at 30,000 words, and my second was 14,000. Guess that makes me a failure. :-D
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6000
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But- but- I couldn’t tell those stories in 6,000 words. ‘Twould be like trying to reduce a cat to the size of a hamster. Just wouldn’t work. Not good for the cat, either.
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well, go indie young man, and make it whatever size you WANT.
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The 30,000 one, the novella, would fall in the Unpublishable Void region for trad pub. Let’s hear it for indie!
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6k
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“The sooner this is done,” said Cora, “the sooner we can get back and to ordinary things.” She glared at a plant, and it started to shrivel up.
They set about their work.
Marcus worked more slowly than before, keeping watch.
“There they are!” came a bellow. Annike acted at once.
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The new Normal is nothing is normal
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(Part 1/4; because the moderation limit now/still seems to be 4K chars not 8K)
“All right, but where are we, really? In a larger sense, that makes some sense out of what you just told me. Yes, we’re a few miles inside a little planet a bit smaller than the Moon, that’s got only somewhat less gravity than the Earth because it’s insanely denser, more than three times Earth.
“And that’s because this oddball globe here is mostly core, and the core is mostly inner core, and the inner core is mostly platinum and platinum group metals. Which might make sense if we were, say, in Poul Anderson’s old story Starfog — but of course I don’t think we are, SF as so many of the things I’ve seen recently… were!” Emma shook her head; it was oddly nice to be able to do it freely and without a thought. “That’s so wildly not-normal — ‘siderophilic’ does not mean replacing iron and nickel in the core, it means going along with them there. Like they say von Braun once said about Project Orion… this is not nuts, this is super-nuts! So, can you help me out some with all that?”
Inga grinned. Just like she was from Earth; even though Emma had pretty much gotten used to the contrary, by now. “The outer core is also mostly platinum group metals, only the less dense and refractory ones like, say, palladium. And, you’re pretty astute to think of that improbable globular cluster in ‘Starfog’ — except we, and I mean my own people, don’t know a lot of much about exactly where those differences ultimately come from.”
That vaguely surprised Emma. Especially after seeing her knife blade, that was a neutral gray broadside-on and just disappeared looked-at edge-on; and cut (low-grade?) steel as effortlessly as a hot-knife would butter.
She leaned forward, but not nearly by far enough to invade Emma’s personal ‘space’ any. “Did you notice the boundary singularity, of the Gate you and I walked through to get here? That neon-sky-blue glowing ring at the edge of the Gate aperture, that our tidy cantilevered platform and step-stairs helped us two avoid?”
And Emma’s mind went back, instantly. No, not gonna forget that walk.
“The edge of your hole in the air, the wall of your ‘tunnel in the sky’ it seems you whistled up on command. Although I’d have to say more argon-blue than neon-orange, of course.” She thought back through the few times she’d really got to see such things, these fast-paced and often barking-mad last several(?) days, by not being unconscious or distracted or, ah, something.
“Oh, yes. There was only one of them, as I got a really good quick look at yours here. Maybe about a quarter-inch thick ring, at least the glowy part of it. But some other times… I actually thought for sure I was seeing double.”
Again that smile. “A++ for observation, Emma. You were seeing double since there actually were two Gates, stacked one right next to the other. And it was two because there had to be.” She held up the jug of white wine. “More wine, beer, more fizzy-stuff, more tea, more snacky-things? You probably shouldn’t eat anything very heavy until you’ve got properly used to this sixty-ish percent gravity here.” And poured another half-cup for herself.
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(Part 2/4)
“No, I’m fine for now. And mostly,” (said some deeper and colder part of Emma she’d not necessarily meant to hand the figurative ‘mike’), “mostly I’m still getting used to not being tied or chained to something or kept in some box or… whatever.” She looked at the platinum-cobalt ring snug at the base of her left thumb, that was (still) far too small to get off without likely hurting herself (and maybe badly), that was supposed to in some not-quite-explained way connect her (magically-symbolically) with 58 other, ah, abductees and one exo-Norse (space Viking?) ‘instructor’ so as to ‘help’ her become more willing and useful… property, as they saw it.
It had, allegedly, been hewn from metal melted down with a teaspoonful of her blood and the other 59’s, plus the Lady Preceptrix to make a round and suitably Babylonian 60 of those; that blood boiled and burned off, yes, but likely a touch of the iron of her blood and theirs yet remained in it… Emma had to shake off a shudder at the thought, again, knowing from her study and practice and religion what-all such a thing might, potentially, be and do.
But also, then again and still, likely really only if you simply let it.
‘Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.’ And maybe… a ring is just a ring?
(What had that ex-slave named Patrick felt, returning to Ireland to preach them a bit of his Christian, and then not-so-old-time, religion? Hm?)
For a few moments, she just listened to the sound of the multiple Stirling (or at least Stirling-esque) engines here in this room, or cavern, or mine gallery, or whatever the right words were. Running off a very considerable temperature difference between the warm mantle below them, and the eerily extreme freezing-nitrogen cold of the surface far above. It was soothing to her, gently but very deeply, though most unlike any internal-combustion engine she’d ever heard; a rhythmic swishing, rushing sort of sound, more than a bit like an old steam locomotive running at speed (heard in movies and recordings, and a very few magically-blessed times directly ‘live’).
Predestination in the stride o’ yon connectin’-rod…
And she looked up to see Inga looking, somewhat intensely, at her. “Do you feel you need to get that ring off you, far sooner not later? I don’t want to simply leave it there much longer than you’re well able to tolerate it; but likewise, I’m not eager to risk hurrying to slice it off with… that knife you were so impressed by, or our version of a bolt-cutter, or..?”
Intensely, but compassionately; much the same way she’d said and done just about everything since she’d first stepped out of her own hole in the air.
“No, I kind of even want to keep it, really, though it’d have to be sized up a bit so I could pull it on and off. For a souvenir, if nothing else.” She’d watched as it was (best she knew) cut from some block of metal some other place; cold-cut right from there onto her thumb, through what they’d called a ‘parasitic gate’ that was literally invisible and obviously finer than a hair. (And, scary as all get-out; but she’d been near-paralyzed.)
‘Any sufficiently advanced technology’ — pretty much that.
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(Part 3/4)
“And though it was supposed to bind me closer with the rest of a group of almost-sixty, ah, trainees and one, ah, instructor… mostly, I find I do have to believe, a ring is just a ring, as a cigar is just a cigar.” She held out the ring in question. “This is, they said, platinum, cobalt, and a dash of tungsten. And they used pounds of that same stuff, with me, some other times; multiply that by 360 or so for all of us, likely. They used dozens of cubic kilometers of xenon, to replace plain Earthly air over the square miles of Los Angeles they, um, kidnapped, along with me. That’s…
“That’s a lot of normally-rare heavy elements. Millions of tons, counting in the anesthetic air. Does that have anything to do with this mini-planet here being mostly, for heaven’s sake, platinum??”
“Yes, it does. And the simple, straight answer to your question is, you’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto — you’re not in your normal, native F-space as we call it any longer, you’re in U-space instead. Where, judging from a rather limited sample so far, you find heavy elements gu leor — that’s a borrowing from Scottish, I think you already know. Many other strange and wonderful phenomena, too. And one thing about Gates is, they never (far as we’ve ever found) open from F-space back onto F-space, or from U-space to U-space, or even Th-space to Th-space; they always cross from F-space over to U-space, or the other way ’round, or some similar diagonal.
“Which would be, of course (the other way ’round), simply walking or being propelled in the other direction, through the very same Gate aperture. And as strange as the two faces of any Gate not being identical, but being two separate apertures and passages, might be to some, it still has no bearing on what I just said.”
Emma picked up another bit of smoky-cheddar (delicious!), and considered.
“So if you want to go from, say, Paris to Madrid, or London to the capital of Alpha Centauri A 3, then you have to use two Gates.” (Somehow the upper case letter had become totally instinctive.) “One to take you from Paris to someplace in U-space, another one to take you from that same someplace back over to F-space and on to Madrid. But of course, if you stack the two Gate openings right next to each other, the whole looks and works like one single simple gate, from F-space there to F-space elsewhere, after all.
“Except for that little crack between your two Gates, which I’ll ignore. Oh, wait, and you need one ‘extra’ Gate for each face of your first Gate, so you really need three Gates, the first in the middle of the ‘sandwich’ and two on either side of it, to get back to F-space or wherever starting from either side of a composite gate.” And Inga smiled, and nodded, and raised her glass just an instant before taking another little sip of wine.
“But, Inga, why those odd designating letters? Do they mean anything?”
She gave sort of a wry smirk, which was a little snarkily out of the usual for her. “Not really, they’re only arbitrary and sort-of alphabetic. You do know that ‘they’ who, um, kidnapped you and ‘we’ who are my people are both descendants of (mostly) Viking Age, um, kidnappees, right? You might also know about our Norse writing, right? So..?” Then, only an enigmatic smile.
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(Part 4/4)
Emma thought.
F. U. Th. And then, simply, oh, my.
Just that quickly, from huh-what to embarrasingly-obvious.
“The next designations would be A-space, R-space, and K-space, right? If you ever got or do get that far.” At which, a dazzling smile from Inga.
“Yes, right indeed, though I had to feed you the punch line. Both Older and Younger Runes go F-U-Th-A-R-K in their first rune-row of eight, or six. Not an alpha-bet like the Romans, the Greeks, the Phoenicians, not descended by that line. Once upon a time the Greeks used to talk of phoenikeia, those Phoenix-people things; and today, on our Daughter Worlds outside Old Mother Earth (who’s kept ever in the dark and always the very last to know), we do too.
“Only, a couple millennia ago it was the ‘alphabet’ that was the lastest and amazing-est ‘Phoenician thing’ — and by now the meaning has shifted some, as words will tend to do, over to meaning wonders, dazzlements, and most of all Gate-related or what you’d call high-tech things. Phoenikeia, all of ’em, though, still.” She grabbed a half dill pickle for herself.
“So, Inga — how do you make a Gate?” She let the question hang, after.
Next, the wryest smile Emma had ever seen on her face, in all their short acquaintance. “Now, isn’t that the 64-trillion-dollar question? Though I’d have to guess, from a very small base of public data, $64 T wouldn’t begin to purchase that, if you’d ever tried to offer it, and you had it to give.
“Likely it wouldn’t even buy you the price, if you could offer and pay it.
“The real answer is, as far as anybody says, nobody knows. None of any of the new or the older worlds; not the Acheans or the Hellenes or the worlds of the Persians, nor even the Phoenicians with all their trading; not yet the ‘Egyptians’ of the Second River Kingdom, nor the Republic of New Rome (as we all call it and they don’t); not the canny Celts on Tea-and-Tephi, nor the clever new philosophical upstarts like New Albion or Brezhonnay.
“But the simple practical answer? You make a Gate by hiring it done, from the only people (loosely speaking) who can. The Weavers, or so we think it translates to — the Miinarii, who snatched up all our ancestors from the battlefield or the famine or the plague-pits or the empty hungry ocean, to drop them down on some other world, and let us try to live on if we could.
“Who talk to us through their janissaries, in the Jerry Pournelle sense, or drop their carved-stone xoanons from the sky, or flash code from some invisible body in the heavens. But who never show us their faces, or give us one thing to know of who they are, besides what they do and have done.”
Inga poured herself another generous half-cup of wine.
“And of any colonies they may plant, but do not harvest? Since we can have knowledge of them only through the Miinarii, themselves… well, ask ye not what can never be answered, as the philosophers also say.” And she tossed her cup off whole, as she had not yet done in any of it Emma had seen.
(Based on some previous setting and characters.)
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