Multiverse 7 Snippet 3

 Sitrep:

So, plugging away on Bootstrap 5, I'm closing in on finishing up the first act. Slow going, but I'm getting there.

In other news, the cover for Bootstrap 1 revamp is good but the backflap needs work. I've been working on it in the evenings. Render times have skyrocketed with the increase in level of detail which is... driving me crazy at the moment. Mechmaster is patiently working on it with me. :)

Hopefully I'll have something better to show soon.

Oh! Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!

On to the snippet!

 

The following is the start of the first Federation story called Skyworld. It was fun to write and puzzle over.

 

Skyworld

 

The lighthouse was anivory pillar on a jagged steep column of rock. A suspension bridge connected itto another rock spire, and another bridge from there connected it to the rockwhere the main house was.

Stairs spiraled downaround the rock. At one point, the wood and plastic stairs had a railing; thewood had dried out and at some point either given way or been sacrificed forfire material. Now the only safe way down the stairs was to cling to the rockface and pick your way along the steps. You took your life into your hands eachtime you used them. Forget trying to climb up or down the stairs in high winds.

Ben Sereph, the chieflighthouse keeper, noted fog rolling in. It was to be expected. The barometricpressure was high but the temperature was dropping quickly. He checked the foghornto be sure it would work. He also checked to be sure he had enough padding topack the ears of the family to drown it out later.

Fog was the scariest timeto be in the air; any sane flyer either flew above it or grounded themselves.If they were going over the deeps, they chanced a predator seeing their shadowand lunging at them in a breech.

Clouds at least were notas bad most times. Fog was a form of cloud, but it could be so thick youcouldn’t see your hand in front of your face. It would roll in just below thelighthouse giving it an ominous sea of cotton all around it.

Seeing a breech wasspectacular as long as you weren’t the victim of it. He had seen his fair shareof them over the years as the lighthouse keeper and before when he’d been aflier himself.

He flexed his right arm,keeping his left to his side. His left arm had been badly damaged in an injuryand had healed wrong. The wing skin was bumpy and had holes in it.

He was a chimera, adescendant of a genetically engineered human who had turned themselves into aman-bat. He had hollow bones and short legs. A flap of skin had once beenbetween his legs. That too had been damaged, and the doc had trimmed it toallow him to get around easier without having to knuckle walk anymore.

It did allow him to wearpants, which was warmer in the cold wet air. But he still missed … he twistedhis face and looked away in pain.

His homeworld had been aminor gas giant in the goldilocks zone that had been terraformed by acorporation during the Federation. The man who had orchestrated the move wasnamed Drake Tugarin. He was still around; when he had retired, he had changedhis body form into a were dragon. He was over nine hundred years old and atitan. He slept a lot more, and his mind wandered, but he still thought ofhimself as the governor of the star system.

No one was stupid enoughto dispute it. At least, no one within biting range of the dragon at any rate.

During the Federation time,the planet had served as a tourist trap in the region. Ships would stop by fortheir abundant supply of hydrogen, water, and oxygen. Cruise liners would bringloads of passengers to experience the color of the natives and the hospitalityof the hotels that were there to service them.

Hotels, resorts, and ofcourse casinos. All designed to pamper the guests and keep them content whilethey willingly signed over vast sums of money in the casinos or doing eventsand other scatterbrained things.

There had been fishing,air sailing, diving, flying, and especially racing.

Most of the residents hadworked in the hospitality industry in company housing. They had to fulfillevery job imaginable to keep the place running smoothly.

When the fall of theFederation came, many star systems were overwhelmed helping refugees. When thepower, food, and tech inevitably ran out, they had to scramble to find ways tosupport themselves.

Their home planet had aspace station at one point. Operative word there, had. He looked up to the blue sky bleakly. At one point, they’d hada massive space station that ships could unstep their hyperdrives and dockwith.

That had changed when adamn changeling had gotten on board. The governor had ordered the station to bedestroyed by setting off an improvised fusion warhead. Millions of people haddied. But better they died cleanly in the hellfire of a nuke over getting eatenalive by nanites that had been set loose within the confines of the station.

He shivered a little. Andbetter still that the nanites hadn’t found their way to the planet’satmosphere.

Some of the resorts andhotels had fallen over the centuries. Many of those had been kept up byantigrav. When the tech failed, so did the platform. Small platforms hadmanaged to use vast dirigibles to keep afloat but they were fire hazards.

There was no real groundfor people to settle on and spread out on. The ground they did have was thetops of spires and mountains that were far below. No one could survive livingon the ground; the air pressure was just too great.

Over the intervening yearsif one thing or another didn’t kill you, a person saved up and got off the damnworld. They were still a crossroads for ship traffic. There were four jumppoints that lead to other star systems. They were one of the few places it wasconvenient to refuel.

Of course that meant theywere essentially a watering hole. Which meant predators in the form of the damnlice, bedraggled pirates lurked. They had driven off a lot of the traffic.

He hated the pirates witha passion. They hadn’t taken his wing, which had been his own damn fault. Butthey had killed many people. Worse, they took what they wanted and threatenedto destroy the few places left that people could cling to.

Those people that couldget out had done so over the years. Many young people took off if given halfthe chance. They had lost a lot of institutional knowledge in the process.

That and the populationhad shifted.

He checked the light andcleaned a section of the glass with a rag. There was a bit of crud, probablyfrom the airborne bacteria and plankton. Cleaning the light was a constantheadache; the light tended to attract animals and insects. With the small ones,came the larger ones and so on and so forth.

He checked the instrumentsand then used a quill pen to mark down the time and readings for the almanac.He was careful to not use too much of the ink. It was made from a flying squidthat was tough to catch.

He put the quill in thecontainer and then turned away. The journal laid open for him. The papersruffled by the light breeze. He glanced at it and then outside.

His wife should be backany time, he mused thoughtfully. Hopefully before dark, he thoughtdarkly. She knew better than to push it. Hell, hopefully before dusk, that waswhen the predators really came out to hunt.

Damn you, Serena, getback here, he thought with a mental growl. Motion at the house out of thecorner of his eye attracted his attention. He turned and saw their eldestwaving. He grunted and lifted him up off the stool and made his way out of thelighthouse and to the bridges linking the lighthouse to their small home.

===@===

Serena felt contentment asshe sighted home. It was still there, still a part of the landscape. Like therocks the house and lighthouse clung to, just there.

She was tired from herlong flight and heavy payload, but wise enough to not go straight in. There wasa narrow stretch that she could run but it went right over the depths. Instead,she banked away and took the safe way in. It meant the setting sun was at herback.

The depths were alreadybeing obscured by the rolling fog, like a blanket being pulled over it. Ben’sgoing to be irked at my tardiness, but I had to catch that last thermal,she thought with a mental shrug.

It wasn’t her fault thathe couldn’t fly. He had been young and stupid enough to fly too close to therocks. He’d paid for the mistake with a shattered wing arm and shredded sails.The fire a few years ago hadn’t helped.

At least we didn’t losethe house, she thought as she banked ever so slightly, conserving altitude asshe tried to sail into the narrow landing platform attached to the house.

She felt the packages andmail weighing her down. It was all strapped to her harness. She might have overdone it, but it might mean they may not have to go out for groceries again fora full week.

Maybe.

Besides, they’d gottenpaid, which was great. It had been past time to stock up. The larder wasgetting low and the kids were heartily tired of eating lichen and what theadults could catch in the nets. A treat was in order.

She did a spiral once homewas in sight. She hated and loved this part. The depths were near the edge ofthe platform; the winds were just right that had to go over them in order toland. In order to do it, she had a trick though.

Like a falcon she tuckedher wings in tight and pointed her nose to the platform in a steep dive. Sheflew fast over the depths as she lost altitude and then unfurled her wings toback wing at the platform edge.

A sudden gust of windthrew her timing off. But a hand reached out to grab her harness just beforeshe went backwards over the edge.

She smiled as sherecovered her balance, tucking her wings in her knuckles to the ground forstability. Her long fingers tucked up against her arms.

“You need to be morecareful with an unfamiliar load, mom,” Charlie said as he let go of herharness.

“Nice to see you too,son,” she said as she kissed him on the head.

“I take it work was good?”

“You could say that,” shesaid with a grin as they got away from the edge of the platform to avoidanything being tempted to come up to investigate. Once clear she undid a few ofthe packages and handed them over to him.

He wrapped one around hiswaist and then slung the other over his shoulder. She tisked and attached it tohis harness.

He clicked his mouth butdidn’t object. He knew better.

They negotiated thestairs, sticking to the cliff side. “Your father needs to get another ropehere. Two of them,” Serena complained.

“You say that all thetime. But you know he can’t leave this place. So, it is up to you to buy them,right?”

“Yeah,” she sighed. “Tootrue.” She was tired and hungry. Her hunger was a product of her exertionsflying. She had low blood sugar and needed to refuel. “What’s for dinner?”

Her son snorted. “Whatelse? Stew. Dad was brooding in the lighthouse all day so we only checked thesmall traps.”

“Damn,” his mothermuttered.

“He did check them in themorning; there wasn’t much. I netted a crab off the east side.”

“You did?” she asked,clearly pleased.

“Yeah, it made for goodcrab sandwiches,” he said.

She smiled. At least heand his siblings had been fed.

One of the things that hadattracted her to Ben was his inability to fly. She’d never told him that, infact she’d never told a soul. He was moody and brooded a lot. She knew it andknew why. But the reason he couldn’t fly was why she had taken him as a mate.He could mind the kids while she continued to fly and work.

It wasn’t something youever admitted to your earthbound mate, however.

He did have his moments.He was great with their children when he was in a good mood. Even when he wasin one of his moods he never took it out on her or the kids. He just shut down.Usually the antics of one of the kids would break him out of it.

Once they were at thelanding around the house, he turned. “One day I am going to make this bigger soyou can land here,” he indicated the platform.

“Sure you will. With whatwood?” she retorted.

He shrugged as she openedthe door and they stepped inside.

As expected the house waswarm but darker than outside. The windows were small and patched. Two werecovered with muslin rather than glass. They still had pieces of glass in them,but they didn’t do much. When it was cold out, they were the first to beshuttered.

A dried log of lichen wasburning in the fireplace. It was a light fire; a pot of stew simmered next toit on a forked rod.

A spoon and poker leanedup against the sooty fireplace. She flicked a look of disapproval at the spoonbut then went back to surveying the room. All was right as it should be.

William was entertaininghis two sisters. Sunny was enjoying gliding off the stool. “Mommy mommy!” shecalled out in excitement.

Serena smiled tenderly andhugged her daughter. Eliza hugged her from the outside. “So, what’d you bringus?” the impetuous elder daughter asked slyly.

Her mother chuckled inresponse and ruffled her hair.

“So, where is yourfather?” she asked.

“At the lighthouse. Fog isrolling in. We had some plankton hit it. No pitting,” William told her. “He waswaiting for the evening check-in time before he set the foghorn.”

Serena nodded.

“We need to do somethingabout the western wind turbine. It’s not anchored well,” William said.

Serena nodded again. “Theproblem is …”

“Getting to it. And havingsomething to anchor into. Yeah, I know,” he said. “But if we don’t do somethingsoon one good gust and that will be all she wrote. It’ll fall into the depths.”

She grimaced. “The linemight stop it.”

“If the weight doesn’tsnap it. Or pull the box down with it,” William retorted.

Serena nodded again. Sheknew that. She was just tired.

Charles helped her to gether packages sorted out. The mail went to her desk by the window. The rest wasquickly sorted out. She kept her surprise for later under wraps.

Charles went out to wavetheir father in as she settled down to eat some stew. The kids were pleased andtold her about their day. She was tired but listened to them as she ate.

When Ben came in, she feltthe gust of cold air but was sleepy. She smiled as she cuddled with Sunny.“Hi,” she said.

“Hi, yourself,” he saidwith a nod as the door closed behind him. Charles followed him in with a net.He dumped the contents in the sink and then began to sort it out. Ben went andkissed his wife’s forehead and then went to help his eldest deal with thecatch.

Once the catch was sorted,he reset the trap with a bait fish and then went out and dropped it.

“Where was that one?” sheasked Charles while his father was gone.

“North. He checked thetraps on his way in.

“Oh,” she said with atired nod. “Anything good?”

“A couple of crustaceans.There are some bones and wings of flying fish. He should have checked the trapsooner.”

“Or you should have,” sheretorted. He grunted but said nothing.

“So, school is done?”

“Mom?”

“Yeah?”

“Go to bed,” he repliedwith a chuckle.

She snorted. She didappreciate the warmth of the chamber. He placed a blanket over her shoulders.She felt gratitude.

He went back to sort thecatch just as Ben returned. Ben gave her another kiss and then she tiredly toldhim about her day. He sat across from her and listened to every word, somethingshe deeply appreciated and treasured.

===@===