11/10/07
Excerpts from a Novel~
Here are some excerpts from my newest novel...
INTO THE BRIGHT PLANET
by Sarah Jane Christenson
There is this idea that only the extraordinary people get to travel to space. Only the high achievers, the super intelligent, the excessively educated, and most recently, the uber-wealthy seem worthy of the honor. I am none of these things, no one important or gifted, not even particularly smart. It was almost pure accident that got me there.
***
Tomorrow.
Within the framework of our lives, one day is nearly nothing. If our lives are, as the Bible says, but a hand’s breadth, then what is one day? Not even visible against the wrinkles and cracks of months and years.
So, why then should the word ‘tomorrow’ cause one so much anguish? I’ll tell you- because man cannot bear the anticipation of the unknown. I’m sure you’ve heard about the electric shock studies, how three fourths of subjects chose the sharper immediate shock over the anticipated lesser one. We’d all rather take immediate letdown or grief than have to wit and wonder.
***
Uncle touched a spot on the door, and with a great shudder of metal, it began to slide open. As it moved, my mind finally clicked onto what the building had reminded me of- an airplane hangar.
Eyes adjusting to the workshop lighting inside, I found the reason for the great building with its great yawning maw.
A thing was resting on sawhorses. A skeleton, rather like a large dead spider, black, sprawling, and ugly. There was a central body, from which ten arms (or legs?) protruded up and out, bending at the knees and curling back on themselves. The center shaft was dotted with eyes of shining mesh, covering- what? I surely didn’t know.
I didn’t know much of anything, but I knew what I was looking at.
“Your prize- this was what it was all about- you had to see for yourself, didn’t you?” I blithered.
He nodded in spite of my confusing question.
“This is what it is all about. Most certainly. We are going to Venus, Leda.”
***
“Eighty-thousand meters,” Peter’s voice came, surprisingly soft, through his vent. Several heads turned to him, unable to repel their obsession with fate, as he counted down our imminent demise.
“Seventy, sixty-five, sixty…”
Someone caught Kumwar’s helmet and passed it to him, commanding him to put it on.
“Forty thousand meters…”
“Twenty thousand meters to impact.”
“Shut up, Peter…”
“Ten thousand…”
I looked around at all the faces near me. Maybe we wouldn’t die. Maybe we would land softly, maybe we would land in water and float to safety. Maybe we should have never left earth…
I smiled at Brandley, sitting directly across from me, fiddling desperately with the controls. He was an awfully nice guy… maybe I should have kissed him… my eyes fell on Sharon, nice lady that she was… if she had been Uncle’s lover, he never would have died so young…
The impact was not as bad as I would have thought.
It was worse.
I think my neck has become permanently damaged, although I had fastened it into the nifty restraint. The ship literally screamed in pain as metal hit rock, plastic hit dirt, and thousands of hours of work hit the solid reality of a flawed system.
The odd thing about the impact was how long it lasted. It felt like we slid into dirt and rock for miles, when in reality it could have only been a few feet, right?
***
I never knew how much chaos fifteen people could create. Wendell began barking orders for people to relax, fall into a set pattern of assessing damage, but no one listened. Everyone was busy crying and yelling and crawling over the mess. Sharon found her kit, somehow, and began dressing Bethany’s wounds, gently removing the burnt leather and vinyl and scrubbing the remains off with a sterile pad. Traeger had a little machine and was walking around, looking confused, poking the machine into various orifices and frowning, occasionally cursing. Finally he threw off his helmet, breathed in deeply, and shook Peter by the shoulder,
“It’s air!” He screamed, forgetting he no longer had to project his voice through a small vent, “Oxygen! By God, it’s clean! We can breathe better here than at home!”
Peter stared at him, and, beside him, Parito unfastened his helmet and threw the thing away from him, breathing in deeply. But that wasn’t what caused the next big reaction.
We all watched Parito’s helmet skitter across the crumpled floor and roll into a corner. And stay there. We looked at each other, standing on the tilted ship deck, rubble lying in piles at our feet.
“Oxygen and gravity. There goes about five grand at Cornell.”
***
Someone’s shovel hit something with a loud clink.
Everyone stopped working, and we heard the scraping sound now closer than ever, almost as if it were right on top of us.
And then we realized that it was on top of us.
Some dirt crumbled down onto Dan’s head, and then the light coursed through a long slit just above us.
Fourteen pairs of human eyes looked up into seven pairs of Venusian eyes.
***
Each member of the dinner had been presented with a very shallow bowl, hammered out of a shiny, heavy, silver-white metal. Inside of these bowls was a liquid that was almost not even there. You could not really see a reflection in it, like any normal liquid, but you could somehow see it was there, whether from the faint blue haze that rolled off the top, or the slight ‘swish’ sound the fluid made when you moved the bowl. If you stuck your finger in it (which I did), it would not come back wet, but you felt like something viscous had indeed come in contact with your digit.
I raised the vessell to my face and tried to smell it, and succeeded only in making my eyes water a bit.
“Platinum.” Traeger stated perfunctorily.
We all stared at him.
“It’s platinum. Frigging noble metal, and they’re friggin’ drinking out of it. The same stuff my wife insisted on spending double for our wedding bands… I’m about to drink xenon out of it.”
“This, it is xenon?” Giuseppe asked doubtfully. Traeger made a face at him and didn’t bother to answer.
***
There is no distinction between day and night on Venus. When I refer to ‘day’ or ‘night’ in the rest of this story, I am referring to a period of 24 hours, for a point of reference only. The Yirtibians do not even celebrate the concept of a unit of time called a day… there is no week or month or year here… only a steady lapping of time against the shore of existence.
Their days, if measured like ours, are two hundred and twenty-two days. Not exactly conducive to the nocturnal habits we humans have adopted.
But such are humans (and humanoids). We are adaptable, to say the least.
***
“Do you want to stay here or go home?” he asked, his voice tight. I could see a little vein making a tic on the side of his temple.
I could answer flippantly, I could answer truthfully, or I could feel him out for his own preference and go with that, to avoid discussion. What I wanted to say terrified me, I felt my heart start to hammer and my head start to whirl. Laying my heart open to him seemed a bit premature, but what else did I have? Whose set of relational standards was I going by here? And why did I feel like I had to follow them? I could play cat-and-mouse forever, or I could just be simple and honest, and brave whatever came after.
“I want to be wherever you are.” I said softly.
***
The Yirtirbians let us bury Sammy in their little compost graveyard. We were given to understand that they have no taboo about suicides, and all was apparently forgiven. The next time we entered the city, we found the waterfall intact once again, missing only the top section. They had set up their own scaffold, removed the offending pieces, repaired the chip in the malachite (poisonous, so I’m told) and all was well once again.
***
I knew it the moment I conceived him. I know they say that’s impossible, mere superstition, but they’re wrong.
Interested? Hit me up for the full version. Also available next year as chapter-by-chapter Podcasts, read by the author (who can't afford a professional reader, yet;))
INTO THE BRIGHT PLANET
by Sarah Jane Christenson
There is this idea that only the extraordinary people get to travel to space. Only the high achievers, the super intelligent, the excessively educated, and most recently, the uber-wealthy seem worthy of the honor. I am none of these things, no one important or gifted, not even particularly smart. It was almost pure accident that got me there.
***
Tomorrow.
Within the framework of our lives, one day is nearly nothing. If our lives are, as the Bible says, but a hand’s breadth, then what is one day? Not even visible against the wrinkles and cracks of months and years.
So, why then should the word ‘tomorrow’ cause one so much anguish? I’ll tell you- because man cannot bear the anticipation of the unknown. I’m sure you’ve heard about the electric shock studies, how three fourths of subjects chose the sharper immediate shock over the anticipated lesser one. We’d all rather take immediate letdown or grief than have to wit and wonder.
***
Uncle touched a spot on the door, and with a great shudder of metal, it began to slide open. As it moved, my mind finally clicked onto what the building had reminded me of- an airplane hangar.
Eyes adjusting to the workshop lighting inside, I found the reason for the great building with its great yawning maw.
A thing was resting on sawhorses. A skeleton, rather like a large dead spider, black, sprawling, and ugly. There was a central body, from which ten arms (or legs?) protruded up and out, bending at the knees and curling back on themselves. The center shaft was dotted with eyes of shining mesh, covering- what? I surely didn’t know.
I didn’t know much of anything, but I knew what I was looking at.
“Your prize- this was what it was all about- you had to see for yourself, didn’t you?” I blithered.
He nodded in spite of my confusing question.
“This is what it is all about. Most certainly. We are going to Venus, Leda.”
***
“Eighty-thousand meters,” Peter’s voice came, surprisingly soft, through his vent. Several heads turned to him, unable to repel their obsession with fate, as he counted down our imminent demise.
“Seventy, sixty-five, sixty…”
Someone caught Kumwar’s helmet and passed it to him, commanding him to put it on.
“Forty thousand meters…”
“Twenty thousand meters to impact.”
“Shut up, Peter…”
“Ten thousand…”
I looked around at all the faces near me. Maybe we wouldn’t die. Maybe we would land softly, maybe we would land in water and float to safety. Maybe we should have never left earth…
I smiled at Brandley, sitting directly across from me, fiddling desperately with the controls. He was an awfully nice guy… maybe I should have kissed him… my eyes fell on Sharon, nice lady that she was… if she had been Uncle’s lover, he never would have died so young…
The impact was not as bad as I would have thought.
It was worse.
I think my neck has become permanently damaged, although I had fastened it into the nifty restraint. The ship literally screamed in pain as metal hit rock, plastic hit dirt, and thousands of hours of work hit the solid reality of a flawed system.
The odd thing about the impact was how long it lasted. It felt like we slid into dirt and rock for miles, when in reality it could have only been a few feet, right?
***
I never knew how much chaos fifteen people could create. Wendell began barking orders for people to relax, fall into a set pattern of assessing damage, but no one listened. Everyone was busy crying and yelling and crawling over the mess. Sharon found her kit, somehow, and began dressing Bethany’s wounds, gently removing the burnt leather and vinyl and scrubbing the remains off with a sterile pad. Traeger had a little machine and was walking around, looking confused, poking the machine into various orifices and frowning, occasionally cursing. Finally he threw off his helmet, breathed in deeply, and shook Peter by the shoulder,
“It’s air!” He screamed, forgetting he no longer had to project his voice through a small vent, “Oxygen! By God, it’s clean! We can breathe better here than at home!”
Peter stared at him, and, beside him, Parito unfastened his helmet and threw the thing away from him, breathing in deeply. But that wasn’t what caused the next big reaction.
We all watched Parito’s helmet skitter across the crumpled floor and roll into a corner. And stay there. We looked at each other, standing on the tilted ship deck, rubble lying in piles at our feet.
“Oxygen and gravity. There goes about five grand at Cornell.”
***
Someone’s shovel hit something with a loud clink.
Everyone stopped working, and we heard the scraping sound now closer than ever, almost as if it were right on top of us.
And then we realized that it was on top of us.
Some dirt crumbled down onto Dan’s head, and then the light coursed through a long slit just above us.
Fourteen pairs of human eyes looked up into seven pairs of Venusian eyes.
***
Each member of the dinner had been presented with a very shallow bowl, hammered out of a shiny, heavy, silver-white metal. Inside of these bowls was a liquid that was almost not even there. You could not really see a reflection in it, like any normal liquid, but you could somehow see it was there, whether from the faint blue haze that rolled off the top, or the slight ‘swish’ sound the fluid made when you moved the bowl. If you stuck your finger in it (which I did), it would not come back wet, but you felt like something viscous had indeed come in contact with your digit.
I raised the vessell to my face and tried to smell it, and succeeded only in making my eyes water a bit.
“Platinum.” Traeger stated perfunctorily.
We all stared at him.
“It’s platinum. Frigging noble metal, and they’re friggin’ drinking out of it. The same stuff my wife insisted on spending double for our wedding bands… I’m about to drink xenon out of it.”
“This, it is xenon?” Giuseppe asked doubtfully. Traeger made a face at him and didn’t bother to answer.
***
There is no distinction between day and night on Venus. When I refer to ‘day’ or ‘night’ in the rest of this story, I am referring to a period of 24 hours, for a point of reference only. The Yirtibians do not even celebrate the concept of a unit of time called a day… there is no week or month or year here… only a steady lapping of time against the shore of existence.
Their days, if measured like ours, are two hundred and twenty-two days. Not exactly conducive to the nocturnal habits we humans have adopted.
But such are humans (and humanoids). We are adaptable, to say the least.
***
“Do you want to stay here or go home?” he asked, his voice tight. I could see a little vein making a tic on the side of his temple.
I could answer flippantly, I could answer truthfully, or I could feel him out for his own preference and go with that, to avoid discussion. What I wanted to say terrified me, I felt my heart start to hammer and my head start to whirl. Laying my heart open to him seemed a bit premature, but what else did I have? Whose set of relational standards was I going by here? And why did I feel like I had to follow them? I could play cat-and-mouse forever, or I could just be simple and honest, and brave whatever came after.
“I want to be wherever you are.” I said softly.
***
The Yirtirbians let us bury Sammy in their little compost graveyard. We were given to understand that they have no taboo about suicides, and all was apparently forgiven. The next time we entered the city, we found the waterfall intact once again, missing only the top section. They had set up their own scaffold, removed the offending pieces, repaired the chip in the malachite (poisonous, so I’m told) and all was well once again.
***
I knew it the moment I conceived him. I know they say that’s impossible, mere superstition, but they’re wrong.
Interested? Hit me up for the full version. Also available next year as chapter-by-chapter Podcasts, read by the author (who can't afford a professional reader, yet;))
1 Comments:
At November 20, 2007 8:16 PM ,
b said...
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