W. Truchan

[wtruchan]

The Geek Feminist Revolution, Kameron Hurley Geek Feminist Revolution jest zbiorem esejów dwukrotnej zdobywczyni nagrody Hugo, eseistki i powieściopisarki Kameron Hurley. Książka zawiera dziesiątki esejów Hurley dotyczących feminizmu, kultury geek'ów i jej doświadczeń i spostrzeżeń jako pisarki, w tym "We Have Always Fought", które zdobyło nagrodę Hugo w 2013 roku. Geek Feminist Revolution zawiera również kilka zupełnie nowych eseji napisanych specjalnie dla tego tomu.

[wtruchan]

Książki, które staną się przebojami filmowymi tego lata

Oto 10 książek, które warto przeczytać zanim staną się przebojami filmowymi tego roku.

Po drugiej stronie lustra (Through the Looking-Glass) Lewis Carroll

Alicja po drugiej stronie lustra (premiera w Polsce 26 maja 2016) to seqeul do filmu z 2010 roku Alicja w Krainie Czarów w reżyserii Tima Burtona. W drugiej części przygód Alicji powraca ona do Krainy Czarów, by razem z przyjaciółmi powstrzymać…

View On WordPress

[wtruchan]

Learning Vocabulary: Death Strikes a King

The king of Vendhya was dying. Through the hot, stifling (hard to breathe) night the temple gongs boomed (to make a loud, resonant sound) and the conchs (a musical instrument made from a large spiral seashell) roared. Their clamor (loud and continued noise) was a faint (weak) echo in the gold-domed chamber (a room, especially one used primarily for sleeping) where Bunda Chand struggled on the…

View On WordPress

[wtruchan]

Amazon Prime Now customers in San Diego can now enjoy delivery from local restaurants

Amazon today announced that Prime Now customers in San Diego can now enjoy delivery from local restaurants, including Carnitas’ Snack Shack, Dumpling Inn, Rubicon Deli, T Deli, Tajima, Tandoori Hut and many more. Using the Prime Now mobile app, San Diego customers can view participating restaurants, browse menus, place orders, track the status of their delivery, and watch as the driver travels…

View On WordPress

[wtruchan]

CNN Worldwide expands its CNNMoney brand internationally

CNN Worldwide expands its CNNMoney brand internationally

CNN Worldwide announced today the expansion of its CNNMoney brand internationally, across both TV and digital, to provide consumers around the world its industry-leading business and financial news and analysis. With the addition of staff in London, Dubai, New Delhi and Hong Kong, CNNMoney will launch new franchises, series, features and reporting tailored directly to the regions and audiences it…

View On WordPress

[wtruchan]

Netflix Presents Teaser for Its Original Series Beat Bugs

BEAT BUGS features original characters and a world created by Josh Wakely, who will direct, write and produce the series, following a deal with Sony/ATV Music Publishing for worldwide rights to record covers of the Beatles song catalogue for this production.

The show will feature some of the most well-known Beatles songs woven into…

View On WordPress

[wtruchan]

1. The Visitor - 'She' by Henry Rider Haggard

Edited by Wojciech Truchan

Ludwig Horace Holly was sitting one night in his room at Cambridge, grinding away at some mathematical work. Wearied out, he flung his book down, and, going to the mantelpiece, he took down a pipe and filled it. There was a candle burning on the mantelpiece, and a long, narrow glass at the back of it; and as he was in the act of lightning the pipe he caught sight of his…

View On WordPress

[wtruchan]

The Butterfly: As told by a drunk uncle

Edited by Wojciech Truchan

I was once coming back from a bar when I saw a butterfly. It was huge, man. I stopped to talk to him. After a short conversation he told me he was looking for a wife. Of course I agreed to help him find the right woman but then he told me he didn’t want just any wife, he wanted a flower.

I have no idea why he decided to choose a flower for a wife. He was a handsome guy,…

View On WordPress

[wtruchan]

cs

cs

View On WordPress

[wtruchan]

The secret for fast interstellar travel is tightly kept by the alien race Lhari. An agreement between humans and Lhari has been made that permits humans to travel aboard Lhari spaceships but, for safety reasons, only in cold sleep. Mentorians, who are able to withstand the light levels that the aliens Lhari use and live in act as translators, middleman and interpreters between the two races. Bart Steele, Space Academy graduate, is on his way from Earth to his home planet Vega when he meets a man who claims to know his father.

Buy the book on Amazon

[wtruchan]

Welcome aboard – an Excerpt from ‘Bart Steele: and the secret of interstellar travel’

I waited six days but it felt like six eternities. I watched the video over and over again. With my Academy background, it wasn't as difficult as I expected it to be. I read and reread the set of papers identifying me as Astrogator, First Class, Bartol. Forged, I suppose. Or maybe there was somewhere a real Bartol? Who knows?

The last morning I slept uneasily late. I finished my last human meal, spent part of the day cleaning after myself - I didn’t want Raynor to think that somebody broke into his home when he gets back with his memory erased. I got into the silky, silvery tights and cloak that Raynor had given me. I still couldn’t believe that Raynor Three got me into wearing silvery tights.

Before dusk I slipped unobserved, in my new silvery tights, out of Raynor's house and hiked unnoticed to the edges of a small city nearby. There I took a flying cab to take me to the spaceport city.

“Been doing a little sight-seeing on our planet?” asked the cab driver, or was it a pilot?

“That's right,” I said in Universal.

We landed in front of the spaceport. I caught a glimpse of myself in one of the mirror-ramps. I was a tall thin strange form in a metallic cloak and silvery tights. It sure felt like Halloween in June.

I was beginning to feel hungry but I didn’t want to go to an ordinary restaurant. I would attract too much attention. And I didn’t want that.

I had to go to a Lhari restaurant. When you have to do something there is no point in putting it off. It was time to face my fears and test my disguise among the Lhari themselves. I knew from the training video that one side was the terminal, where humans and visitors and passengers were freely admitted; the other side was for Lhari and their Mentorian employees only. There were business offices, arcade with amusement centers, shops and restaurants. I knew that I was looking strange even for a Lhari, but with nine or ten ships docking every day my face would be lost in the crowds very easily.

I went to one of the doors marked danger, Lhari lights beyond, and passed through the glaring corridor of offices and storage-warehouses, finally coming out into a sort of wide mall.

There were small shops, bars, and restaurants. I stood in front of one of them and was not sure how to start a conversation with a Lhari. I looked inside through the restaurant’s windows planning what I’m going to do or say.

“Do they serve good food here,” a voice in Lhari said behind me. I carefully took hold of myself and turned around.

“I was just wondering that myself,” I said finding myself face to face with a young Lhari in the unadorned cloak of a spaceman without official rank.

We bumped our closed-fists as a way of Lhari greeting. Somebody told me that they’ve learned that from us, humans, a long time ago, but who am I to know that. “Let’s find out, then. Ringg son of Rahan greets you,” he said like an alien.

“Bartol, son of Berihun.”

“I don't remember seeing you in the port, Bartol.”

“I've mostly worked on the Polaris run.”

“Way off there?” He sounded startled and impressed. “You really get around, don't you?”

We sat down. I looked into the menu and had no idea what I wanted to eat. I’ve never eaten Lhari food before. I waited for him to order and then ordered the same thing. I didn’t know what to expect but when it came, it was a sort of a jelly, which tasted like chicken.

“Have you been here long?”

“A day or so. I'm off the Swiftwing.”

I decided to test the ground. “I was told there's a vacancy on the Swiftwing.”

Ringg looked at me like I’d done something wrong. “There is,” he said, “but how did you find out about it? Captain Vorongil told us not to talk about it with strangers.

Raynord Three told me after he transformed me into a Lhari, I thought to myself. “I just had that feeling that there would be a post for me on that ship,” I said.

“I’m sure we could use another man. This is the long run we're making, out to Antares and then home, and if everybody has to work extra shifts, it's no fun. But if old Vorongil finds out that there's been talk in the port about Klanerol jumping ship, or whatever happened to him, he won’t be happy.”

He actually seemed to be nice and friendly. “So how can I talk to your captain about this position?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “We could tell him that you’re a friend of mine. He told us not to talk with strangers but didn’t say anything about talking to friends.”

“Got your papers?” he asked. “What rating?”

“Astrogator first class.”

“Klanerol was second, but you can't have everything, I suppose.” We left the restaurant and he led the way through the arcades, out across a guarded sector, passing half a dozen of the huge ships lying in their pits. Finally he stopped and pointed. “This is it.”

I had never traveled in cargo ships before. It was enormous, ovoid like the egg of some space-monster, the sides dented and discolored.

I followed Ringg.

At the doorway there was Lhari in the black-banded officer's cloak. He glanced at Ringg's papers.

“Friend of mine,” Ringg said. “Old Baldy on board?” Ringg asked.

“Where else?” the officer laughed. “You don't think he'd relax with cargo not loaded, do you?”

They seemed casual and normal, my confidence was growing. I’d never been on a cargo ship before. The corridors and decks seemed larger, wider, more spacious and they seemed endless.

“What's your rating?” I asked Ringg.

“Well, according to the logbooks, I'm an Expert Class Two, Metals-Fatigue,” he answered. “That sounds very technical and interesting but what it means is just that I go all over the ship inch by inch, and when I finish, I start all over again at the other end. Most of the times I just boss around the maintenance team telling them what to do.”

We got into a small round elevator. It took us to the command deck.  

“I thought you were on leave,” said a tall, thin Lhari, in a cloak with four of the black bands that seemed to denote rank among them. It was the captain himself. “What are you doing, back here?” I wasn’t sure whether he was being nice or angry. “Come in then, don't stand there,” he was being nice.

“I’m here with my friend,” said Ringg.

It was time for me to introduce myself. “Bartol son of Berihun in respectful greeting,” I tried to sound official. “Ringg told me there is a vacancy among the Astrogators, and I want to sign in.”

Vorongil looked at Ringg. “So you've been talking, Ringg?”

“Better that I tell one man than that you have to hunt the planet over—or run the long haul with the drive-room watches short by one man,” retorted Ringg.

“Well, you're right,” said the captain and looked at me. “On the last planet, one of our men disappeared. Probably just gone on the drift, sight-seeing, but I wish he'd told me. Now I wonder if he's been hurt, killed, or kidnapped.” I really hoped that poor guy was fine.

The captain looked through my forged papers. “You served on the Polaris run. You must be a long way off your orbit, aren't you? Never been out that way myself. I see you can do programming. All right, I'll take you on.” That was the shortest interview I have ever attended. Maybe because that was the only interview I have ever attended.

“Cool,” said Ringg. “My job is done here. I'm going to the port and celebrate. Are you going with me?”

“I—I think I'll stay aboard,” I said.

“Well, if you change your mind, I'll be down there somewhere,” he said while we left the command deck. He gave me a fist bump and left.

I stood in the corridor, feeling astounded and strange. I wasn't quite sure what to do next or where to go.

A Lhari, as short and fat as a Lhari could possibly be and still be a Lhari, came out of the captain's office. “Are you the new First Class?” he asked me. “I'm Rugel, coordinator.”

Rugel had two bands on his cloak. He was completely bald, and he puffed when he walked. “Vorongil asked me to show you around. You'll share quarters with Ringg since you two know each other.”

He took me down to the drive rooms. He showed me a huge room filled with computers, where I felt so comfortable that I almost forgot my disguise. Here was something I knew I could handle. I was good at programming. Being able to compute the movements of billions of stars, all moving at different speeds in different directions in the vast swirling directionless chaos of the Universe was something that always fascinated me. It was something that no finite brain—man or Lhari—could ever accomplish, yet their limited brains had built these computers that could do it.

“Well, you'll have enough time down here,” said Rugel. “I like it when people are in a love affair with their work. Come along, and I'll show you your cabin.”

He took me to my cabin and left me there. It was small and cramped, but tidy. There were two bunks, a small table between them, and drawers filled with manuals and maps. I looked through Ringg's belongings. I know it’s not a nice thing to do but I wanted to get some idea of what possessions I should own and make sure that I know how to use them. I didn’t want Ringg see me staring curiously at something that is ordinary to a Lhari.

After that I decided to go down to the port again and look around the shops. On my way I looked into the Recreation Lounge. It was filled with comfortable seats, virtual reality headsets, and 3D screens. I wanted to play with those but decided to do it later.

Somehow I took the wrong turn coming out of the Recreation Lounge, and went through a door where the sudden dimming of lights told me I was in Mentorian quarters. The sudden darkness made me stumble. I thrust out my hands to keep from falling, and an unmistakably human voice said, “Ouch!” It was a female voice.

“I'm sorry,” I said in Universal, without thinking.

“Are you blind?” she said and I found myself looking down, as my eyes adjusted to the new light level, at a girl.

She was small and slight, in a metallic blue cloak that swept out, like wings, around her thin shoulders. She was a Mentorian, and she was human, and my eyes rested with comfort on her face but she was looking up at me with anxiety and uneasy distrust.

“I think I got lost,” I said.

“What are you looking for? The medical quarters are through here.”

“I'm looking for the elevator down to the crew exits.”

“Through here,” she said, reopening the door through which I’d come in, and shading her large, lovely, long-lashed eyes with a slender hand. “You took the wrong turn. Are you new on board? I thought all ships were laid out exactly alike.”

“I've only worked on passenger ships,” I said being proud of myself for coming up with smart answer.

“I believe they are pretty similar,” said the girl cutting short my satisfaction. “Well, that is your way.”

I felt as if I had been dismissed.

“What is your name?”

She stiffened as if about to salute. “Meta of the house of Marnay Three, sir.”

I then realized I was doing something wholly out of character. I was chatting casually with a Mentorian. With one more glance at her pretty face, I said a stiff “Thank you” and went down the ramp she had indicated.

Buy the book on Amazon

[wtruchan]

I’m a Lhari now – an Excerpt from ‘Bart Steele: and the secret of interstellar travel’

“All right, Bart, today we'll let you look at yourself,” Raynor Three said.

I tried to smile under the muffling layers of bandage around my face. My hands were bandaged, too, and I had not been permitted to look in a mirror.

Raynor Three have given me injections of a chemical that would change the color of my skin; there had been minor operations on my face, my hands, and my feet.

“Let's see you get up and walk around.”

I obeyed awkwardly, and Raynor frowned. “Hurt?”

“Not exactly, but I feel as if I were limping.”

“That's to be expected. I changed the angle of the heel tendon and the muscle of the arch.”

“You did what?” I asked, my legs twisting. “You're using a different set of muscles when you walk; until they harden up, you'll feel some cramps. Have any trouble hearing me?”

“No, though I'd hear better without all these bandages,” I said impatiently.

“Any trouble hearing?” he asked again not hearing me the first time.

“No!” I raised my voice trying to be audible while speaking through the thick layer of bandages. “Except for… Just forget it.”

I changed the shape of your ears and nostrils, and it might have affected your hearing or your breathing. “Now, listen, Bart: I'm going to take the bandages off your hands first. Sit down.”

I sat across the table from him, obediently sticking out my hands. Raynor Three said, “Shut your eyes.”

I did as I was told and felt Raynor Three's long fingers working at the bandages.

“Move each finger as I touch it.” I obeyed, and Raynor said neutrally, “Good. Now, take a deep breath and then open your eyes.”

Impatiently I flicked my lids open. In spite of the warning, my breath went out in a harsh, jolting gasp. My hands lay on the table before me—although they didn’t look like mine. The fingers were long and narrow.

“Practice picking up small things.”

I kept moving my new hands experimentally. After a while, they felt quite normal.

“Practice writing this,” he said, and laid a plastic-encased folder down beside me. It was a set of ship's papers printed in Lhari. I read it through, seeing that it was made out to the equivalent of Astrogator, First Class, Bartol.

“That's your name now, the name your father would have used. Memorize it, get used to the sound of it, and practice writing it.”

“Astrogator, First Class?”  

“Don't worry about the rating; it's an elementary one, what we'd call Apprentice rating, and I have a training video for you anyhow.”

“When am I going to see my face?”

“Here. But take it easy.”

When I looked in the mirror I felt no unexpected shock, only an unnerving revulsion.

My hair was bleached-white and fluffy, almost feathery to the touch. My skin was grayish-rose, and my eyelids had been altered just enough to make my eyes look long, narrow and slanted. My nostrils were mere slits, and I moved my tongue over lips that felt oddly thin.

“I did as little to your teeth as I thought I could get away with-capped the front ones,” he said. “So if you get a toothache you're out of luck—you won't dare go to a Lhari dentist. I could have done more, but it would have made you look too freakish when we changed you back to human again—if you live that long,” he added grimly.

I just hoped that I wouldn’t look like Grinch for the rest of my life.

“When you get to Antares, they'll tell you all you need to know,” added Raynor. “Just be careful not to break any bones. You’ll pass anything but a body scan.”

“Ok, I’ll try,” I said.

“This is the Lhari training video,” he said and gave me a data stick. I didn’t know there are Lhari training videos but I guess there’s nothing you cannot find online these days. “The Swiftwing is due in port three days from now, and they stay here a week. I don't know how we'll manage it, but I'll guarantee there'll be a vacancy of one Astrogator, First Class, on that ship.” He got up. “And now I'm going back to town and erase my memory,” he said it like he was going to town to get some milk.

“If you see me, stay away from me and don't speak, because I won't know you from any other Lhari. Understand? From here on, you're on your own.”

He held out his hand. “This is the rough part. It's funny to stand here and look at you and realize that I won't even remember you.”

“It’s no fun to me.”

“Goodbye, Bart. And good luck.”

I took his hand. Somehow he made me deeply moved. I felt like I was dying to live as someone else, or I should say something else.

“One more thing,” he said. “The Lhari don’t shake hands.”

He turned and went out.

Buy the book on Amazon 

[wtruchan]

I can do it! – an Excerpt from ‘Bart Steele: and the secret of interstellar travel’

“So how does this story end?” I asked.

“A Mentorian found him, and didn’t have the heart to turn him over to the Lhari. So he was smuggled clear again. But when that Mentorian underwent the routine brain-checks at the end of the voyage, the Lhari found out what had happened. They didn’t know Briscoe’s name, but they wrung that Mentorian out like a wet dishcloth and got a description that was as good as fingerprints. They tracked down young Briscoe and killed him. They killed the first man he’d talked to. They killed the second. The third was your father.”

He sighed. “Your father and Briscoe’s father were old friends. Briscoe’s father was dying with incurable heart disease; his son was dead, and old Briscoe had only one thought in his mind—to make sure he didn’t die for nothing.”

“Your father came to me, knowing I was sympathetic, knowing I was a Lhari-trained surgeon. He had just one thought in his mind: to do, again, what David Briscoe had done, and make sure the news got out this time. He cooked up a plan that was even braver and more desperate. He decided to sign on a Lhari ship as a member of the crew.”

“As a Mentorian?”

“No,” said Raynor, “not as a Mentorian; he couldn’t have escaped the psych-checking. As a Lhari.”

“How in the world—”

“Men and Lhari are very much alike,” he said. “A few small things—skin color, the shape of the ears, the hands and claws—keep humans from seeing that the Lhari are men.”

“Apart from the fact that they see everything differently,” I said.

“Yes, they do, but it’s not that important. You just have to look where they look and pretend you can see what they can see. I’ve lived among the Lhari all my life. They’re not devils, Bart, they have their reasons. Physiologically, the Lhari are—well, humanoid, if you like that better. They’re a lot more like a man than a man is like, for instance, a gorilla. Your father convinced me that with minor plastic and facial surgery, he could pass as a Lhari. And finally I gave in, and did the surgery—”

“And it killed him!”

“Not really. It was a completely unforeseeable thing—a blood clot broke loose in a vein, and lodged in his brain. He was dead in seconds. It could have happened at any time,” he said, “yet I feel responsible, even though I keep telling myself I’m not. And I’ll help you as much as I can—for his sake, and for your mother’s. The Lhari don’t watch me too closely—they figure that anything I do they’ll catch in the brainwashing. But I’m still one step ahead of them, as long as I can erase my own memories.”

I was sifting it all, slowly, in my mind. “Why was dad doing this? What could he gain?”

“You know we can build ships as good as the Lhari ships, but we don’t know anything about the rare catalyst they use for warp-drive fuel. We don’t even know what it looks like because we can’t see it with our own eyes. It’s nonexistent to us. Yet it allows them to travel across the universe, and Captain Steele had hopes of being able to discover where they got it.”

“But couldn’t they find out where the Lhari ships go for fueling?”

“No. There’s no way to trail a Lhari ship. We can follow them inside a star-system, but then they pop into warp-drive, and we don’t know where they go when they aren’t running between our stars.”

“We’ve gathered together what information we do have, and we know that after a certain number of runs in our part of the galaxy, ships take off in the direction of Antares. There’s a ship, due to come in here in about ten days, called the Swiftwing, which is just about due to make the Antares run. Captain Steele had managed to arrange for a vacancy on that ship, and somehow he got credentials. You see, it’s a very good spy system, a network between the stars, but the weak link is this: everything, every message, every man, has to travel back and forth by the Lhari ships themselves.”

He rose, shaking it all off impatiently. “Well, it’s finished now. Your father is dead. What are you going to do? If you want to go back to Vega, you can probably convince the Lhari you’re just an innocent bystander. They don’t hurt bystanders or children, Bart. They aren’t bad people. They’re just protecting their business monopoly.” 

“Yes, but they are killing innocent people just to protect their business monopoly.”

“Humans are doing the same thing. They just don’t have anything to protect anymore,” he said. “The safest way to handle it would be this: let me erase your memories of what I’ve told you tonight. Then just let the Lhari capture you. They won’t kill you. They’ll just give you a light psych-check. When they find out you don’t know anything, they’ll send you back to Vega, and you can spend the rest of your life in peace, running Vega Interplanet and Eight Colors.”

“You mean, go home and pretend none of this ever happened?” I said furiously. “Who do you think I am? What I want is a chance to go on where Dad left off!”

You can’t go by the Swiftwing—it doesn’t carry passengers—but there’s another route you can take.”

“No,” I said, “I know a better way. Let me go on the Swiftwing—in Dad’s place—as a Lhari!”

“Bart, no,” he said. “You’d never get away with it. It’s too dangerous.” But his gold eyes glinted.

“Why not? I speak Lhari better than Dad ever did. And my eyes can stand Lhari lights. Just let me take Dad’s place!”

“Bart, you’re only a boy—”

“What was Dave Briscoe? No, Raynor. Dad left me a lot more than Vega Interplanet, and you know it. I’ll finish what he started, and then maybe I’ll begin to deserve what he left me.”

Raynor Three gripped my hand. “All right, Bart,” he said with a shaking voice. You’re your father’s son. I can’t say more than that. I haven’t any right to stop you.”

Buy the book on Amazon 

[wtruchan]

It’s a lie! – an excerpt from ‘Bart Steele: and the secret of interstellar travel’

For a moment I stared, frozen, unable to move, my very ears refusing the words I heard. Is he some kind of a murderer? Is he going to kill me, too? I rose and looked wildly around the room, as if the glass walls were a cage closing in on me. I’ve been shoved around too long and here I had one of them right in front of me. I felt like I have to hit back. I felt like taking him apart into small pieces.

“Murderer!” I flung at him, “Why did you do that?!?” I took a step toward him and started to punch him with my clenched fists. And, if you have to know, I cried. Oh yes, I cried like a baby.

He made no move to defend himself. Instead he said compassionately, “Bart, sit down and listen to me. No, I’m no murderer. I—I shouldn’t have put it that way.”

I dropped my hands and heard my voice crack with pain and grief: “I suppose you’ll tell me he was a spy or a traitor and you had to kill him!”

“Not even that. I tried to save your father, I did everything I could. I’m no murderer, Bart. I killed him, yes—God forgive me, because I’ll never forgive myself!”

I unclenched my fists. I knew he was dead. I knew it all along. I was trying not to believe it, but I knew.

“I liked your father. I admired him. He took a long chance, and it killed him. I could have stopped him, I should have stopped him, but how could I? Where did I have the right to stop him, after what I did to—” he stopped, almost in mid-word, as if a switch had been turned.

I didn’t say anything. He rose and left me alone. He gave me the time to slowly come to terms with the hard, painful reality. My father was dead and there was no happy ending to my dangerous game of escape. There will be no reunion with him, unless I’m dead, too. I got no father, no friends, nor family and I’m alone here in danger.

After a long time Raynor Three opened the door quietly. “Come and have something to eat, Bart.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Well, I am,” he said, “and you ought to be. You’ll need it.” He pulled knobs and the appropriate tables and chairs extruded themselves from the walls. Raynor unsealed hot cartons and spread them on the table, saying lightly, “Looks good—not that I can claim any credit, I subscribe to a food service that delivers them hot by a drone.”

I felt sickened by the thought of eating, but when I put a fork in the food, I discovered that I was hungry as hell and ate up everything in sight. When we had finished, Raynor dumped the cartons into a disposal chute, went to a small portable bar and put a glass into my hand. “Drink this.”

“Thanks, but I don’t drink.”

“Call it medicine, you’ll need something to calm you down,” he said crossly. “I’ve got a lot to tell you, and I don’t want you to go crazy in the middle of a sentence.”

I drank the contents of the glass feeling like a scolded child. It burned my mouth, but after it was down, I felt a sort of warm burning in my insides that gradually spread a sense of well-being all through me. It wasn’t alcohol, but whatever it was, it had quite a kick.

“Thanks,” I muttered. “Why are you taking this trouble, Raynor? There must be danger”

“Don’t you know? Your mother was a Raynor.” He smiled at me like I was supposed to hug him now. “You have to start trusting me.” 

Sure, no problem. You’ve killed my father and now let’s hold our hands and be friends, I thought to myself.

“It’s a long story and I only know part of it,” he continued. “Our family, the Raynors, have traded with the Lhari for more generations than I can count. When I was a young man, I qualified as a medic on the Lhari ships, and I’ve been star-hopping ever since. People call us the slaves of the Lhari—maybe we are,” he added wryly. “But I began it just because space is where I belong, and there’s nowhere else that I’ve ever wanted to be. And I’ll take it at any price.”

“I never questioned what I was doing until a few years ago. It was your father who made me wonder if we Mentorians were blind and selfish—this privilege ought to belong to everyone, not just the Lhari. More and more, the Lhari monopoly seemed wrong to me. But I was just a medic. And if I involved myself in any conspiracy against the Lhari, they’d find it out in the routine psych-checking.” 

“And then we worked out how it could be done. Before every trip, with self-hypnosis and self-suggestion, I erase my own memories—a sort of artificial amnesia—so that the Lhari can’t find out any more than I want them to find out. Of course, it also means that I have no memory, while I’m on the Lhari ships, of what I’ve agreed to while I’m—,” he got stuck there for a minute.

“So far, it was just a sort of loose network, trying to put together stray bits of information that the Lhari didn’t think important enough to censor.”

“And then came the big breakthrough. There was a young apprentice astrogator named David Briscoe. He’d taken some runs in special test ships, and read some extremely obscure research data from the early days of the contact between men and Lhari, and he had a wild idea. He did the bravest thing anyone has ever done. He stripped himself of all identifying data—so that if he died, no one would be in trouble with the Lhari—and stowed away on a Lhari ship.”

“But—” my lips were dry from the thing he had given me—”didn’t he die in the warp-drive?”

“No, he didn’t. No drugs, no cold-sleep—but he didn’t die. Don’t you see, Bart?” He leaned forward, urgently. “It’s all a fake! The Lhari have just been saying that to justify their refusal to give us the secret of the catalyst that generates the warp-drive frequencies! Such a simple lie, and it’s worked for all these years!” First, it sounded like telling somebody that it’s safe to fly in the cargo bay but it made sense to me.

Buy the book on Amazon

[wtruchan]

You did whaaat?!? – an Excerpt from ‘Bart Steele: and the secret of interstellar travel’

I kept staring at the words. I didn’t expect Raynor One to be a manager. I expected to meet him in some kind of deep, dark concealment as part of some undercover operation. I thought somebody will put a bag over my head and drive me somewhere completely blinded. I didn’t expect him to be the manager of Transhipping Company. It’s like coming here for a job interview. After all, I’ve just graduated; maybe they will offer me some good position? Maybe that’s what it’s all about.

The existence of Raynor One presupposes the existence of Raynor Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, or even Sixty-six! How many Raynors are there I don’t really know. I just think it’s an interesting way to name your children. The one I’m about to meet must be the oldest or the most important. I just hope he will have something to tell about my father.

The building looked solid and real. It had evidently been there a long time. I hesitated for a moment but then pushed the door and went in.

The room was filled with brighter light than Hamana sun outdoors. A prim-looking girl sat behind a desk, which looked more like a mirror, with little sparkles of lights and different colors. She raised her eyebrows at me as if I was some strange form of life she hadn’t seen before.

“I’d—er—like to see Raynor One,” I said.

Her dainty pointed fingernail, varnished blue, stabbed at points of light. “On what business?” she asked, not caring.

“It’s a personal matter.”

“Then I suggest you see him at his home.”

“It can’t wait that long.”

She studied the glassy surface and punched at some more of the little lights. “Name, please?”

“David Briscoe.” She looked at me in open, blank consternation. She said into the camera, “He calls himself David Briscoe. Yes, I know. Yes, sir, yes.” She raised her face. “Raynor One will see you. Through that door and down to the end of the hall.”

At the end of the hallway was an elevator. I stepped into it and the door slid shut. It took me up and then stopped kind of suddenly. The door slid open into a lighted room and office. A man sat behind a desk, watching me step from the elevator. The man was very tall and very thin. His gray eyes and the intensity of the lights told me that he was a Mentorian. Was he Raynor One? I don’t know but he kept staring at me and I started to doubt whether I made a good decision coming here.

What if this guy is a slave of the Lhari who will turn me over to them? I don’t know if this is someone I can trust. 

“Who are you?” he finally said. His voice was harsh, and gave the impression of being loud, though it was not.

“David Briscoe,” I answered not being sure if it was the right thing to do. His mouth was taut, forbidding. “Try again. I happen to know that David Briscoe is dead.”

“I have a message for Raynor Three.”

The cold gray stare never altered. “On what business?”

“I’m looking for a man called Rupert Steele,” I said, hoping that I will get some answers.

“I thought you were looking for Raynor Three,” said Raynor One, staring at the Mentorian cloak. “I can think of a lot of people who might want to know how I react to certain names, and find out if I know the wrong people, if they are the wrong people. What makes you think I’d admit it if I did?”

Our conversation wasn’t going so well. None of us was getting any answers. I knew that somehow I had to make him believe me.

I flung the Mentorian cloak down on the table. “This got me out of trouble—the hard way,” I said. “I never wore one before and I never intend to again. I want to find Rupert Steele because he’s my father!”

“Your father. And just how are you going to prove that exceptionally interesting statement?”

It didn’t help either and that is when I lost my temper. “I don’t care whether I prove it or not! You try proving something for a change, why don’t you? If you know Rupert Steele, I don’t have to prove who I am—just take a good look at me! Or so Briscoe told me—a man who called himself Briscoe, anyway. He gave me papers to travel under that name! I didn’t ask for them, he shoved them into my hand. That Briscoe is dead.” I struck my fist hard on the desk to make my point clear, bending over him angrily.

“He sent me to find a man named Raynor Three. But the only one I really care about finding is my father. Now you know as much as I do, how about giving me some information for a change?”

Then I ran out of breath and stood glaring down at Raynor One, fists clenched. He got up and said, quick, savage and quiet, “Did anyone see you come here?”

“Only the girl downstairs.”

“How did you get through the Lhari? In that?” I moved my head at the Mentorian cloak.

I explained briefly, and Raynor One shook his head. “You were lucky,” he said, “you could have been blinded. You must have inherited flash-accommodation from your Mentorian mother—Rupert Steele didn’t have it. I’ll tell you this much,” he added, sitting down again. “In a manner of speaking, you’re my boss. Eight Colors, which used to be Alpha Transshipping, is what they call a middleman outfit. The inter-planet cargo lines transport from planet to planet within a system—that’s free competition—and the Lhari ships transport from star to star—that’s a monopoly all over the galaxy. The middleman outfits arrange for orderly and businesslike liaison between the two. Rupert Steele bought into this company, a long time ago, but he left it for me to manage, until recently.”

I didn’t expect that. I came here hoping for a job and suddenly became a boss. He punched a button and the image of the girl downstairs appeared at the desk, “Violet, get Three for me. You may have to send a message to the Multiphase.”

He swung round to me again. “You want a lot of explanations? Well, you’ll have to get them from somebody else. I don’t know what this is all about. I don’t want to know: I have to do business with the Lhari. The less I know, the less I’m apt to say to the wrong people. But I promised Three that if you turned up, I’d send you to him. That’s all.”

He motioned me ungraciously to a seat, and shut his mouth firmly, as if he had already said too much. I sat. After a while I heard the elevator again; the panel slid open and Raynor Three came into the room. Or so I thought because he looked exactly the same as Raynor One: tall, stern, ascetic and grim. It could as well be Raynor Two or Four. He wore the full uniform of a Mentorian on Lhari ships: the white smock of a medic, the metallic blue cloak, the low silvery sandals.

He said, “Why did you call me, One? Violet—” and then he caught sight of me. His eyes narrowed and he drew a quick breath, his face twisting up into apprehension and shock.

“It must be Steele’s boy,” he said, and immediately I saw the difference between them. His smile was kind and his voice was low and gentle. “He’s the image of Rupert. Did he come in on his own name? How’d he manage it?”

“No. He had David Briscoe’s papers.”

“So the old man got through,” said Raynor Three, with a low whistle. “But that’s not safe. Quick, give them to me, Bart.”

“The Lhari have them.”

Raynor One walked to the window and said in his deadpan voice, “That’s not good. Get the kid out of here before they come looking for us. Look.”

He pointed. Below us, the streets were alive with uniformed Lhari and Mentorians. I felt sick.

“Get him out of here, Three!” suddenly demanded Raynor One.

“Put that on again,” said Raynor Three indicating the Mentorian cloak. “Pull the hood right up over your head. Now, if we meet anyone, say a polite good afternoon in Lhari—you can speak Lhari?—and leave the rest of the talking to me.”

We came out into the street full of Lhari and Raynor Three whispered to me, “Attack is the best defense,” and went up to one of the Lhari. “What’s going on?”

“A passenger on the ship got away without going through Decontam. He may spread disease, so of course we have alerted all authorities,” the Lhari said.

How clever of me. Now the whole planet will be hunting for me worrying that I may spread some stupid germs. “We’d better get you to a safe place,” said Raynor Three. “My country house is a good way off, but I have a copter.”

“Are you taking me to my father?” I wondered as we climbed in.

“Wait till we get to my place,” he said, taking the controls and putting the machine in the air. “Just lean back and enjoy the trip, huh?”

We flew for a long time; across low hills, patchwork agricultural districts, towns, and then for a long time over water. The copter had automatic controls, but Raynor Three kept it on manual, and I wondered if the Mentorian just didn’t want to talk.

We began to descend, at last, toward a small green hill, bright in the last gold rays on sunset. A small domelike pink bubble rose out of the hill. Raynor Three set the copter neatly down on a platform that slid shut after us. He unfastened our seat belts and gave me a hand to climb out.

He ushered me into a living room of glass and chrome, softly lighted, but deserted and faintly dusty. “You’re safe here, for a while,” Raynor Three said, “though how long, nobody knows. But so far, I’ve been above suspicion.”

I sat on a chair. It was very comfortable, but the comfort didn’t help me to relax.

“Where is my father?” I demanded hoping to get some answers.

He stood looking down at me, his face drawn and strange. Somehow I knew the answer is not going to be the one I expected. “I guess I can’t put it off any longer,” he said softly. Then he covered his face with his hands. From behind them hoarse words came, choked with emotion.

“Your father is dead, Bart. I—I killed him.”

Buy the book on Amazon 

[wtruchan]

Keep him for questioning – an excerpt from ‘Bart Steele: and the secret of interstellar travel’

We landed on Shoama and I started to get ready for another checkpoint. I got out of my cabin making sure that I have the ticket and the fake passport with me. I stood in the line of passengers waiting to get off the ship. We went through decontamination chamber, and then I stood in the line to the checkpoint.

The spaceport looked similar to the one on Earth. Sloping glass ramps, tall colorless pylons, a skyscraper crowded with humans and human-ish creatures from many different planets. Outside the spaceport there were tall hills and unfamiliarly colored trees. I was watching them with amazement while moving slowly toward the checkpoint. When I got there I surrendered my ticket and false papers to the Lhari and Mentorian. Please let me go, please let me go, I kept repeating in my head.

“Keep him for questioning but don't tell him why” said the Lhari to the Mentorian in the Lhari language. I looked at them not believing what I’d just heard.

The Mentorian said briefly, “We wish to check on the proper antibody component for Lyrna natives. There will be a delay of about thirty minutes. Will you kindly wait in this room here?”

No thank you, I wouldn’t like to check my antibody component. I’d like to go through that gate over there, I thought to myself. “Yes, of course,” I said and went to the room and waited. The room was comfortable, furnished with chairs and a large screen on which Dancing with the Stars was playing. I didn’t know this show had made it to the planetary system of Hamana. It must be everywhere; it spreads, like a disease! Their dance styles were fun to watch but there was no time for that now. In the room there was also another door which made me thinking. It was opaque, and marked in large letters:

DANGER HUMANS MUST NOT PASS WITHOUT SPECIAL LENSES TYPE X. ORDINARY SPACE LENSES WILL NOT SUFFICE DANGER! LHARI OPENING! ADJUST X LENSES BEFORE OPENING!

It sounded like an entrance to hell. I opened the door. My eyes exploded into pain. I automatically covered them with my hands. I had never known such cruelly glowing light. Even through the lids there was pain and red afterimages; but after a moment, opening them a slit, I found that I could see, and made out other doors, glass ramps, pale Lhari figures coming and going. For the moment I was alone in the long corridor beyond which I could see the glass ramps.

Nearby there was a door into a small office with glass walls. I opened the door and got inside. The first thing I saw was one of the silky metallic cloaks worn by Mentorians doing spaceport work hanging on a peg. On an impulse, I caught it up and put it on me.

It felt cool and soft, and the hood shielded my eyes a little. The ramp leading down to the street level was terribly steep and there were no steps. I eased myself over the top of the ramp and let go. I whooshed down the slick surface on the flat of my back, feeling the metal of the cloak heat with the friction, and came to a breathless jarring stop at the bottom. There was another door.

Suddenly I heard a Lhari voice hailing at me. “You, there!”

I could see well now and made out the form of a Lhari, only a colorless blob in the intense light.

“What are you doing here without glasses? Do you want to be blinded, my friend?” He actually sounded kind and concerned. Still I had to come up with some good story, I was sure he wasn’t kind enough to let go the human fugitive. “Margil sent me to check,” I said in Lhari language. They were holding someone for questioning, and he seems to have gotten away somehow, so I wanted to make sure he didn't come through here.”

“How could they let one man get away like that?” he said curiously.

I know, tell me about it, I thought to myself. “Well, one thing is sure, if he comes through here, we'll catch him easily enough while he's stumbling around half blind” I said trying not to stumble.

“You know that you shouldn't stay long,” he said being kind and concerned again and then gestured me the way out. “Out this way—and don't come back without special lenses.”

I nodded and forcing myself not to break into a run, I stepped through the door the Lhari indicated. It closed behind me. This time it felt like stepping into pitch darkness. Slowly my eyes had adapted and I became aware that I was standing in a city street, in the full glow of Hamana sunlight, and apparently outside the Lhari spaceport entirely.

I took off the Mentorian cloak, thrust it under my arm. I raised my eyes, which were adjusting to ordinary light again, and stopped dead.

Just across the street was a long, low, rainbow colored building. I stood there and couldn’t believe what I saw. The letters on the building spelled out:

EIGHT COLORS TRANSSHIPPING CORPORATION CARGO, PASSENGERS, MESSAGES, EXPRESS A. RAYNOR ONE, MANAGER

Buy the book on Amazon

[wtruchan]

Tommy will save you – an Excerpt from ‘Bart Steele: and the secret of interstellar travel’

SOMEWHERE IN THE PLANETARY SYSTEM OF HAMANA

Suddenly I felt cold. I stirred, moved my head in drowsy protest; then memory came flooding back, and in sudden panic I sat up, flinging out my arms as if to ward away anyone who would lay hands on me.

“Easy!” said a soothing voice. A Mentorian, not the same one as before, was benting over me.

“Wow, what are you doing?” I screamed in fear.

“Easy, I’m only unstrapping you,” said the Mentorian. “We have just entered the gravitational field of Shoama, Mr. Briscoe. Touchdown in four hours.”

 I mumbled an apology.

„No problem. Many people who aren’t used to the cold-sleep drug suffer from minor lapses of memory. How do you feel now?”

My legs were numb and my hands tingled when I sat up; but my body processes had been slowed so much by the cold-sleep that I didn’t even feel hungry; the synthetic jelly I’d eaten just before going to sleep wasn’t even digested yet.

When the Mentorian left for another cabin, I looked around, and suddenly felt that I can’t stand this place anymore. I had to get out. After all I’d spent there six weeks of my life. Yes, six weeks, that’s how long the trip to Shoama was. I wanted another sight of the stars before going into worry and danger again and I was pretty sure there was no way I could run into Tommy again. After all, the ship was full of people and inhabitants of the other planets from galaxies around the universe. Even if I did meet him, I was sure he wouldn’t want to talk to me ever again.

I went down to the Observation Lounge. The cosmic dust was brighter out here, and the constellations looked a little flattened. The ship was streaking toward Shoama, orbiting around Hamana, which is a member of the triple star system Hamanaku. Past it other stars, brighter stars, faraway stars I had never seen before.

“Hello, Dave,” a voice interrupted my admiration. “Been space-sick all this time?” It was Tommy again. I don’t know how did he find me but this guy just won’t give up. “Remember me? I met you about six weeks ago in the lounge down here—just out from Earth,” he said with a smile on his face.

Of course I remembered you. I spent six weeks in my cabin because of you. I turned, with a mental groan, to face him. “I’ve been in cold-sleep,” I said. It didn’t make sense to be rude again. I knew it wouldn’t work with this guy.

“What a dull way to face a long trip!” He said cheerily. “I’ve enjoyed every minute of it myself.”

Then there was silence. I really felt like I needed to talk to somebody, to a real friend. Soon I will be on a strange planet with some stranger Raynor Three as a guide. It couldn’t get any stranger.

“Maybe I should have stayed awake,” I kept the conversation going.

“You should,” he said. “I only slept for a couple of hours at each warp-drive shift. We had a day-long stopover at Gagun, and I took a tour of the planet. And I’ve spent a lot of time down here, just star-gazing—not that it did me much good. I still don’t know how to distinguish Gagun from Kagun. I’m always getting them mixed up.”

That was easy. “Gagun and Kagun both orbit the red dwarf star Girlus—that’s the big red one there,” I said. “Kagun is an outer giant planet and Gagun is an interior rocky planet. Since Gagun is habitable it is much closer to the star than Kagun. It’s very similar to Earth…” I continued suddenly realizing that I had been tricked.

“I knew it’s you,” Tommy said in a whisper. Why didn’t you tell me it’s you and made me feel stupid in front of all these people? What have you done to your hair? Is there something you want to tell me?”

Then I smiled. Somehow I felt better now. “Don’t say my name out loud Tom,” I said keeping my voice low. „I’m in terrible trouble.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? We’re friends, remember?”

“We can’t talk here. And all the cabins are wired for sound in case somebody stops breathing, or has a heart attack in space,” I said, glancing around.

We went and stood at the very foot of the quartz window and talked in low tones while other planets swelled like blown-up balloons in front of us. Tommy listened, almost incredulous. “And you’re hoping to find your father, with no more information than that? It’s a big universe, you know, with a countless number of stars,” he said. “According to this brochure,” he waved some brochure he got at one of his stops, “the Lhari ships touch down at nine hundred and twenty-two different stars in this galaxy!”

He wasn’t helping me. “Come to Tikurak with me,” he urged. You can stay with my family as long as you want to, and appeal to the Interplanet authority to find your father. They’d protect him against the Lhari, surely. You can’t chase all over the galaxy playing undercover agent all by yourself, Bart!”

Maybe he was right, but Briscoe had gone to his death to give me the chance to get away. He wouldn’t have died to send me into a trap he could easily have sprung on Earth.

“Thanks, Tommy. But I’ve got to play it my way.”

“Count me in then,” Tommy said firmly. My ticket has stopover privileges. I’ll get off at Shoama with you.”

Having a friend next to me was a temptation but I couldn’t risk his life. I was his friend as he was mine. I didn’t want to put his life in danger.

“Tommy, I appreciate that, believe me. But if I did find my father and his friends, I don’t want anyone tracing me. You’d only make the danger worse. The best thing you can do is stay out of it.”

“I’m not going to let you go off and never know whether you’re alive or dead.”

“I’ll try to get a message to you,” I said, “if I can. But whatever happens, Tommy, stay with the ship and go on to Tikurak. It’s the one thing you can do to help me. Do it—please. Just stay clear.”

Tommy reached out and caught my arm. “Okay,” he said reluctantly, “I will. But you be careful,” he added fiercely. “You hear me? And if I don’t hear from you in some reasonable time, I’ll come and rescue you! You hear me?”

“I hear you!” I said standing right in front of him. I said goodbye and ran back to my cabin.

Buy the book on Amazon