Saturn as seen from Titan, painting by Chesley Bonestell

Saturn as seen from Titan, painting by Chesley Bonestell
Favorite astronomical painting

Monday, May 24, 2010

Unscheduled Stroll on Triton second segment

As was suggested I'm posting the second segment of my SF story here. Cramer and Mona find themselves on Triton, large moon of Neptune, mining for thorium. Here is the next segment and thank you for reading. Well, for some reason it isn't pasting. Let me try again. Ahh, it worked that time. Second time charms.

Triton, the coldest body in the solar system nudged the Kelvin temperature scale to a frigid thirty-eight degrees. Cramer and Mona’s special suits, greedy for power to keep them warm and operate the air circulation system, short changed the radio, allowing it only a starving milliwatt of power. That provided communications for line of sight, perhaps stretching to fifty meters. No matter, Cramer thought, as he tumbled slowly in Triton’s near hard vacuum. Mona, far above him, and out of sight, wouldn’t hear him anyway.
Face down now, he could see the nitrogen/methane snow illuminated by Neptune’s eerie blue light. Slowly, the powdery white plane approached him.
Suddenly, an explosion of white fog erupted directly below him. In half a second it hit him. The nitrogen geyser spurted from the otherwise bland whiteness below. Cramer rode its force upward, much faster than his descent. He tumbled, glimpsing the rover, cruiser and Mona’s suited figure as he cleared the top and sailed in a wide arc. She didn’t see him as he barely cleared the cruiser’s sharp nose and gained height, hurling beyond. Farther he went until finally he descended at a shallow angle.
Cramer worried if his momentum would carry him beyond the plane off the far side cliff. Once he bounced, twice, three times, skidding in the snow. He knew he was close to the edge from the view of distant snowy ridges stretching to the horizon.
Okay tune in next Monday for the third segment. Let me know what you think and if you want a longer segment next time.

5 comments:

Miss Mae said...

I like this, Larry! And just the right length too. :)

Laurean Brooks said...

Talk about a cliffhanger...! (Pun intended, LOL). This one left me hanging on by my fingernails.

Great going, Larry. And like Miss Mae said, "An just the right length" to leave us begging for more.

Larry Hammersley said...

Thanks, Miss Mae and Laurie for reading the story. I hope you enjoy the remainder of the story. More posted next Monday. Thanks, Laurie for suggesting Mondays for posting day. Larry

Unknown said...

Great idea to post more each Monday. Loved what I read. I will tune in next Monday! Great job.

Val

Laurean Brooks said...

Keep reminding me of the day, Larry. I plum forgot until I saw you post on the loop.

This is wonderful. I'm really getting into the story. Wouldn't want to miss it for anything.