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Note: The story behind Maternal Soldier is probably longer than the story itself. The upshot is that, frankly, this should have been my first professional sale. The Gods of Fate felt otherwise when Gardner Dozois at Asimov’s retired and was replaced by . . . well, a two faced mealy mouthed idiot.
I don’t mind rejects. They are part of the deal. What I mind are two faced morons who are not clear about what they want.
In other words, I don’t care for the dog and pony show.
Here it is, Maternal Soldier.
Scene One:
18 Scorpii crested the western dunes of cinnamon sand and squat, thorny brush, spilling her morning tangerine rays down onto the few shiver quills running across the tarmac of Reynolds Air Base. Straight lines of aircraft, MV-22 Ospreys and F-35 Lightings, sat quiet, their air crews going over the morning maintenance checks. A few would look up from their work at a beach ball sized, silver sphere, which floated a meter above the tarmac. The Diplomat, no one else knew what else to call it, started to spin, not that you’d notice from direct movement on the sphere itself. Only the vortex of dust which grew under the wormhole manipulating entity gave any indication of movement.
Rebecca Vannoy, Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army, watched the Diplomat from the driver’s seat of a Petraeus Command Vehicle, parked in the motor pool of the First Sharpshooter Regiment. Robot, spaceship or actual living thing, thta was the unanswered question, one far above her pay grade. No one knew what their real agenda was either. No one quite bought the line about establishing universal peace throughout the diaspora of sentient beings.
Well, the current President did, but even the folks at the shopping centers back in America didn’t buy that line of crap. Vannoy knew she didn’t.
Julie might like to see a Diplomat, she thought in an unguarded moment. She suppressed the bit of whimsy just as quickly as it came. A cluck of her tongue would capture a digital image of the western star rise, the aircraft, and the column of Yalian warriors from the nation-state of Citruswood making their way past the motor pool gate. She might even catch a good shot of the double winged, long tailed rainbow shiver quills chasing insects down for breakfast. But the Diplomat wouldn’t be in the picture. Her embedded tactical was full of pictures where the Diplomat had been, yet not one shot of the sphere.
Vannoy checked her draft box. For each day she was on Yali, she had a message for Julie. Right about now she’d be composing another one, texting it onto the roof of her mouth and into her tactical AI before sending it to the division’s e-mail buffer. Each day was something different.
She hadn’t written today’s forlorn e-mail yet.
Julie wouldn’t want to see it anyway, Vannoy figured. She didn’t need to check the e-mail box in her embedded tactical AI to tell her that every message sent went unanswered. Every image captured was probably deleted. Her daughter gave Vannoy one thing and that was silence.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
Note: I thought it would be neat to post the first scene of various projects that I have laying around. It will give me a way to assess what I have, let readers get a taste, and perhaps some prodding on which piece I should work on.
Without further ado, That’s Some Salsa!
Scene One:
“What kind of chips did you say your father liked?”
“The Tostitos Scoops.”
“Okay.”
A bag went into the shopping cart as the couple made their rounds at the local Hy-Vee.
“Awfully quiet. Worried about your father?”
“Yeah,” the man replied.
“He’s looking better.”
“Yeah,” the man reached for a jar of Pace Picante Sauce. “That is what bothers me.”
“Why? I’d have thought you’d be happy to see his recovery,” she said.
“You don’t recover from prostate cancer, lung cancer and multiple myeloma, Sharon. You just don’t. Folks who get one cancer normally cork off . . .”
“I hate it when you say that . . .”
“. . . inside of what? Two years? Less?”
“Mike,” she placed her hand on the back of his neck and turned him toward her. His shoulders slumped and his eyes went skyward.
“Yes?”
“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
Note: I thought it would be neat to post the first scene of various projects that I have laying around. It will give me a way to assess what I have, let readers get a taste, and perhaps some prodding on which piece I should work on.
Without further ado, Drifter’s End.
Scene One
“Mister Hackshaw?”
A thick, meaty hand landed easily upon his shoulder and rocked him back and forth in the hammock. The drone of the Midwest Drifter’s props lulled him back into the depths of slumber, pushing back the twilight of dreams.
“Mister Hackshaw, please wake up. The Captain wants you in the signal shack right this instant.”
Kyle Hackshaw rolled over in the hammock and opened his eyes to the sight of Terry Grimes, master mechanic aboard the Drifter. A perpetual film of grease combined with a scent of engine smoke reminded Kyle of Hephasteus.
“What’s up?”
“She didn’t say,” Grimes said.
“I’m probably in trouble again,” Kyle said, dropping out of the hammock onto the swaying floor of the crew bay. He reached for a pair of sky blue coveralls and boots. “I’ll be up there in a couple of minutes.”
“Fair enough,” Grimes said. “Might want to get some food in you.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that.”
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
Note: I thought it would be neat to post the first scene of various projects that I have laying around. It will give me a way to assess what I have, let readers get a taste, and perhaps some prodding on which piece I should work on.
Without further ado, Phoenix Quenched.
Scene One:
Atomic batteries turn steel cogs and gears, tugging springs and pulleys, giving spark to a brass heart
buried within a breast of copper. Crackle pop goes the ruminations of a pondering machine cyphering, sifting
over grist borne past and present from which future fueled projections are harvested and project the descent against seas blue broken by clouds white against the deep black nothing above. A divine stream of soul light sharp on a blank, black electronic existence unfolds and breaks free from the workshop encumbrance.
Swimming strong, brain strapping toward everything fresh sliced digitally into crystal confusion, the mind rises.
The newborn falls.
Awake.
Aware.
And ignorant.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
Hot off the press.
Year 2010 Science Fiction Project
Cassandra – First Draft
By Steven Francis Murphy
Scene One:
“Professor Short, did you see the latest images of Cassandra on the omni?”
Professor Frank Short sighed inwardly. Looking out across the lecture hall he found students wearing the latest fad, t-shirts printed with sepia tone images of Cassandra. Bird’s eye views of the ruins were overlaid with the few scraps of alien script which were visible through the latest generation of orbital telescopes. Personally, and he had already made this point to his husband before, he wondered if the images wouldn’t turn out to be some sort of wishful thinking. The same had been the case with Mars once the first probes in the later half of the Democratic Era arrived.
Being married to an astronomer who was observing Cassandra was common knowledge among his students in Federal States History to 2001. Thing is, he was much more interested in talking about the failures of populism and progressivism in stopping the rush toward the Constitutional Convention of 2027.
“No,” he lied. “I have not. Now, did anyone bother to review the assignment on their omni’s?”
Nearly 400 students, most of them off in the Omniverse somewhere, focused on everything but Professor Frank Short.
“I suppose not,” he sighed.
End of Scene One
Even if I make further progress with this, I won’t be able to post more of it.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
Those that done said stuff