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07-23-2003, 08:18 PM
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#1 (permalink) |
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Inspired by the mind's eye.
Location: Between the darkness and the light.
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The Future Reaches Out.
Some of you may know that I've been writing a sci-fi series. I have nine book outlined and some excripts from the first book can be found at: The Birth of the Future
Well, inspiration is a strange and confusing thing. I try to write in the first book and all I can think about is the second book. So I figured I should write it down while it was still in my head and here is an excript from the second book. The working Title is "The Future Reaches Out." While the protaganist of the first book is Gary Moss, Gary Moss has passed on at the onset of the second book. So the protaganist in this book is his son, John Moss. An ambassador of the United Worlds of Sol, a nation made up of cities on the moon, Mars, Ganymede, and Titan. __________________________ “I said you needed to take a break from your work.” Larissa argued, “You need to take a vacation.” “That is what I am doing, Lara.” John replied. “Making a topographical survey of the surface of Pluto for planning of a future colony is not my idea of a vacation.” Larissa shot back. “It is to me. I get to take a break from talking to all those diplomats on Earth and at the same time, help to further my father’s dream. Besides, the 21-hour trip will give me more than enough time to relax.” “Why can’t you just go to Titian city and relax beneath the rings of Saturn, like most people?” “Because, I’m not like most people, Lara. You of all people should know that.” John looked into Larissa’s eyes, “I want to do this. Now relax, I’ll be fine. Just make sure Michael does well in his classes and I’ll be back in a few days.” Larissa let out a sigh. She knew John wasn’t going to change his mind. She returned his gaze before speaking, “Ti sumasshedshiy. You know that, right.” John smiled back at his wife. He loved her use of Russian. “Of course I’m crazy. We all have to be a little crazy in order to keep our sanity.” Larissa smiled, “I’ll be expecting you back. U tebya lyublyu.” “U tebya tozhe lyublyu.” I love you, as the words repeated themselves in his mind, John brought his arms around Larissa and kissed her goodbye. After breaking from the kiss, John picked up his suitcases and stepped into the airlock. The door closed behind him and almost immediately afterwards, the bay door opened up. In the middle of the landing bay sat a thirty-meter Long-Range Craft, with crews buzzing around it making sure the final checks were completed before liftoff. John approached the starboard side of the spacecraft and opened up the access hatch on that side. He quickly stepped inside and dropped off his luggage, then stepped back out and approached the crew manager. “How’s everything checking out?” “She’s doing great Ambassador. We just finished the final ground checklist and the LRC-341 has a go. All you need to do is run through pilot preflight checklist and get the final launch approval from control.” “That’s great. Start clearing your guys out of here so we can depressurize the bay.” As John began walking back to the spacecraft, an alarm buzzed and was immediately followed by a computerized voice that boomed through the bay, “Depressurizing bay in T-minus five minutes.” The crew manager’s voice followed the computer’s, “Alright everyone. You heard the warning. Evacuate the bay!” As John stepped back into the spacecraft, the ground crews were all scurrying towards the airlocks. Once John had closed and locked the hatch to the spacecraft, he made his way to the flight deck and powered up the control panel. While waiting for the bay to depressurize, he worked through the preflight checklist, powering up systems along the way. After a few minutes, he checked the pressure outside the spacecraft. The instrument read zero. John tapped on the communications panel to activate it and began broadcasting. “This is John Moss, pilot of the LRC-341 to control. LRC-341 to control. Come in Control.” A face appeared on a monitor to the side, “This is control, we read you.” “LRC-341 requesting clearance for departure. Bay pressure is zero.” John replied. “LRC-341, we read your bay pressure and you have clearance to depart. Opening bay doors. Standby to activate your engines on our mark.” “Roger that control, standing by.” Light from the sun flooded the bay as the massive doors overhead opened up. Once the doors stopped moving, the floor of the bay began moving up towards the surface of the moon. Moments later John was staring out at the black lunar sky. “Control to LRC-341, activate your antigrav system now.” John’s hands flew across the control panel and a low humming sound could be heard in the floor. As the humming noise reached a constant tone, the spacecraft began lifting off the ground and levitated about a meter above the ground. “LRC-341 to control, antigrav system is operational. Request permission to fire the engines.” “Roger that LRC-341, you have permission to start your engines. Once they’re activated, proceed to runway zero nine and await further instructions.” John initiated the antimatter reaction that started the engines. He sat there for a minute waiting for the engines to heat up, and then slowly taxied his spacecraft out to the runway he was instructed to and brought the craft to a halt. “LRC-341 to control. Standing by at runway zero nine.” “Control to LRC-341, the skies are clear, you are number one. You have a go for liftoff. Godspeed John.” John brought the engine controls to maximum and closed the forward engine valves sending the exhaust out the rear of the engines. The spacecraft quickly began accelerating down the runway and began rotating toward the black lunar sky. As the rotation completed, the spacecraft had no trouble with the lunar gravity as it shot out toward space. After about ten minutes of climbing, John called up the navigational computer and found Pluto’s position relative to Luna. A few minutes later the computer calculated a course to Pluto and John fed it to the autopilot and brought his speed up to one-fourth light speed before making his way to the crew deck where he opened the food storage unit, pulled out a tray and slid it into the microwave. As the microwave was cooking his dinner, he pulled out some topographical maps of Pluto and began looking over them. “Bo-bo-beep.” The computer chimed. John recognized the chime and put down his book, “At last.” He muttered to himself. John got up from the bed in the back of the crew compartment and on his way to the flight deck, he grabbed a couple of topographical maps. At the flight deck, he threw them down into the empty co-pilot’s seat and ran his hands over the control panel as he disabled the autopilot. Looking out the window in front of him, John could barely make out the dark mass of Pluto against the black background of space. Realizing that the sun was too distant to shed any significant light on Pluto, John looked down at the instruments to determine his distance from the planet. As the spacecraft approached the planet, John began making course and speed corrections in order to put the craft into a low orbit. Once the spacecraft was beginning to establish its orbital trajectory, it slowly made its way around to the far side of the planet. John grabbed one of the maps in the seat next to him and began entering coordinates into the sensor controls. He glanced up for a moment and then looked back at the map before he got the feeling that something out of the ordinary had just happened and he looked back out the window, dropping his jaw and his map. Sitting out in space, was a large metallic object with lights. John stared at it for some time before realizing that it was a spaceship. Quickly he focused his craft’s sensors on the ship and began scanning it. As he was waiting for the results from the scan, he noticed the “incoming message” light blinking. John reached over to the comm. panel on his left and touched the light. Instantly, on his screen, a face appeared. The face was similar to that of a human, but with a noticeable ridge above its eyes where eyebrows should be. There were also several smaller ridges on its forehead. The smaller ridges curved downward at the center of the forehead and created a valley down the middle of the forehead, ending just above the bridge of the nose. The primary ridge over the eyes continued around the side of the head and disappeared into hair as it went above the ears. “Hello,” The face said. “I am Ambassador Shyaln’tal of the Tellen Confederation. We have waited a long time for this moment.” John was in a dream state. His mind just couldn’t wrap around what was happening. He tried to say something in response, but his mouth just didn’t seem to respond. After a couple of seconds, John managed to mouth a few words, “Y-y-y-you can speak English?” “Yes, we have studied your people for a long time. As I said, we have been waiting for this moment. In fact we didn’t think that this would happen so soon, we were very surprised when your craft came around the planet.” John was still having trouble comprehending what was happening, but he was beginning to find it easier to speak, “Well, I didn’t expect to see anyone else orbiting this planet.” His diplomacy was beginning to kick in, “Forgive me for not introducing myself, I’m Ambassador Moss of the United Worlds of Sol.” “Pleased to meet you Ambassador Moss.” Shyaln’tal smiled, “I find it interesting that an ambassador has traveled all the way out here by himself.” “I’m on vacation.” John’s mind finally caught up with the situation and began to overwhelm him. “Excuse me,” he said. John felt light headed as his vision began to go black and the last thing he remembered was a loud thump as his body hit the floor.
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Aside from my great plans to become the future dictator of the moon, I have little interest in political discussions. Last edited by mirevolver; 07-24-2003 at 07:06 AM.. |
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07-27-2003, 12:53 PM
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#6 (permalink) |
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Inspired by the mind's eye.
Location: Between the darkness and the light.
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Thank you, all. Here's a little more for you.
_______________________ John began to open his eyelids and was met with a bright light that shot through his eyes like a giant needle and began poking away at the inside of his head, causing him to shut his eyes again. After a few seconds, he opened his eyes to a squint and waited for them to adjust. Once he became accustomed to the light, he started to look around and assess the situation. He was in a large room, to the left and right there were what appeared to be beds. Standing in the room with him there were three people attired in what seemed to be some sort of medical garb. None of the people were looking in his direction. One was off to his left looking at a monitor. The other two were to his right and further away, and were talking to each other. John tried to listen in, but couldn’t make out any words. “Chan ren tash kolat?” The first one asked. “Na flekra tam.” The other replied, “Na flekra tam tash drelnalton.” “Sa siynra!” The third person cried out. John snapped his head around and saw the third person looking right at him. The features on the face were similar to the person he saw on his craft, but with minor differences. The eyebrow ridge was curved over each eye, and the ridges above it were smaller and steeper. The hair on this person was also longer as it went over the back of the head and down to the shoulders. After looking at the Tellen, John came to realize that he was looking at a woman. The other two started to come over to John, but the woman by his bed snapped, “Feelyo Shyaln’tal!” The two people, one a man the other a woman changed direction and ran out of the room. John turned to face the woman standing at his bedside. “Where am I?” he asked. She gave him a confused look before saying “Bunyot slakh tyal’nik. Na pyalra tam sheet chankomeetyam.” “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand your language.” John replied. The Tellen woman made a fist and brought her hand up to the base of her neck. “Na fyal tolnyal Laniytal.” Then she opened her fist and pointed with an open palm toward John. “Gam chan fyam ta tolnyam?” John looked at her hand, then up at her confused. Once again, she brought her fist up to the base of her neck. “Laniytal. Lan-iy-tal.” Then she pointed at John with her open palm again. “Ta?” Suddenly, John realized that she was trying to break the language barrier. He raised his hand and pointed at his chest. “John,” he said. Laniytal began to mover her lips as though she were about to make a sound she had never made before, “D-Dzan.” Slowly, John repeated his name. Laniytal repeated, this time with more success, “Jahn.” John nodded, hoping the nonverbal communication would work better than words. Then spoke slowly, “I am John.” Laniytal repeated, “I…am…Laniytal.” John nodded again. Laniytal attempted to take it further, slowly she said, “Ta fyam tolnyam John.” After listening carefully, John made an attempt, “Ta…fyam…tolnyam…Laniytal.” She nodded, “Seech.” “Seech?” John replied, then realized his attempt at nonverbal communication worked, he blurted out, “Seech means yes?” Laniytal gave John a confused look. “You are correct, Ambassador.” The voice came from across the room. John diverted his attention from Laniytal to ascertain where the new voice came from. Standing if front of a door at the opposite end of the room was Ambassador Shyaln’tal and the other two Tellens that ran out of the room earlier. “I see you have met our head doctor, Laniytal.” Shyaln’tal said. “Yes,” replied John, “we managed to break the language barrier long enough to introduce ourselves.” “Good,” Shyaln’tal said before turning to Laniytal, “Ren sa zolyef kenod?” “Seech.” She replied. “Gla na priyra fen. Na ren tasulyef tash drelnalton.” Shyaln’tal turned back to John, “Laniytal thinks that you’re fit to leave. Come, I’ll introduce you to the only other person on board who speaks English.” “Sure,” said John, “But if you don’t mind my asking, how did I end up here?” “Well,” Shyaln’tal began, “while we were speaking to each other earlier, you suddenly lost consciousness. So, we brought your craft aboard and brought you here to make sure it wasn’t a serious condition.” “Yes, I remember it now. I was overwhelmed, felt light headed, my vision blacked out. All the symptoms of fainting.” John looked at the doctor, who gave him a blank stare. Shyan’tal spoke up, “Well, despite how much we have studied your people, this is the first time our medical staff has been in the same room with a human. So you are really the best person here to assess your health.” “Ah,” John commented. “Well, I feel fine. So let’s meet this other person who I can talk to.”
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Aside from my great plans to become the future dictator of the moon, I have little interest in political discussions. |
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07-27-2003, 06:09 PM
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#7 (permalink) |
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Jesus Freak
Location: Following the light...
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Good! Very Good! No words can complement your work as much as I would like to!
(I can see you quoting O'Neal now: "You ended that sentance in a preposition! How dare you!" LOL)
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"People say I'm strange, does that make me a stranger?" |
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07-30-2003, 03:44 PM
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#8 (permalink) |
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Inspired by the mind's eye.
Location: Between the darkness and the light.
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Here is some more of "The Future Reaches Out" to help set the story in motion.
____________________________ They stepped into a moderately sized room with a desk in one corner, a table with chairs in another corner and in front of them were three comfortable looking chairs arranged in a triangular pattern, all facing a small table in the middle. In one of those chairs, was a Tellen man who stood upon the arrival of John. “Hello,” the Tellen said, extending a hand toward John, “I am Liynuk, the captain of this ship.” “Hello,” John replied, shaking Liynuk’s hand, “I’m Ambassador John Moss of the United Worlds of Sol.” “I am very pleased to meet you.” Liynuk smiled, then gestured toward the chairs in front of him. “Please, sit. There is much I would like to discuss. As I am sure there is much you would like to discuss.” “You’re right,” John said as he and Shyaln’tal sat down. “Though the biggest question on my mind is, Ambassador Shyaln’tal said that you have been studying us for a very long time. How were you studying us?” Liynuk spoke first, “Roughly two hundred of your years ago, one of our ships near your star system began picking up electronic transmissions from your planet. At first it was audio broadcasts only, what you called radio. Then, one day, as we were monitoring the broadcasts, there was massive EM interference. We traced it to a nuclear explosion on your North American continent. Twenty-one days later, as we watched from orbit, there was another nuclear explosion on the island of Japan. As we watched the second nuclear explosion in Japan, we knew without a doubt that you had entered the nuclear age, and that soon you would travel into space. “So we pulled back to your ninth planet and continued to watch from there. Soon we began picking up your television broadcasts. And after we isolated the various languages being used, we identified the most commonly used language in all the transmissions we were receiving, and worked on translating it. Once we were able to understand your language, we watched the broadcasts to understand you better. After a few years of that, we started to translate other languages. We have also kept a ship, like this one, at the edge of your star system to watch and wait.” “Wait?” John questioned, “You mean wait for us to venture out to you?” “Yes,” Shyaln’tal answered. “We have been here for ten months, and plan to head back to our home world in another five. Now you said you were on vacation just before you passed out. The ninth planet of your star system seems like an odd vacation spot, according to our scans, it and its moon are just dark masses of rock and ice.” “Well, it’s not a vacation in the traditional sense of the word.” John countered, “I’m actually here to run surface scans of Pluto to help in the planning of a future colony. But as I’m an Ambassador to the nations of Earth, this is a vacation from my everyday duties.” “We have very extensive plans of the planet. I could arrange for you to have a copy of the results.” Liynuk offered. “That would be most helpful.” John replied. After taking a brief pause to think over his next question, he spoke, “You mentioned you would go back to your home world in another five months. How far away is it?” “Our home planet is called, Nertel. It is about sixty of your light-years away.” Liynuk answered. John was shocked, “Sixty light-years!” “Yes,” Shyaln’tal replied. “It requires an eight day trip.” “Eight days!” John couldn’t believe his ears. “I’m sorry, but we had a brilliant man in the twentieth century named Albert Einstein, he came to the conclusion that only something without mass could travel at the speed of light and nothing could travel faster than light.” “We know about Einstein, and he was correct.” Shyaln’tal acknowledged. “But he had a limited view of things. Though, he did have a much broader view than we had expected as he theorized that space is curved. That is where the key lies, instead of traveling along the curve of space, we jump across the middle by creating a tunnel through the subspace.” “A wormhole.” John interrupted. “A what?” Shyaln’tal said with confusion. “A wormhole.” John repeated, “It’s a theory about the possibility of creating a tunnel between two points in space which would allow for an object to quickly travel from one point along the space-time curve to another point. We refer to this theoretical tunnel as a wormhole. But as far as we know, it’s only a theory.” “Well,” Shyaln’tal said, “It is not a theory to us. That is how we travel across great distances in space. Without the use of, ‘wormholes,’ it would take us years to make a trip that we can do in days.” “But how?” John inquired, “To us, it’s only a theory; a possibility that might happen between two black holes.” “What you described is a natural wormhole,” Liynuk said. “But natural wormholes are highly unstable and unpredictable. We have an artificial means of jumping through subspace.” “I see.” John said. “Well, there is only one more pressing question in my mind at this point. I’m assuming you are not the only species out there.” “Correct.” Answered Shyaln’tal. “Good.” John continued, “Two years ago, my father disappeared. At the time he was very sick, but he came to me and said he had a dream and that everything would be all right. That night he took a spacecraft and headed toward the sun, five days later we found his craft in orbit around the sun, but he wasn’t on board. The access hatch was sealed from the inside and the emergency hatch was also locked down. Now, as you have told me that you have been watching my star system, I was wondering if you could shed some light on this mystery.” Liynuk and Shyaln’tal looked at each other. “Keln’kareen?” Shyaln’tal said. “Seech.” Liynuk replied, “Ta priynra sra fyata Poloni?” “Seech.” Shyaln’tal agreed, “Chash suntra’yu vot.” “You have just helped us to solve a mystery of our own.” Liynuk said to John. “There are two races that could have done that. The first is the Verons. But this in not their style, we have enough evidence that it would not point to them.” “And the second?” John asked. “The second is where it gets interesting.” Shyaln’tal said. “The only other race that could fit the description is a legend.” “A legend?” John pressed. “Yes,” Shyaln’tal continued. “We have stories and legends passed to us from other races about a race called the Poloni. They are an ancient race, possibly as old as time itself. Our earliest stories of them date back over a million years. They were in a war with some powerful force, this war ended with the Poloni victorious. But the dark force they were fighting vowed to return one day. “Since then, the Poloni created agents to watch for this force. The best translation into your language for them is, ‘Mages’. But roughly two thousand years ago, the Poloni left. They retreated to their home world, and the only explanation they gave was, ‘To prepare for the future.’ But the Mages stayed out and continued to watch for the ancient force, until about a thousand years ago. Then the Mages also left, they said they needed to help the Poloni. And that is where the stories end.” “And you think that these ‘Poloni,’ took my father?” John questioned. “It has to do with one such story, passed to us by a race called, the Katta’an.” Shyaln’tal said as Liynuk got up crossed the room and began pouring some drinks. “As the Katta’an reached a point where they began traveling beyond their own star system, one of their key political figures disappeared while traveling between planets. The way they describe it is there was a massive subspace anomaly that appeared along his flight path, was there for a few minutes, then disappeared. When the spacecraft they sent to investigate arrived, they found this person’s spacecraft floating in space and nobody was on board.” Liynuk returned holding a tray with three glasses filled with a purple liquid. He placed the tray on the small table in the middle of the chairs and handed one glass to Shyaln’tal and another glass to John. “It is Slanden wine,” he said, “from the Slanden peninsula on our home world.” John took the glass and watched as Liynuk took the remaining glass and as he stood before John and Liynuk, he said, “I believe humans have a custom to propose a toast in matters such as this.” “We do.” John replied, holding his glass up. Shyaln’tal and Liynuk followed his example. “Then I have this toast to propose.” Liynuk declared, “To a long friendship between the Humans and the Tellens.” John raised his glass and said, “To friendship.” He brought his glass to his lips and drank the wine. It was oddly familiar in taste to red wine. Liynuk and Shyaln’tal followed his example and drank their glasses of wine. Shyaln’tal continued his story. “Two years ago, we saw a massive subspace anomaly near your sun. It was only there for a few minutes, and we had no idea what it was. But now with what you have said about your father, I think the Poloni were involved. And to be honest, it worries me a little bit.” “Why’s that?” John asked. “Because, from what we know about the Poloni, when they become interested in a person, their interest does not stop there. They become interested in the entire genetic succession from that person. Which means that they might be watching you.”
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Aside from my great plans to become the future dictator of the moon, I have little interest in political discussions. Last edited by mirevolver; 07-30-2003 at 05:30 PM.. |
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