Entries tagged with tqc

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"The Queen's Courtesan" is officially a novel.

Or is to become one. I made that decision today. What that means is that I've finally started thinking seriously about turning this project into an actual, buy-it-at-the-store-and-put-it-on-the-shelf, book. The whole idea of Writing A Novel is so scary and intimidating that I didn't want to deal with it. But as I get more deeply involved in the writing process, I find that the scary part is diminishing and the desire to see the story in print is increasing.

Obviously, what I've been posting online is a long way from being a novel as it now stands. So this means I'll need to put a lot of work into fleshing it out, filling in the details of the setting and characters, working out the kinks in the plot, polishing the prose, and generally turning it into a respectable - and publishable - piece of writing. And when I get to that stage, I'll start looking for editorial input and suggestions.

First though, I want to get the story finished. I'm still writing TQC as entertainment and I want it to be fun to read. (I'm having fun writing it.) After that, the real work begins.

Mostly I'm happy with the way it's going so far. There are a few things I'm not happy with (the plot device where Dess "just happens" to spot the creepy bronzed egg in Sestris' apartment is *unbearably* contrived) but the freedom to do stuff like that is what allows me to feel comfortable enough to keep writing.

Anyway, here is the link to The Queen's Courtesan.

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Tea Leaves

The Queen's Courtesan
http://asher813.typepad.com/fiction/

There is only one Zero.

Every field office assigns numbers to its agents by seniority, from One (the operations director) down to the lowliest clerk. So there is one One, one Two, one Three, and so on, for every operation with at least so many agents. But the number Zero is reserved for the Director of Earth Central Intelligence, so there is only one Zero. And right now, he's having a bad day.

The Gilkesh have always been a headache, but never a direct threat. At least, not since ... but that's ancient history. They are a proud race, they have their own ways, and you definitely do not want to get on their bad side. But they've never been a direct threat to Earth Coalition.

Here's the thing of it, though. Someone out there in the Gilkesh region is building some very strange structures in deep space, and is taking great care to keep them from being seen. And over the past few months, there have been reports of fluctuations in spacetime over an enormous volume of space. Officially, of course, the story is that there is a naturally occurring warp in spacetime around the known inhabited region of the Galaxy - and that's partly true. But the picture painted by the intelligence reports suggests that someone, somewhere, is exploiting that warp - that anomaly - for reasons Zero can't begin to guess.

So the question becomes: What in the hell are those gals up to? And here's where it gets really thorny. Because despite all the public proclamations, the Gilkesh have never really had a unified planetary government. They are a deeply tribal and factional society - as we all are, Zero muses - and the unity government in Dharfid is only a thin glue holding the Kathrite and Amirite factions together. You can't explain all this to the windbags up in the Earth Assembly, of course - hell, the last Intelligence Minister couldn't tell you the difference between an Amirite and a Kathrite - but somebody has to stay up nights worrying about this stuff.

The word from the best sources of SENTINT (what used to be called "HUMINT" in the old pre-Contact days) has it that the Amirites are behind it. In fact, one highly-placed source in the Palace claims that the two Queens haven't spoken to each other for weeks - and that Amira may be planning a surprise attack on Kathris' forces in an attempt to take over all of Shakti, and with it the whole Gilkesh Empire.

Zero doesn't know whether to believe that or not, but officially Earth Central has to pretend it believes the myth of a single Gilkesh government. He's got an agent assigned to the party sent there to discuss the Anomaly. They'll be meeting with Kathris, although Zero suspects Amira really knows more about it.

Zero would like to talk to the local agents at the Border Planet station, but no one has been able to reach them for a couple of hours.

***

Baxton Coulich looks over his shoulder at the Earth Alliance issue shuttlecraft parked on the landing pad. Witt Farrow, who's finished doing whatever he was doing back there, is walking across the tarmac to join him. Witt looks awfully flustered for some reason, but this isn't the time to press him on it.

Coulich allows himself a quick look around at the Gilkesh spaceport. The area set aside for Humans is brightly lit, to accommodate the offworlders' less acute night vision. He appreciates the thought but wonders if it's really necessary; he's curious to see what the rest of their world looks like. Farther off in the distance, he can make out the buildings and other structures, glowing gently in the night, and the big illuminated signs that hover in the air. He picks out the few words of the language he can read - MAINTENANCE, REFUELING, CUSTOMS - and he thinks of the first time he ever saw that kind of writing. It was in a book, oddly enough, aboard a Fao spacecraft, with nary a Gilkeshni in sight. He never did find out how the book got there, or who was reading it, or why.

Just as Witt joins him, he sees an autocar pull up. Three Gilkesh women - two in some kind of uniform he hasn't seen before, and one in what looks like plain clothes - get out and walk towards the two men; he's not sure, but he thinks he sees a fourth figure in the car. It's a bigger welcome party than he was expecting.

"So," Baxton Coulich says, turning to the group, "I guess this is where I say, 'Take me to your leader.'"

***

Atubis puts the communicator away. One more time, she checks her shoulder bag: her personal items, two books, a curious artifact, and her friend. She knows she ought to be carrying protection; but Atubis doesn't like guns.

***

The Gilkesh have been wanderers since the earliest times. The stars are their constant friends and companions, and long before the age of space flight, nomad tribes would travel across the plains and deserts of Shakti, guided by the stars. Now, standing on the roof deck of one of the buildings in the Palace compound, Amira gazes into the sky as if this would reveal the shape of the danger to her - or else, show her the way to go.

She feels as if she doesn't know Kathris anymore. Did she ever? Kathris, once her enemy, now her wife ... and still, to Amira, the deepest mystery.

But there are other mysteries, the ones Kathris knows about but won't talk about. Amira desperately wants answers, but if she can't find answers, she'll settle for comfort. And at least she will have that soon. Joli is here - here on Shakti, somewhere out there in the Capital City below - and soon Amira will be able to see her. But it's not safe yet.

Nothing is safe. Amira shivers, suddenly cold despite the warm night air. Once again, she thinks of her first lover, Terimi - how they met and how they loved.

And how Terimi died.

END OF PART THREE.

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Around and about.

So I got up at my usual 5am after getting to sleep at about 1am. But I slept about an hour earlier in the evening yesterday. So I should get through the day all right.

Nothing quite like getting all your bills paid at 1 in the morning!

The new job is going better than I first thought it would, and the work day generally goes pretty quickly. They let you wear headphones on the job, which is nice, and it allows me to study my Arabic and Farsi while working.

Going to finally, really and truly, finish writing that new chapter to The Queen's Courtesan today. I'm taking my writing pad on my coffee breaks.
http://asher813.typepad.com/fiction/

I've been getting traffic on the Stephanie tribute site, which is immensely gratifying.
http://asher813.typepad.com/stephanie/

Finished editing and tagging all my old entries.
http://asher63.livejournal.com/tag/

stilken's comment got me to thinking about the intersections between my LJ life and the rest of my-life-in-the-world. More later .....

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navari,
tqc

Writing TQC

So, I've finally started writing chapter 30 of my two-page short story (ha ha) and should have the chapter finished by the end of this weekend. I'm dividing the narrative into ten-chapter sections, for no particular reason except it helps me keep a little bit of structure; so this will be the conclusion of Part III. I think Part IV may include some flashbacks, in fact the whole next section may be set "in the past" because I'm realizing I need to bring the reader up to speed on some of the backstory and it's probably most economical if I just shift scenes and narrate it directly.

Originally the story was just supposed to be about Kathris, Amira, and the affair. But then I realized I needed to give Joli a friend or two, so Dess and Atubis appeared. And then I had to create some kind of concrete external threat, and so I conjured up the Anomaly. Finally I thought I ought to add an internal threat as well, so ... Singularity.

There's an extraordinary double episode of Xena titled "Sacrifice". This is the one where Xena and Gabrielle rescue Seraphin from a cultic sacrifice and learn that she's become a devotee of Hope, the goddess of Dahak. Xena realizes that civilization may be destroyed unless Hope is killed and her nihilistic cult overthrown. She enlists the help of Callisto, who is tired of immortality and yearns for oblivion. In the end, though, an old favor is called in, and Gabrielle understands that she must sacrifice her own life to save Xena.

What makes this story so amazing is that all four primary characters - Xena, Gabrielle, Seraphin, and Callisto - all seek the same thing: death. But they all want it for different reasons. Xena understands that she may have to sacrifice her life to save the world, and Gabrielle knows that "if Xena kills Hope, Xena will die" - so she herself must kill Hope (her own daughter) to save Xena ... giving up her own life as well. Seraphin wants to give her life in order to bring the apocalypse. And Callisto simply wants to end it all. (For some reason I was weirdly reminded of the Jewish legend of "The Four Who Entered Paradise" ... but that's another story.)

This is where I got the idea for Singularity. They are a doomsday cult very much like the followers of Hope and Dahak. And this is what makes them so dangerous: because their motives are completely incomprehensible to anyone else.

This also kind of goes back to one of the key themes I'm playing with in the Gilkesh material - the temptation of the "return to the source". (I explored this in depth in the chapter on "Lilith", which presents various characters' interpretations of the role of Lilith in Gilkesh mythology.) The seductiveness of Singularity's brand of mysticism is the secret of their attractiveness to certain people.

Singularity originated on Shakti, but its membership is no longer confined to the Gilkesh. After the death of its founder Q'ormis (the Q-apostrophe is pronounced like a guttural G, by the way) and her followers, the cult was believed to be extinct but in fact it went underground. With the advent of space travel its members began recruiting converts from among the Humans, the Fao, and the other intelligent races.

The current political picture on Shakti is one of superficial stability. Kathris and Amira both emerged as clan leaders. Their marriage was intended to bring union and stability to Shakti, but it's looking pretty shaky now. Needless to say, Amira's affair with Joli isn't going to help matters. Meanwhile at Earth Central Intelligence, the Humans are watching all this and trying to "read the tea leaves" regarding the internal politics of their galactic neighbors. For this, they depend on an informant within the Gilkesh government ... but how reliable this informant is, is open to question. As we shall soon see.

The main plot of TQC still revolves around the Kathris-Amira-Joli triangle. The complications will emanate from the various major and minor characters' relationships with one another, and their responses to the Singularity threat.

Here's the link to the story. The current chapter (scroll to bottom) is still in progress.
http://asher813.typepad.com/fiction/

Current Mood: accomplished

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Yay!

Numero uno! Dil-e wat!*
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=space+lesbians&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

I finally beat out AndersonGold Films.

*"Number one" in Gilkesh.
http://asher813.typepad.com/gilkesh_language/

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TQC up-to-date.

If you're just tuning in, here's a plot summary for The Queen's Courtesan. The summary lists 30 chapters; I've only written up to 29 but I should have chapter 30 up before too long.

***
( TQC plot summary )

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Seven, are you there?

"The Queen's Courtesan" - our story so far:
http://asher813.typepad.com/fiction/

Kathris doesn't look anything like Dess was envisioning her. She's poised and elegant, solemn and worried-looking ... in short, a middle-aged woman with a lot on her mind. Seated to one side of her at the circular table is an elderly, professorial-looking woman whom Kathris introduces as her science adviser; the name, when the Queen gives it, sounds familiar to Dess, and she realizes with a jolt that the same name appeared as the author of one of the standard textbooks she studied in University. (Dess prays that the subject of her grades won't come up.) On the other side of Kathris is the Homeworld Security Chief, who looks (Dess thinks irreverently) rather witchlike; Dess wonders if she has the ability to read minds.

The fifth chair is empty. "One of my senior advisers couldn't be here," Kathris explains, "she had other commitments. Now then, as to the reason we're here. I'll make it short and sweet: There's something strange happening in outer space."

***

In a spaceport on the outskirts of the Capital City, two Humans step out of a shuttlecraft and onto the landing pad. Baxton Coulich takes a deep breath and looks around; he wishes he'd gotten to see more of the city on the way in, but the nature of a landing from a low-orbit jump point isn't conducive to sightseeing. He looks back through the ship door and sees his partner fiddling intently with the radio.

"You go on ahead, Bax," the other man says, "their liaison is probably waiting for us just inside the control station. I'll catch up with you as soon as I finish recalibrating the radio."

After Coulich is well out of sight, the man heaves a sigh, turns back to the radio, and tries again. "Landing successful, Seven. We are on Shakti. Come in if you copy, Seven. Seven ... Seven, are you there?"

***

Dess leaves the meeting last, following Queen Kathris and the two officials. Her heart is in her throat. Her brain is still spinning from everything she's heard. She's been asked to come back for a second meeting - and to bring Joli! Numbly, she finds her way to the elevators that will take her back to the ground level; alone in the vast halls, she feels entombed in the enormous building.

There's a bar in the lobby of the Palace building, and even though it's early, Dess feels a nice drink wouldn't be a bad thing. And even though she only has a few credits left in her account (amid all the talk of dangers from outer space, somehow the subject of her paycheck never came up), she finds the lure of the bar irresistible. Somehow, it's the one place she wants to be right now.

"Can I buy you a drink?" At first Dess isn't sure the stranger is talking to her, but when their eyes meet there's no doubt. She's sitting in a corner, out of the way and not easy to see - like a fugitive, Dess thinks, and her sense of adventure is aroused.

The woman holds her gaze for another moment, and Dess starts thinking about all sorts of adventures. When she sits down, the stranger touches her forearm, ever so gently, with her fingertips. Dess goes weak.

"I can join you for a few minutes," Dess says feebly, grateful just to have somebody to talk to. "But I really have to leave soon."

"Well, that makes two of us," the stranger says with a conspiratorial smirk, "so why don't we just skip the drink and go back to my place?"

***

She lives in the Palace Compound, just a few minutes away by autocar. The view from the window of her luxurious apartment is breathtaking. Dess still hasn't gotten the stranger's name, but at the moment she's not too concerned about that. She's fascinating and exciting - from their conversation, Dess has learned that she has a very high position in the Palace, and has gotten all kinds of awards for her work in organizing disaster relief operations.

"Like the view?" the woman's voice says from behind her, and Dess turns in time to see her dress slide down her shoulders, ( continue reading )

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Close Encounters

"The Queen's Courtesan" - our story so far:
http://asher813.typepad.com/fiction/

Better that Amira doesn't know. Kathris wishes she could reach her, see into her soul the way she once could, in the days when Amira would heave in ecstasy under Kathris' touch. But that's gone now. Kathris feels like a thief, knowing that she can still become aroused by Amira's caresses ... she shakes her head to drive the thought away. There's enough to worry about already.

Sestris looks like an angel of grace in the starlight. She is incontrovertibly beautiful - Kathris supposes she could have any woman she wanted, if she chose; but as far as she knows, Sestris lives alone and keeps to herself. Her hands rest gracefully on the wooden table in the small, six-walled meeting room.

"So," Kathris is saying, "I'm calling two meetings tonight to discuss the space-warping phenomenon. The Humans are coming to the second one - I want to discuss the latest developments we've observed in their sector. I'm going to need a translator for that. First, though, I need to find out what's going on in Gilkesh space, and get some input from our experts. You'll be there, of course, and then that scientist ..." Kathris flips through the stack of files, her mind wandering as the colors of the displays flash across the thin plastic sheets. She spots the name she's looking for.

"This one," she says, pulling a file out of the stack, "the young specialist you recommended - the one named Dess - I think she's a good choice. She'll be at the meeting. She doesn't know about the situation yet, of course, for security reasons."

"I quite understand," Sestris says, "we don't want to start a panic."

Kathris sighs. "It's not just that." She debates whether to tell Sestris more; but seeing the look on the other woman's face - so trusting, so innocent - she decides she can't keep her in the dark any longer. She goes on.

"As far as anybody knows - that is, those who know about the Anomaly - this is a natural, cosmological phenomenon. And to the best of our knowledge, it doesn't pose a danger to any of the inhabited worlds ... at least, not yet.

"But the most recent observations show some peculiarities in the behavior of the Anomaly - that is, things that are strange, even for this. The warped region has been growing. And it's been changing in ways very different from our predictions - almost as if it were being deliberately shaped or manipulated."

"But that's impossible!" Sestris protests. "It's like something out of science fiction."

Kathris shakes her head. "It would take an enormous amount of energy - but it's theoretically possible that a party with access to zero-point technology could be behind it."

"But who would do such a thing?"

"That's the cosmic question," Kathris says. "But that has to come later. Right now I'm focusing on understanding the nature of the phenomenon."

"Well, Dess is the one you need. She's young, but her resume in applied spacetime physics is impressive." Sestris holds up a finger, signaling that an important thought has just come to her. "Did you say you needed a translator?"

"That's right - and, I might as well tell you this, given the sensitive nature of the situation, it should be somebody with a strong background in alien cultures."

"Well, there you are then! You should call in that girl from Amira's council - she's good friends with Dess. What's her name - Joli, I think ..."

Seeing Kathris' puzzled look, Sestris frowns. "You're familiar with her, right? She's one of Amira's closest advisers."

Kathris shakes her head. "The name doesn't ring a bell. Amira keeps pretty much to herself these days, you know."

After the briefest pause, Sestris says, "I'd noticed. Still, I'm surprised she never mentioned Joli to you ..." There's another, longer pause. "You know, now that I think about it, I wonder whether Joli would be such a wise choice after all. Forget I mentioned her."

"What do you mean, forget you mentioned her? What are you saying?"

"Oh, I'm not saying anything! She works for Amira, after all - and I'm sure her loyalty is beyond question."

"Joli's loyalty, you mean?"

"Oh, that too! And as far as Amira - well, I understand how things are. She gets lonely - which isn't your fault, she's never really adapted to Palace politics, you know - and she needs somebody to talk to. I'm sure that's all it is."

Kathris feels her bones tremble. It's all she can do to keep her voice level. "Get out," she says in a low hiss. "Get out of my palace, you slandering bitch, and don't ever let me see your face again. You're lucky I don't call the guards and give you a one-way ticket to orbit - with no pressure suit. Now get out - and don't ever come back."

Sestris quickly makes her way to the door and hurries down the hall. Around the corner, she sees a familiar figure.

"Mission accomplished," Sestris says.

Entry tags:

navari,
tqc

Fiction update, etc.

If you're one of the two or three people following my story The Queen's Courtesan / Space Lesbians, I've got about four or five episodes in the works now and they should be posted soon. The story is now at about 14,000 words, which is much longer than anything I've attempted before.

The story itself is meant as entertainment, not "art", and keeping that in mind has made it a lot easier to write. In fact, aside from the (negligible) literary value of the story itself, the project has gotten me in the habit of writing, which is something that hadn't happened before. What I'm saying is, it was a great way to get past perfectionism and other self-defeating habits, and build momentum, confidence, and proficiency. So if I do get ambitious in the future and aspire to writing something a little more serious, I'll be in a much better position to do it.

Meanwhile ... just in case you're wondering what language the characters are speaking, I've created a Gilkesh language home page. Currently posted are PDFs of the 600-word core vocabulary; in the future I'll add sections on the grammar.

So if you were looking for conclusive proof that I have way too much time on my hands, there you are.

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The Queen's Courtesan

Our story so far:
http://asher813.typepad.com/fiction/

Dess can't believe what the message on her communicator is saying. She shows it to Joli, who can't believe it either.

"The Palace? You're going to the Imperial Palace?"

Dess just shakes her head. "It's gotta be a mistake." She knew her new job was with the Government, but she's been expecting to be sent to some minor office of the Astronomy Ministry. Not the Imperial Palace.

She reads the message on the screen again. In a couple of hours' time - this very night - she's to report to the Imperial Palace for an urgent meeting with Queen Kathris. Dess grabs her hairbrush and starts brushing furiously in front of the big mirror in the hotel room.

"So," Joli manages, "d'ya still think Kathris is scary?"

Dess thinks the whole thing is scary. "I wish you could go with me."

Joli giggles nervously. "And meet Kathris? Wouldn't that go over well!" There's an awkward silence for a moment, and Joli adds, "Dess, do you think she suspects?" Her voice sounds distant and fearful now.

Dess shrugs. "How would I know? I've never been to the Palace before. I'll keep my eyes and ears open, though, in case she says anything. Have you heard from ... from her?"

"No. Amira hasn't contacted me. I mean, she must be pretty busy, with all the stuff that's going on." Joli gazes out the hotel window at the city lights.

"Well, maybe she'll call you in for some 'special assignment', right? I mean, officially you're an adviser to Queen Amira, so she can call you in any time. You're one of the Queen's courtiers."

"Sometimes I feel more like the Queen's courtesan. I love her, Dess. And I know she has feelings for me. But I still feel like I'm being used. Like I'm a pawn in some big game. And it's horrible." She turns away from the window.

"Dess."

Dess meets Joli's gaze, which is suddenly intense. "Yeah?"

"Be careful."

"Listen, Joli, if me taking this job would create, you know, problems for you, I won't - "

"No, that's not what I mean. This is a great opportunity for you and I don't want you to miss it. But what I'm saying is, be careful of getting mixed up in Palace politics. Listen, most people - most intelligent life forms, everywhere in the universe - are basically good. But some of 'em are mean, and some of 'em are just evil. You remember the disaster at Fao Colony 12?"

"Yeah, it happened when we were still in school, didn't it? A power station on the colony had a runaway thermonuclear event, and it destroyed almost the whole colony. The Gilkesh homeworld sent a rescue party to help the survivors."

Joli nods. "That's true, and the rescue party saved hundreds of Fao lives, and they did good." She pauses. "But some of 'em did bad. What they didn't tell us in school ... was that some of the rescuers went through the wreckage looking for souvenirs."

Joli swallows hard before going on. "They found nurseries full of unhatched eggs, with Fao babies still inside. Had 'em bronzed."

The trip to the Imperial Palace seems to take an eternity.

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Joint Support Detachment

Our story so far:
http://asher813.typepad.com/fiction/

Two and Five stare at each other for a moment. The data don't make sense. But you can't very well put that in a report to Headquarters; in this business, if things don't make sense, you make them make sense.

"One more time," Two says, her voice raspy with fatigue. "We know their space-warping capabilities are several orders of magnitude better than they're letting on."

"Right," Five says, scratching the stubble on his left cheek.

"But this ...?" She tosses the sheets down on the desk, like a card player throwing down a bad hand. "We can't even keep a signal to Earth going. The hyperspace relay keeps losing the frequency. In a few hours we'll be incommunicado."

"It's worse than that," Five says. "Eight just reported that a Gilkesh transport aborted its mission here due to navigation problems."

"Shit."

Outside of the compound - which is officially an audit office - they would call each other by their covernames, but in here they address one another by their ID numbers. That's as intimate as it gets.

"You don't think it's them, do you." Five's question isn't a question.

"No," Two says, under her breath, not even wanting to say it aloud. "I think Headquarters is wrong. Of course, the Gilkesh Federation isn't politically stable - no matter what they say publicly, there are still all kinds of factional problems between the Kathrites, the Amirites, and the smaller groups. So there's always the possibility of a rogue operation. But still ... I don't think they're behind the Anomaly."

"So what do we do?"

"I'm still waiting to hear back from that one high-level mission. Seven says she'll buzz me just as soon as they touch ground on Shakti. Come on, let's go topside."

It's an impulsive decision, but for some reason she suddenly feels impulsive. As they suit up, she suddenly finds herself wondering about the man she's worked with for a year and a half, but barely knows.

The elevator reaches the surface and the airlock opens. A landing pad, radio towers, and floodlights are nearly all that's visible of the base on the surface. They walk aimlessly to the top of a small mound on the barren surface. If it were daytime (the day is ten hours long here), the stars would still be visible, but they'd have to wear glare visors to protect their eyes from the harsh light of the small, bright star that is the planet's sun. Now, though, there are only stars, and they are beautiful.

Somehow the stars look special this time. As if there are more of them in the sky. And even though it's completely against regulations, Two asks a question she's wanted to ask for a long time.

"Hey Five," she says over the helmet radio, "what's your real name?"

He never gets a chance to answer.

Entry tags:

Baxton Coulich

Our story so far:
http://asher813.typepad.com/fiction/

It had all begun with two notes - one, an e-mail from the Human Resources department thanking him for his hard work, and the other, a yellow stickynote on the refrigerator announcing that Lirabelle had left to join a women's commune in southern Oregon, and that she wouldn't be back, and he could help himself to the TV dinners in the freezer if he was hungry.

Baxton had never been the superstitious type, but when two notes like those arrived on the same day, he figured the Universe was trying to tell him something. By the time his dinner was out of the microwave, he was on the phone to the Space Command recruiter.

The training had been tough, but hey, it was something to do. His first duty assignment had been in the communications center of a station in low Earth orbit - not very glamorous, but it was a change of scene and a steady paycheck.

With asteroid mining in full swing and Earth still adjusting to the new realities of post-Contact life, space was the place to be. There were new worlds to be explored, cultures to be encountered, exotic technologies to be studied ... oh, and money to be made. Or so they said; as a Space Command rookie, he'd have to take that one on faith. So when, about a year on, one of the guys in the comm center (and they were mostly guys) had spotted Coulich's name on a message and told him, "Hey Bax, looks like you're gonna be hanging out with the space lesbians!" - he'd taken it in stride.

The new posting was on the edge of Earth Force territory, adjoining the region of space claimed by the Gilkesh Federation. It was a small logistics base on a largely unexplored terrestrial planet about twice the diameter of Earth's Moon. Officially its main function was to provide supplies, communication, and other support for travel between the Gilkesh and Human regions. From the utterly nondescript look of the base, and the number of offices with vague names like "Joint Support Detachment", he guessed that it was home to more than a few Intelligence spooks too. But that was way beyond his clearance level and pay grade.

From what he'd seen of them, the Gilkesh weren't hard to work with. They were humanoid and looked more or less like human females; somewhere along the line, they'd evolved parthenogenesis, like the whiptail lizard and (more recently) the Komodo dragon on Earth. Their language was hard - he'd mastered a few phrases, but could never manage to pronounce those voiced gutturals. The Gilkesh themselves were capricious, subtle, and generally inscrutable ... again, he thought, not too different from human females.

You just had to know the rules, and you'd be okay. Now Pell Orner, there was a fella that didn't know the rules. He'd made the mistake of getting fresh with a Gilkesh warrior once. Pell had been all right in the end - that new arm was growing back quite nicely - but they'd still busted him to the loading docks and made him go to sensitivity training. But Baxton wasn't interested in any monkey business. He had a job to do - and that job had just started getting a whole lot more interesting.

Entry tags:

navari,
tqc

Lilith

Our story so far:
http://asher813.typepad.com/fiction/

Joli
Who or what is Lilith? Well, in Gilkesh mythology, she represents the creative force and the owtward-directed urge toward growth. She is sometimes called the Angel of Night, and some of the tribes know her by other names as well. Lilith is Eve's consort, and symbolically she is regarded as the collective bondmother of the Gilkesh people - the parent who guides us away from infancy and toward adulthood in the big universe. Eve is the prototypical birthmother; but Eve is also the Angel of Death.

The Humans also have a Lilith figure in their mythology, but she appears as a more sinister character. Recently there have been some very good studies on gender and mythology among the dimorphic races. Now, the Errioi, for example .....

Dess
Lilith? Well, everybody knows she's the angel of space travel! Because, who wants to be stuck on their homeworld forever? And that's what Lilith is all about. I mean, it was Lilith who drove Eve out of Paradise in the legend - Eve wanted to stay, because it was pleasant and comfortable, but Lilith said no, you must go out and explore the universe. You've got to grow. Because that's what life is.

Atubis
In meditation, we always invoke Lilith as our guide, so that our practice will show us the right path in the world. Because that's the danger in meditation, you know? That you'll withdraw into this other space, inside yourself, and that is not the correct practice.

In pictures, Lilith is shown holding the Sword That Does Not Slay. This is the sword that keeps our souls from entering the Realm of the Dead before their time has come. It's the original non-lethal weapon.

Sestris
Lilith was the Evil One. She is original sin. The Prophecies of Q'ormis teach us that Lilith drove Eve, the Great Mother, out of Paradise - and this is why the Universe is out of balance in our own time.

Kathris
Lilith is growth, learning, and civilization. Without her - without the things she represents - we'd be savages, living in mud huts and birthing our babies in the woods.

Amira
Lilith is life, passion, and discovery. She's the angel of secrets and mysteries. She represents possibility, and the hope that tomorrow will be better than today.

Khalfid
Lilith teaches us that our children must find their own way - that they cannot remain with their mothers forever. It is the hardest lesson.

Joli
Sometimes Lilith comes to me in my dreams. Sometimes she speaks to me, but I can't understand what she is saying.

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Atubis

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Alone now, she paces the hotel room. She thinks about her training back on Darkhaven - her training at the Temple, that is, not that earlier time - and wonders what good it will do her now. She remembers the endless hours of meditation, visualizing equations and contemplating unanswerable riddles like "What is the speed of sound in a vacuum?" She knows she should meditate now, but she's too agitated. So she just recites a silent invocation to the angel Lilith for guidance, and lets it go at that.

From the window of the high-rise hotel, the lights of the Capital City gleam below. The mirror on the wall reflects a woman she barely recognizes. And that's when her wrist communicator chimes.

Entry tags:

Time Bubbles

[This episode now appears in sequence.]
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***
The hotel room is invitingly dark and quiet as Dess and Joli stare at the ceiling. They're both tired, and Dess needs to get some rest before her mysterious job interview, but they both feel the need for conversation. Joli has some questions on her mind.

"Okay, I know I'm not too bright about this kinda stuff," Joli is saying. "Explain this hyperspace thing one more time?"

"Well, there are other universes parallel to this one - maybe infinite numbers of them - and some are almost identical to the one we're in right now. When you make a hyperjump, you leave one universe and enter another. Jumping allows you to pick the point in spacetime where you enter."

"But if I'm going into another universe like this one ... why don't I run into another one of me?"

"It's like musical chairs. At the same time that you're making your hyperjump, the 'other you' is making a jump into still another universe."

"Hmm. I think I see. But in musical chairs, you're always short one chair."

"That's true! And when you hyperjump, there's always a small chance that the 'other you' is making a different decision. So theoretically, there's always the possibility that you might meet her. Hypertravel is never completely predictable."

"Dess, we've both hyperjumped lots of times ... it seems weird to think that you're not the same person I saw before my last jump."

"Well, think of it this way: I'm not the same person you saw yesternight, either. Or an hour ago. I've changed - and so have you. The universe is always changing, and we change with it."

"Can you change the past and future with hypertravel?" Joli asks.

"You don't need hypertravel to change the future. You do that at every moment, with every choice you make in life. But I think I know what you're asking. Suppose you traveled to the future - say tomorrow - and then you threw a pair of dice. You might see an eight on your dice, but if I stayed where I was, and waited until you arrived, I might see you roll a three or an eleven. Why? Because you - the 'you' that I saw leave - are now in a different timeline.

"Now," Dess goes on, "suppose you traveled to the past. Let's say you went back in time, and ... " She's about to say, " - and killed your mother" because that's the example people usually use; but she stops herself, because she doesn't want to bring up painful memories for Joli. So instead she says, " - and, uh, did something to change the future, maybe you visited your mother when she was young and convinced her not to have babies. That wouldn't make you stop existing, because nothing you could do in the new timeline would affect anything in your own past."

There's a long pause. Dess has a moment of dread, because she's afraid Joli is goiing to ask her whether her mother is alive in another universe. And Dess doesn't know how she's going to answer that one. But that's not what Joli asks.

"Are there people from our future out there? And why haven't we seen them?"

The question catches Dess off-guard.

"Hmmmmm. Well, remember, they wouldn't be our future, exactly ... "

Dess is stalling, and Joli knows it. "But they'd be from a future like ours, right?"

"Yeah," Dess says quietly.

"So where are they? Has anybody seen a Gilkesh spacecraft from, say, 500 years in the future?"

The answer, as far as Dess or anybody else knows, is no.

"Well," Dess says awkwardly, stalling again, "there are limits on how far you can travel in hyperspace. Even our best ships can't travel five hundred years into the future."

"But in the future they'd have better technology, right? So why haven't they ever come to us?"

"Maybe they're just not that interested. We're their past. Maybe they're not all that interested in where they came from."

"But isn't everybody?"

This time, the silence is total. In a way that neither one can articulate, Joli's question has revealed a fundamental difference in their natures.

With no answer from Dess, Joli breaks the silence.

"Well, maybe they can't. Maybe they're stuck inside some kind of space-time bubble or something."

Dess thinks about this. "Yeah," she says at last. "Or maybe we are."

Entry tags:

The Sleeping Lamp

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They arrive in the Capital City in early evening, just as people are waking up and going to work. The autocar speeds away as they check in at the hotel. Atubis gets her own room, Dess and Joli share a room with twin beds. The arrangement is familiar, as is the hotel clerk's confusion - people always assume Joli and Dess are a couple.

Dess's meeting is scheduled for just after midnight, so there's time to catch a nap. Of course they've all been traveling, so their schedules are all screwed up and they're ready to catch some sleep even though the stars are out. Dess turns on the sleeping lamp.

Like Humans, the Gilkesh like to sleep in the dark. But for Gilkeshna, the natural tendency is to sleep in the shade, during daylight hours. So it's not darkness itself but bright light followed by darkness that calibrates the Gilkesh body clock, and every space traveler depends on a sleeping lamp, a full-spectrum lamp that bathes the user in bright light for a few minutes, allowing her to drop off to sleep when the light is turned off.

So Dess and Joli bask under the sleeping lamp silently, and then crawl under the covers to try to catch a few Z's.

Joli isn't on a schedule, eager though she is for her dangerous liaison. Dess is still largely clueless about what it is, exactly, that she's supposed to be doing on the Homeworld. All she knows is that it's some kind of job offer from the Astronomy Ministry, which would normally mean monitoring space travel hazards like meteors and radiation - but there's something different about this, and not just the generous pay package that the cryptically-worded message had mentioned. Well, whatever, life is an adventure. She figures she'll find out soon enough.

Now they're lying in the darkness with the blackout panels on the windows pulled shut to help them sleep - it's partly psychological (what they'd do if the suns were out) and partly to shut out the noise. But they're too wound-up to sleep; so they talk.

Current Location: Putnam, Connecticut

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Objects in Space and Time

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We do not know what the stars looked like from Shakti, but we believe its binary sun was located about halfway between the Galactic Center and the Rim. To a Human, the plane of the Galaxy would appear as a faint band of stars, like the "milk-white road" they can see in the night skies of Earth. For the Gilkesh, it would appear as a blazing arc of light and color. And it might have been rising in the sky during the early evening hours, with the glare of daylight fading, when three Gilkeshna arrived on the Homeworld.

The autocar speeds from the spaceport to the center of the Capital City. Joli, Dess, and Atubis have bypassed customs with a special clearance from the Palace. The Hunger of Lilith waits patiently in a hangar; she needs some routine maintenance, and she's got a lot to think about.

Although they're not in any immediate danger, both Dess and Joli carry sidearms when they're on the Homeworld, especially in the Capital City. Dess wants to beg Atubis to carry - a weapon for self-defense isn't against the rules of her Order - but Dess knows what she'll say: "I don't like guns."

***

There's a hole in space at the center of the Galaxy. As such holes go, it's unremarkable except for its size: a sphere almost 16 million kilometers wide, and nothing that crosses this boundary can escape. In the Gilkesh language, this zone is called its mörg-üj; the Humans know it by the unpronounceable phrase "Schwarzchild radius".

But the hole at the center of the Galaxy is not going anywhere; with the mass of four million average-size stars, what could move it? And as big as it is, its mörg-üj is very small in the vastness of space, and if you do not fly your spaceship into it, it will not reach out and swallow you.

Yet there are still things out there in the big night, even now, that we don't understand. The holes in our knowledge are bigger than the black hole at the center of the Galaxy; and they are as subtle and as dangerous as the Rift.

***

Chief Garris watches the schoolteacher impassively. Inspector Shihar wonders if she should say something and watches the Chief out of the corner of her eye for clues, but as usual, her boss is unreadable; so she waits for Miss Orizhend to tell them more.

Orizhend is staring into space, as if seeing something moving on the wall. Shihar resists the temptation to look over her shoulder; all of the chamber's six walls (like most Gilkesh settlements, Planet 138 is constructed largely on a honeycomb pattern) look the same.

Finally Orizhend draws a breath and focuses on the two secuirty officers seated across the crystal table from her. "The girls always used to whisper a lot in class - but more so lately, especially in the last few weeks. They had their clubs and their cliques - you know how kids are, I think we were all the same way when we were that age. But it was beginning to change somehow....

"You know, the real strong personalities don't make a lot of fuss, or attract attention," Orizhend goes on, as if following a train of thought that suddenly seems important. "They just quietly gather other girls around them, the way a planetary system forms from an accretion disk. Or," - she purses her lips, as if it's important to find an even better metaphor - "like the black hole at the center of the Galaxy."

Now Orizhend pauses as if pondering whether to go on. Garris and Shihar watch as her mind returns to the other thing that's troubling her. "Urkni ... Urkni was fascinated when I explained black holes last week. It's as if there was something about the emptiness that captivated her."

***

Outside the Palace Compound, billions of Gilkeshne go about their individual lives, each one with her own business and her own thoughts.

Inside the Palace, one of the Queens is quietly panicking.

Kathris inspects the conference room. In a couple of hours, she'll be meeting with some aliens from one of the worlds affected by the, umm, situation (she refuses to use the word "crisis", even mentally), and one Gilkeshni who doesn't yet know that she's coming here - a young science prodigy from a tiny colony in the middle of nowhere. And this girl just might hold the key ... especially since her home planet is also affected by this, err, phenomenon.

As is the planet Shakti.

Think, think, she's got to think. Everything is ready for the meeting, but there must be something she can do. She needs to talk to somebody. She wishes she could talk to Amira, but she doesn't want to worry her. And besides, Amira has been seeming so distant lately. So ... unreachable.

Kathris walks to a private chamber and selects the name of her most trusted adviser on her wrist communicator. "Hello?" she calls into the device in a quiet voice that she hopes will mask her desperation. "Hello? Are you there? Sestris?"

END OF PART 2.

Entry tags:

Descent to Shakti

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Joli makes her way wordlessly down the steps to the lower deck of the Hunger of Lilith. Dess and Atubis are both seated with their eyes closed. Joli takes her seat, thinking about what is to come with a mixture of yearning and dread.

Dess is hoping this new job for the Ministry of Astronomy will be something important. She's ready for a little excitement. And besides, she's broke.

Atubis clutches her shoulder bag on her lap. Through its fabric, she can feel the contents: soap and hygeine items, two old books, and a certain object that might be mistaken for a piece of exotic art. And, besides all of these things, her old friend.

Entry tags:

Aliens

No such luck.

Dolos opens her eyes and looks around the crew cabin; once the vertigo passes, K’korz is still there. She’d been hoping against hope that they’d wake up in a universe where K’korz wasn’t the crew commander, but rationally she knows it doesn’t work that way. She’ll just keep play it cool and keep her beak shut. This is her first hyperspace jump, and with any luck at all it’ll ber her last – she’s only got 150 years to go until she retires.

But 150 years can be a long time, especially if K’korz is your crew commander.

***

In between heaves, Baxton Coulich muses that it’s a great way to lose weight. Not only that (heave), it could be construed as a pleasant feeling (heave). With a great deal of imagination.

He holds the bag over his mouth a moment longer. His head is still swimming from the drugs. (Fat lotta good the dope does, he thinks. But never mind, hey, it’s a buzz, and you’ve got to take your fun where you can find it.)

The red light comes on at the same moment that Witt Farrow’s voice emanates from the intercom. “Bax, gravity in two minutes.” The announcement is redundant, but Coulich is grateful for the familiar sound of his crewmate’s voice. He stows the bag in a disposal chute and floats back to his seat.

It’s not the weightlessness that’s always bothered him, so much as the uplessness and downlessness. Artificial gravity … one more thing we can thank the Gilkesh for, he muses, no telling how long it would have taken Humans to perfect the technology.

And speaking of the Gilkesh … there’s their planet outside the viewing port now, just as advertised. It won’t be his first time dealing with them, but it will be his first time on their homeworld. Given his own situation, he figures he’s bound to feel a bit like the Ancient Mariner – “water, water everywhere”, so to speak. But his adventurous side is curious, and it’s good to be reminded that he still has an adventurous side, even if he’s not exactly a kid anymore. Besides, it’ll be a good chance to get away from Earthside politics. He settles down and feels his weight come back as the ship orients itself for re-entry. Then Farrow’s voice comes over the speaker again.

“Bax, we’ve got company.”

“Huh?”

“Remember when Command said they might be sendng another party out to meet us?” (Coulich had tried his best to forget.) “Well, they’re here.”

“Aw, shit.” Coulich lets out a long sigh. He’s going to have to be on his best behavior, maybe even dig up a clean set of duty fatigues. He finally brings himself to ask the obvious question:

“Who’d they send?”

“The President.”

Aw, shit.

***

Sometimes the winds on Voha dance, and sometimes they sing. Sometimes they scream through the canyons, around the craters, up and down the mountains. Sometimes they take physical form and build ships and cities, other times they leave their shells and laugh and ripple across the planet’s dark and rugged surface.

But this time is not like other times. Now, the winds of Voha are quiet.

Entry tags:

The Answer

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The Hunger of Lilith has never really understood exactly what takes place in those grey processing units the organics use. She's known Joli almost as long as she's known Dess - though not as closely - but this is strange even for Joli, and that's saying a lot. With all the problems Joli has in her own life (don't think for a minute that the Hunger is above eavesdropping), and with ten minutes to go until atmospheric entry, Joli is standing on the Hunger's deck asking the most arcane question.

Still, a cybernetic must obey the orders given to it by an organic, except when obeying such orders would cause an organic to come to harm (that last clause always leaves a bit of room for creative interpretation) - so, with a shrug of her virtual shoulders, Hunger tells Joli what she wants to know.

Singularity was an ideological movement founded in the Southern Continent during the Second Interregnum. At its peak, it is believed to have claimed no more than about four hundred followers, although its adherents always insisted there were many more. The political goals of Singularity have never been entirely clear, although it is generally agreed that they sought to gain control of the Southern Continent, and perhaps other lands as well. The movement's legendary founder, Q'ormis, was a charismatic visionary who claimed to receive visions and revelations from the prophet Eve. Singularity did succeed in gaining control over several key branches of the Southern Continent's government for a few years, but the group quickly lost power when several of its members were linked to a series of bizarre murders. Following the arrest of a certain high-level official with known Singularity ties, Q'ormis committed suicide by poisoning, and her disciples followed suit. After the death of Q'ormis, the Singularity movement disappears from the historical record entirely.

"This is all that is known about Singularity," the Hunger says, which is almost true.