Here is the final offering of my short SF story. This is a shorten version with a segment left out. That segment was a special conversation between Cramer and Mona. It contained some endearing remarks between the two characters and some astronomical observations by Cramer. Did you know there are asteroids locked in Jupiter's orbit, an area known as the Lagrangian Point? That is a stable area forming an equalateral triangle between Jupiter, the sun and the Lagrangian Point. Now you didn't need to know that did you? Time for the final segment.
Cramer groped in the dark, seeking for warmth, fleeing from thirty-eight Kelvins at the end of the hall behind him. A soft hand on a long elastic arm pulled him forward toward a comforting orange light ahead. Yielding, he tried to help that wonderful hand.
“Joe, come out of it.” The familiar voice came from a blurry vision that coalesced like cloudy water losing its fine air bubbles. A lovely face with shiny, long blond hair clarified: Mona. How wonderful she looked in her flight coveralls. Cramer grasped her hand with both of his. Tears flooded his eyes, not from a brush with death, but angry, unforgiving tears at his irresponsible actions.
“How could I be so stupid? A rank amateur wouldn’t even unclip their safety line.” Cramer gritted his teeth at the thought. Mona carefully pulled him to a sitting position.
“Don’t go beating yourself up,” Mona said, her wonderful consoling aura soothing him.
“Look at the years of experience I’ve had on mining ventures in space. You’d think. . .”
“Hush!” Mona placed her forefinger on his lips. When he started to finish his self-condemnation, she placed her palm over his mouth.
“Think about it, Joe. You saved your own life by disconnecting from that line.” Cramer squinted at that statement.
“Whatever do you mean?”
“If you had been attached to that line when the geyser hit you, I know your neck would have snapped or your helmet seal would have broken when the slack was gone.” Mona squeezed Cramer’s arm, a serious look spreading across her face.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Cramer said, wanting to believe her.
“The force of that geyser would be magnified without any atmosphere to buffer the nitrogen blast.” Cramer thought about it. Mona’s logic was flawless. He would have been killed as he remembered how far the nitrogen jet had sent him.
“You’re right but it was pure stupidity that I unhooked myself.”
“No, it wasn’t. Look how many times in the past you’ve done something on the spur of the moment and you, me or somebody has been saved.” Mona cupped Cramer’s face with her hands. He took a deep breath at her touch and reached up and took her hands with his.
“I owe you my life anyway. We’d better finish our job.”
“We’re done. That last batch was very high grade thorium. Witherspoon will be happy with what we’ve got. Let’s prepare for the trip back.”
#
Witherspoon, happy with the high grade thorium, had another mission for them, but Cramer and Mona adamantly refused to let him force another postponement of their wedding. They got by with that since Witherspoon considered they were the best miners, along with Cramer’s old mining partner, Floyd.
Everything fell in place this time. Cramer and his late wife’s daughter, Cindy, stood with Mona, and Floyd stood with Cramer. On the sandy shore of Burr Oak Lake in the wilds of Ohio, they exchanged their vows. It was here that they had first said those wonderful words of “I love you.”
I hope you enjoyed this story. As I said, I've submitted this to an online magazine that pays a hefty per word on acceptance. We'll see what happens in a few weeks. Consider this story and all previous segments copyrighted material. Thanks for those who have followed the story, Laurie, Miss Mae and Anne. Hope others have too. As always I invite any comments you may have. Larry
Monday, June 21, 2010
Monday, June 14, 2010
Fifth segment of my SF story
The snow puffed from under his boot soles as he landed with each long stride. Cramer’s mind link overrode safety protocols but couldn’t block the impending suit failure messages when his time dipped below five minutes. His legs, like lead, surprised him since he expected a sudden failure of heating in his suit. The lithium batteries, when depleted, would lose their power quickly, but under freezing conditions the voltage would plunge to zero like a switch had turned them off. Perhaps his mind played tricks on him, the way sympathy pains hit when listening to somebody describe in graphic detail their medical procedures or ailments. Maybe his mind also fed him images he wanted to see, such as Mona and her approach with the rover. He held onto that image because it was the last one he had as his suit became very cold. He toppled forward into the snow.
I know it was short but you'll have to wait until next Monday for another segment. Thanks for reading. Laurie, I left you a comment on the last segment, a brief answer to your question. Larry
I know it was short but you'll have to wait until next Monday for another segment. Thanks for reading. Laurie, I left you a comment on the last segment, a brief answer to your question. Larry
Sunday, June 6, 2010
fourth segment of Unscheduled Stroll on Triton
I'm giving you the fourth segment of my short SF story on Sunday night since I'll be super busy tomorrow all day.
He willed the radio’s power to increase to one hundred milliwatts. Before he turned his mental power to switch on the radio, another warning scrolled before his eyes. It read, “Danger! Increasing radio power one hundred fold will shorten suit environmental functioning to 22.5 minutes.”
“Hey. That’s a good trade off. Halving my suit’s time for a hundred fold chance of being heard,” he expressed.
He was glad that mind power overrode safety interlocks. He stood still and centered the virtual cross hairs in his helmet visor on the gleaming steel spike of the cruiser in the distance. Switch-on, he willed. The warning letters dimmed when the radio sent its thirty second burst. After the end of the transmission, a countdown of suit failure began. Cramer didn’t want to know so he willed it off and then began his loping run.
He glimpsed the severed disk of Neptune, a blue blister sitting on Triton’s horizon. Any other time Cramer would have admired that view, the mother planet with the Great Dark Spot. That far plane of Triton’s surface seemingly leading to and touching Neptune displayed the strange mosaic of channels to the practiced eye. The old Voyager flyby in 1989 had first spotted them. The regular icy features defied explanation then and even now could not be understood.
Cramer thought of the mission he and Mona shared on Titan. The people of Sirius had chosen Saturn’s largest moon to build their city under a methane lake. After exploring the old city in its bubble at the bottom of the lake, Cramer had fallen from the rover as he and Mona rode back to the ship. Lost in the ammonia snow, he’d almost perished before Mona and Lila pulled him into the safety and warmth of the ship. His suit had started its precipitous temperature drop on that occasion.
There you have the four installment of my short SF story. Tune in next week for the next segment. Thank you Miss Mae, Laurie and Anne for commenting on my blog as I continue feeding you segments of this short story. Larry
He willed the radio’s power to increase to one hundred milliwatts. Before he turned his mental power to switch on the radio, another warning scrolled before his eyes. It read, “Danger! Increasing radio power one hundred fold will shorten suit environmental functioning to 22.5 minutes.”
“Hey. That’s a good trade off. Halving my suit’s time for a hundred fold chance of being heard,” he expressed.
He was glad that mind power overrode safety interlocks. He stood still and centered the virtual cross hairs in his helmet visor on the gleaming steel spike of the cruiser in the distance. Switch-on, he willed. The warning letters dimmed when the radio sent its thirty second burst. After the end of the transmission, a countdown of suit failure began. Cramer didn’t want to know so he willed it off and then began his loping run.
He glimpsed the severed disk of Neptune, a blue blister sitting on Triton’s horizon. Any other time Cramer would have admired that view, the mother planet with the Great Dark Spot. That far plane of Triton’s surface seemingly leading to and touching Neptune displayed the strange mosaic of channels to the practiced eye. The old Voyager flyby in 1989 had first spotted them. The regular icy features defied explanation then and even now could not be understood.
Cramer thought of the mission he and Mona shared on Titan. The people of Sirius had chosen Saturn’s largest moon to build their city under a methane lake. After exploring the old city in its bubble at the bottom of the lake, Cramer had fallen from the rover as he and Mona rode back to the ship. Lost in the ammonia snow, he’d almost perished before Mona and Lila pulled him into the safety and warmth of the ship. His suit had started its precipitous temperature drop on that occasion.
There you have the four installment of my short SF story. Tune in next week for the next segment. Thank you Miss Mae, Laurie and Anne for commenting on my blog as I continue feeding you segments of this short story. Larry
Monday, May 31, 2010
Third segment for Triton stroll
As promised here is the third segment of my SF short story Unscheduled Stroll on Triton.
He got up and despaired as the cruiser appeared as a silver needle. He couldn’t even make out the rover. He started taking big bounding strides, thanks to the light gravity. After half an hour the ship had hardly grown in size. Having one hour of air left was a small problem compared to his suit’s heating system. The thermal battery would only keep the lithium batteries warm enough to operate another forty-five minutes. He was looking at catastrophic failure, and it wouldn’t matter about the remaining fifteen minutes of air. A human body at thirty-eight degrees Kelvin wouldn’t need it, besides, the circulating system would freeze too.
If only Mona knew he was up here instead of at the base of the cliff. There was one slim chance, but it was better than his present course. He switched his suit controls from analog to mind control. Immediately, a warning message scrolled across his liquid crystal panel inside his helmet’s visor.
“I know, I know. My mind control hasn’t attained an acceptable rating to use it for suit vitals. So what else is new?” Cramer muttered.
The tiny Yagi antenna mounted atop his helmet was directional. If he could boost the radio’s power and point toward the ship, there was a chance Mona could pick it up. Carrier wave mode, the best use of power, would alert her to his whereabouts. From this distance, one hundred milliwatts ought to do it. The rover was capable of twenty kilometers per hour and Mona might reach him in time if she jumped in and came straight to him. She could plug the rover’s power source into his suit’s external power port.
There you have the next segment of my story. Enjoy and thanks for coming over to read it. Larry
He got up and despaired as the cruiser appeared as a silver needle. He couldn’t even make out the rover. He started taking big bounding strides, thanks to the light gravity. After half an hour the ship had hardly grown in size. Having one hour of air left was a small problem compared to his suit’s heating system. The thermal battery would only keep the lithium batteries warm enough to operate another forty-five minutes. He was looking at catastrophic failure, and it wouldn’t matter about the remaining fifteen minutes of air. A human body at thirty-eight degrees Kelvin wouldn’t need it, besides, the circulating system would freeze too.
If only Mona knew he was up here instead of at the base of the cliff. There was one slim chance, but it was better than his present course. He switched his suit controls from analog to mind control. Immediately, a warning message scrolled across his liquid crystal panel inside his helmet’s visor.
“I know, I know. My mind control hasn’t attained an acceptable rating to use it for suit vitals. So what else is new?” Cramer muttered.
The tiny Yagi antenna mounted atop his helmet was directional. If he could boost the radio’s power and point toward the ship, there was a chance Mona could pick it up. Carrier wave mode, the best use of power, would alert her to his whereabouts. From this distance, one hundred milliwatts ought to do it. The rover was capable of twenty kilometers per hour and Mona might reach him in time if she jumped in and came straight to him. She could plug the rover’s power source into his suit’s external power port.
There you have the next segment of my story. Enjoy and thanks for coming over to read it. Larry
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.
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.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Unscheduled stroll on Triton, opening scene
A brief note that I'm half through typing my revisions into my WIP, the novel version of Leroy and Jody from Lab Partners.
As promised I'll give you the opening scene of my short SF story Unscheduled Stroll on Triton. This story although workshopped to death at Antioch last year was still rejected by Pedestal Magazine. Thanks to Anne and Laurie for expressing an interest in seeing this story. I'll paste in the opening scene below including an extra paragraph beyond what you all read on our chat at CTR recently.
This is a mini sequel to my science fiction novel The Higher Mission.
Unscheduled Stroll on Triton
by
Larry Hammersley
Joe Cramer fell toward the snowy surface of Triton, a little over a kilometer below him. He weighed thirteen and a half pounds here on Neptune’s largest moon, so the seventy-five second fall wouldn’t kill him. Mona Watson, his mining partner whom he had hoped to marry soon, wouldn’t be able to rescue him from the base of the butte they’d been mining. Their mining cruiser only carried their equipment and a rover, no space taxi. By the time she lifted off with the cruiser and landed it near the cliff base they’d been mining she’d only find his frozen corpse.
Moments before, he and Mona retrieved the high grade thorium ore from the side of the cliff near the top. Their cruiser and rover were parked on the flat plane above. When their catcher drills storage bags were full, Mona hoisted herself to the top to empty their contents into the rover’s ore compartment, and replace the drill bits. That’s when it happened. Cramer knew better. He’d detached himself from his safety line, intending on repositioning it so he could reach a new spot for drilling. His hand slipped and he drifted downward away from the line’s clip.
The old adage, “Only a fool makes the same mistake twice,” doesn’t apply in space. Make one mistake and no one has time to call you a fool because you’re dead. Oh, he and Mona had taken risks and ended up saving each other’s lives on several occasions but that was different from making a blatant error.
copyright by Larry Hammersley
There you have the opening scene of the story. I'm giving you the shortened version, not the longer version from the workshop. So you won't invest a lot of time reading. I'd appreciate any comments you have whether negative or positive.
As promised I'll give you the opening scene of my short SF story Unscheduled Stroll on Triton. This story although workshopped to death at Antioch last year was still rejected by Pedestal Magazine. Thanks to Anne and Laurie for expressing an interest in seeing this story. I'll paste in the opening scene below including an extra paragraph beyond what you all read on our chat at CTR recently.
This is a mini sequel to my science fiction novel The Higher Mission.
Unscheduled Stroll on Triton
by
Larry Hammersley
Joe Cramer fell toward the snowy surface of Triton, a little over a kilometer below him. He weighed thirteen and a half pounds here on Neptune’s largest moon, so the seventy-five second fall wouldn’t kill him. Mona Watson, his mining partner whom he had hoped to marry soon, wouldn’t be able to rescue him from the base of the butte they’d been mining. Their mining cruiser only carried their equipment and a rover, no space taxi. By the time she lifted off with the cruiser and landed it near the cliff base they’d been mining she’d only find his frozen corpse.
Moments before, he and Mona retrieved the high grade thorium ore from the side of the cliff near the top. Their cruiser and rover were parked on the flat plane above. When their catcher drills storage bags were full, Mona hoisted herself to the top to empty their contents into the rover’s ore compartment, and replace the drill bits. That’s when it happened. Cramer knew better. He’d detached himself from his safety line, intending on repositioning it so he could reach a new spot for drilling. His hand slipped and he drifted downward away from the line’s clip.
The old adage, “Only a fool makes the same mistake twice,” doesn’t apply in space. Make one mistake and no one has time to call you a fool because you’re dead. Oh, he and Mona had taken risks and ended up saving each other’s lives on several occasions but that was different from making a blatant error.
copyright by Larry Hammersley
There you have the opening scene of the story. I'm giving you the shortened version, not the longer version from the workshop. So you won't invest a lot of time reading. I'd appreciate any comments you have whether negative or positive.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
WIP second time through
Well, as of today, I've been through my novel the second time. I'll now type in the revisions and see what it looks like. Maybe I'll exceed 71,000 words with the revisions typed in as I developed one of the minor characters a bit more. I made her a nicer person.
A dash of bad news. My planned trip to Nashville, TN to RWA convention is off as the Gaylord Opryland Hotel was flooded recently and RWA relocated their convention to Orlando, Florida, a distance I don't care to drive.
I kept their list of agents and will check on them to see if there is one or more I could query with my WIP, A Change Of Heart.
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