Early November MDCCLXXVII

The golden autumnal weather had given way to a chilly November. Dai Llewellyn sat at his desk by the broad window that looked out over the walled garden of his residence. He still struggled to think of it as ‘home’. Maybe it was the eagle over the door that sneered at him every time he crossed the threshold with its silent message that this was a villa designated sub aquila – Roman only. He wondered if he could arrange to get the facade remodelled on some excuse so above the name of the house, the poppies of its name were wreathed there instead.

He had been absently playing with the silver band around his index finger as he thought these near treasonous thoughts. Then he looked at the ring, it’s intricate blend of Celtic knots and Roman letters and symbols. It marked him out as a citizen – as Roman as his beloved wife Julia and without it she could not be his. She had given him this ring to remind him that their worlds were enriched by each other, not diminished.

Days like this he had to be reminded of that. Sighing, he tried to focus again on the information in front of him. A breakdown of the tenancy of a group of insulae on the rougher edge of Viriconium’s expanding commercial area. The buildings were owned by a Britannia wide property agency – Titus Holdings. They provided housing for over four hundred families – most were single-parent households or impoverished elderly folk who either had no family or whose sons and daughters lacked the space and resources to take them in. It was one of the poorest communities in the city and Dai knew that Titus Holdings did little for its tenants except ensure the structural integrity of the building was maintained. And that was only to avoid facing criminal charges if they should collapse.

He had not visited the estate himself since his return to Viriconium after almost a decade living in Londinium, but his Senior Investigator, Bryn Cartivel had done so and his account had been harrowing.

“I’m not saying I’ve not seen as bad – we both have. Think the dreg ends of the Caligula, but that was Londinium and most there were unregistered and criminals. These people are just desperately poor. Most do seasonal work in the farms around or go begging even. Half the kids look like they’ve not had a decent meal in their lives and most all the old folk are ill from the mould and damp. I was told there is a local joke that the estate has to restock each spring ‘cos so many don’t make it through the winter.” Bryn shook his head at the thought. “It’s grim, Bard.”

“Grim – but not illegal.” Dai had a bitter taste in his mouth as he spoke. “The law says no one forces those people to live there, they choose to do so. That means they choose to accept the conditions the owner offers. After all, if they don’t like it they can always leave.”

“I can see it now you put it that way. They are spoiled for choice with alternatives – sleep on the streets, or under a bridge by the river – or maybe in a nice comfy hedgerow.”

Dai sighed.

“Roman logic. People who can’t imagine what it is like to be so poor the very concept of ‘choice’ about anything in life is meaningless.”

“Not all Romans are rich – your Julia was born in a place not so very different, from what my Gwen tells me.”

“That’s true, but it’s the rich ones that make the laws.”

From 'Dying for a Home' a short story in The First Dai and Julia Omnibus by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

You are young, and you ought to take care
There are internet weirdos out there
That hunky young fellow
Who sounds cool and mellow
Maybe something less wholesome. Beware

© jane jago 2017

Amazing Grace is the third book in the Grace Lord Series by S.E. Sasaki.

The first instant Damien Lamont realized his squad was in a shit storm was when the severed head of Private Manuel Kawaguchi crashed into his faceplate. The sudden impact snapped Damien’s head back and coated his visor with blood and brains.
“Get down!” he bellowed into his comset, knowing that his warning was already too late.
“Count in!” he ordered, trying to be heard above the deafening roar of enemy fire.
Six of his squad, including Kawaguchi, did not respond. In the time it took to take a deep breath, he had lost half a dozen brave men and women. If luck was with them, their battlesuits would save their lives. No such luck for Kawaguchi. Something painful started to twist inside Damien, but he suppressed it. Hard. There was no time for emotion right now.
He’d been ordered to take his squad deep into the rainforest in search of the rebels. Damien and his platoon of genetically-modified, tiger- adapted marines had been stalking through dense forest and dripping mists in full battlesuit for hours. Most of the squad had complained about the suits. They wanted to hunt à la tiger. Damien had insisted on the battle armour, because the suits would immediately convert into cryopods, if the soldiers were badly injured.
The rebels of Dais were extremely well armed. They had shielding which camouflaged their heat signatures from surveillance. This continent was almost all rainforest, but Conglomerate Intelligence had narrowed the location of the rebel headquarters down to a few possible sites. Damien had volunteered his squad to check out this area.
What had he been thinking?
Had they become complacent and careless on the long slog through this thick hot jungle? He could not dwell on that question now.
While crawling on his belly over massive, tangled tree roots, orange- green moss, and putrid-smelling mud, brilliant flashes and rocking concussions shattered the air above his head.
His second-in-command, Corporal Delia Chase, was off to his right. He could see her firing a constant barrage of ion pulses towards a region about two hundred meters ahead. The boles of enormous, shaggy trees were exploding in splinters, as she sprayed the area with pulse rifle fire. Flames were now dancing up the huge trunks, igniting the great branches overhead. The undergrowth was lighting up, as well. Soon the entire forest would be ablaze. The rest of Damien’s squad was now following Delia’s cue.
Dialling down the brightness and increasing the mag on his visor, Damien could see silhouettes racing through the flames. Aiming at them, he fired off a series of shots. A snarl of satisfaction escaped his throat as he watched a number of those bodies fall.
Laser fire, ionic pulses, and exploding projectiles were keeping most of his people pinned down. Damien unleashed his battle drones. Armed and aggressive, the drones would seek out and destroy the rebel shooters. They would also take on any enemy drones headed in their direction.
Lamont sought the positions of his soldiers. Their camouflaged battlesuits made them near invisible, but he could locate their suit beacons through his visor display. He clenched his fists and snarled. There were too many flashing red signals and too few green ones.
The remaining active members of his squad were responding to the attack with seeker rockets, ionized pulse rifle fire, smart bullets, and needle grenades. The rainforest was lighting up like fireworks. Drones were swooping and diving like crazed swallows, intercepting incoming artillery fire. Unfortunately, they were not stopping it all and Damien could hear screaming on all sides of him. Still, screaming was good. It meant the soldier was still alive and the battlesuit/cryopod had a chance to preserve the soldier.
Black shrapnel and ash were raining down, a dark contrast to the brilliant electric streaks of deadly laser fire. Damien’s eardrums had gone numb. Roots, mud, and detritus were erupting skyward all around him, pelting his visor and making it difficult to see.
“Kauffman,” he hollered into his comset, hoping the communications officer had survived, along with his subspace uplink. “Contact Command. Tell them we’ve found the rebels. Send our coordinates and tell them to rain hellfire down three hundred meters due west of our location. Tell them we need it now!”
“On it, Captain,” Kauffman responded.
Damien stared down the line. Kawaguchi had been marching three meters off to his left. His battlesuit had converted into a cryosuit, even though it was pointless without his head. Damien peered to his right.
Corporal Chase was gone. He spun around, searching for her, his heart rate quickening. He began crawling rapidly forward through the tattered undergrowth, his rifle slung back over his shoulder. Damien could not use his claws because of the battlesuit’s gloves and boots, but he could still leap and move as rapidly as a tiger.
“Corporal Chase, ” he barked into his comset.
 “Yes, Captain,” came the quick response.
 “State your position!”
 “Fifteen meters west of you, sir. One o’clock.”
 “Pull back to my position, Corporal,” he growled, his tone one of barely controlled rage.
 He wanted to shake Chase. If she advanced any further, she could get
hit by the friendly fire he had just called in. It was due in seconds.
 “I have one of the rebel personnel carriers in my sights, Captain. The ship is taking off and its just activating its chameleonware. Request permission to fire.”
 “ . . . Permission granted,” he grated. “Then get your butt back here, Chase!”
 He saw a string of ionic pulses pierce the smoke and flames. These were followed by a brilliant explosion. A large shuttle suddenly appeared in midair above them and crashed among the burning trees, a tail of black smoke wafting behind it. Loud whoops came over his comset. Then more pulse rifle fire erupted from Chase’s position and another blinding explosion ensued. A second shuttle popped into view, this one closer, flames exploding from its rear. As if in slow motion, approximately fifteen meters to his right and fifty ahead, he saw the earth erupt skywards in a gravity-defying avalanche.
“Incoming bombardment in twenty seconds!” Kauffman announced.
“Chase!” Damien screamed. “Chase, respond! Everyone else, retreat east as fast as you can. In ten seconds, hit the deck!”
Lamont bounded towards the last spot from where he had seen the pulse rifle fire.
“Delia!” he roared as loud as he could. “Delia!”
His boosted tiger musculature hurtled him forward. Air exploded out of him, as a pair of gloved hands appeared out of the haze, halting his forward momentum and throwing him sideways. For the briefest of instances, Damien saw wide, golden eyes through a smeared, muddy faceplate.
Then there was a brilliant concussion followed by nothing.

Amazing Grace is also available from Kobo.

 

 

Grace Lord is the eponymous heroine of S.E. Sasaki’s new novel Amazing Grace. which is the third in the Grace Lord Series of medical sci-fi books.

Q1. What do you most enjoy about your job?

I’m a combat surgeon and my goal is to save lives. I operate on the wounded soldiers of the Conglomerate, injured in armed conflicts around the union of Solar Systems. My job is to put these poor soldiers back together again. What do I enjoy the most? I don’t enjoy seeing these kids wounded and almost torn apart but I do enjoy seeing them open their eyes to realize that they have lived to see another day. I enjoy seeing them get out of bed and walk off of the station into hopefully a new life. If I have played a role in their recovery, I take comfort in that.

 

Q2. Who are your best friends and do you have any enemies?

I have to admit that my best friend at the moment is an android named Bud. He’s a Surgical Assisting Medical Nanobot-Manipulating Entity (or SAMM-E) created by my boss, Dr. Hiro Al-Fadi. Bud is also an artificial intelligence with astonishing capabilities. He was created to be the next great super-surgeon but I believe he is so much more. What exactly, I don’t know. He’s still evolving, as he can recreate and improve himself using his nanobots. Whatever he is, he’s capable of only good and this is fortunate for me, as I have unwittingly made an enemy of a very brilliant but vengeful man named Dr. Jeffrey Charlton Nestor. Dr. Nestor wants my death – seems obsessed with causing it – and I don’t really even know why. All I know is torture plays a huge part of Nestor’s plan and I thank the stars that I have Bud keeping an eye out for me. No matter what, I won’t let Nestor win and I won’t let Bud or myself be harmed by him.

Q3. What is your main ambition at the moment?

I would have to say, staying alive! Nestor has tried to kidnap me, kill my friends, kill me, destroy the medical station, and destroy Bud. I would like to believe he’s going to give up, but all evidence points to the contrary. He’s managed to escape the authorities and we believe he has left the Nelson Mandela but he’s returned in the past to wreak his revenge. Psychiatric profiles suggest he won’t stop until he gets what he wants. Me dead and perhaps the Nelson Mandela completely destroyed. We have to be ready for him, if or when he returns. I may have to leave the station, but I’m not sure that will save the Nelson Mandela. I probably have to draw Nestor away, if I can, to save everyone I love. Leaving Bud and everyone else will be hard, but I have to try.

 

S.E. Sasaki aka ‘Dr. Sass’ in her own words:

My teeth are old.
My feet are cold.
My knees both crack
‘Yikes’ goes my back
I am a doc.
My work is chock
Full of blood and poo.
What can you do?
I write sci-fi.
At least I try.
I have two kids
And marital bliss.
I have two cats
And that is that.

You can catch up with S.E. Sasaki on Twitter or her own Website.

 

 

 

 

Sam returned home rather later than he had indicated at breakfast, and mentally prepared himself for a dressing down and a ruined dinner. He opened the front door to be greeted by a savoury smell and a dog who thrust her nose into his hand. Anna’s voice called from the kitchen.

“Busy day, love?”

“And some.”

“Do you want to wash and change first, or is the prospect of a glass of wine more alluring?”

“Wine please.”

Anna appeared in the kitchen door with a glass in one hand and a bottle in the other. She came over and kissed him tenderly.

“You look so tired Sam. Come and take the weight off your feet.”

He followed her into the kitchen and out onto the patio, where she had set up two comfortable garden chairs with a small table between them.

“Sit,” she said, and when he obeyed she put a glass of dark red wine in his hand. “Relax.”

 

Sam laid his head against the cushioned seat back and contemplated the glorious colour of the wine in his glass. Anna returned with a plate of small biscuits spread with pate and surrounded by little cubes of cheese.

“Appetiser. Just to keep you going until you have relaxed enough for supper.”

She sat in the other chair and regarded him over the rim of her own wineglass. He reached for a biscuit.

“This is delicious. Did we buy pate?”

“No klutz. I made it.”

“You can make pate?”

“Course I can.”

“If I wasn’t mad about you already, this welcome home would have tipped me over the edge. Lately, I’ve been coming home to an empty house and a frozen ready meal. Before that. Well. If I’d been as late as I am tonight it would have been the cold shoulder and burnt dinner…”

“Oh my. She was a silly cow, wasn’t she. She married a doctor. Did she expect nine-to-five?”

“I guess she did. Or, to be more accurate, she expected her own way in all things. Which mostly she got. I’m not into fighting, so I had to feel pretty strongly to put my foot down.”

“I don’t like rows, either. I won’t be walked on, but I don’t want to fight about it.”

“That’s how I feel, but I married a screamer.”

“And you never noticed beforehand?”

“She never did it until she had me firmly married. Had the first tantrum of the marriage on the first night of our honeymoon.”

“Jeez Sam. And you put up with that for how long?”

“Five years. Though it felt like fifty. To be quite honest, the divorce was a relief in many ways. I was lonely, and I felt betrayed and beaten up. But I don’t think I missed Christina at all.”

“No. She doesn’t sound like the sort of woman you would miss. Not unless it was like missing a toothache.”

He grinned and snaffled another savoury biscuit.

“How apt. One thing, though, it’s a fairly good bet that she will do something spectacularly bitchy when she finds out I have a woman in my life.”

“You are the second person to tell me that. Carrie said something to that effect this morning. Thing is. As far as I can see it’ll be her problem. I don’t give a shit what she thinks of me, and if we tell each other the truth at all times she won’t be able to hurt us. So.”

“So indeed.”

He took another mouthful of wine and sat quietly for a moment savouring the peace.

“There is another thing, Anna. The hospital’s charitable committee has taken a table at this big charity bash in the Smoke. Senior doctors are expected to turn up in monkey suits, with suitably shined partners in attendance. It’s next month. Will you come?”

“Senior? Aren’t you a bit young for that?”

“Age don’t come into it, I’m the Consultant orthopaedic surgeon. And that makes me a senior doctor whether I like it or no. But we are digressing. Will you accompany me to this god-awful fucking bash?”

She grinned.

“Course I will. We’ll need a Bonnie sitter. However, Carrie said she and Oscar would be willing to come and sleep over if we ever needed.”

“Brilliant.” Then he gave Anna a sly look. “I’ve finished my appetiser and now I’m really, really hungry…”

She grinned appreciatively.

“Go wash your hands, and I’ll have food on the table.”

He complied, and on his return to the kitchen found a savoury-smelling casserole in the centre of the table flanked by a green salad and a basket of warm bread. Anna helped him to a portion of meat and vegetables.

“Get your own salad and bread,” she said as she served herself.

Sam ate in silence for a few minutes, then smiled happily across the table.

“I dunno what you call this, but it’s bloody excellent.”

“Chicken cooked in cider. And I’m glad you like it.”

“I do. And I feel really spoilt.”

“Good. That’s my job. I think you need a bit of spoiling. It seems to me to have been severely lacking in your life. Anyway, I like having somebody to look after.”

He reached for her hand and held it strongly.

“I want to look after you too.”

“You are, love. Just by being here. I keep pinching myself. Not so long ago I didn’t even know you. Now I never want to be without you. It should be frightening, but somehow I have confidence in you.”

“In us. Confidence in us. There are bound to be challenges, but if we face them together.”

They finished their meal and Sam insisted on clearing up while Anna and Bonnie made coffee.

“Inside, or out?”

“Out. If that’s OK with you. I’ve been cooped up all day and it would be nice to feel the evening air.”

“It would. Will you bring out a Bonnie treat? She usually gets one when I have my after dinner coffee.”

They sat and watched the sunset for a while then Anna said. “I’d like to move the camper. It’s a bit obvious out the front, but it could go on that pad behind the garage.”

“Yes. It could. The last vicar to live here had a Winnebago. He built the pad. And I can see the sense of putting the camper away from prying eyes.”

“It does make sense not to allow people to see you loading up to go away. And that pad is well built. I can even plug into electric to keep the batteries topped up. I nearly moved her this afternoon, but then I thought you’d have a bit of a fright if you came home and the camper wasn’t on the drive.”

“I would. I’d’ve thought you’d left me.”

“Stoopid. I won’t do that.”

He picked up her hand and kissed the palm.

“I hope not. I think it would break my heart.”

Anna leaned forward from her chair and kissed the end of his nose.

“Me and Bonnie are here for as long as you want us.”

“Forever then. Now, shall we move the camper?”

“Yeah. You wanna do it for me?”

“If you like. And I promise to be more careful than I am with the Audi.’

“So I should hope. That Audi is a mess. Though I notice the inside is in better nick than the exterior.”

“In my defence, it was battered when I got it. I bought it as a stopgap during the divorce and I’ve never got round to replacing it.”

“Okay. I’ll get the keys and open the gate.”

She got up and Sam watched her tall, elegant figure as she walked into the house. She whistled Bonnie indoors and threw him the camper keys.

“On your feet, doctor.”

By the time he had clambered to his feet, Anna had the gate open. He ambled out to the front drive.

“Push the button with pimples on the little blue doohickey to disarm the alarm. Then chuck me your keys and I’ll shift the Audi.”

He obliged, and Anna neatly backed the battered black car down the drive to the gates. Sam started the camper’s engine and drove slowly forwards before reversing gently through the wide gate beside the garage. He wouldn’t have liked to admit it, but he found himself glad of the reversing camera as he manoeuvred the beast onto the wide pad. By the time he was satisfied with the job, Anna had moved the Audi back in front of the garage and closed the gate. He jumped out of the cab and shut the door.

“How do I set the alarm?”

“Same button.”

Bonnie poked her nose out of the kitchen door.

“Yes. You can come out.”

The dog frisked out to them grinning a doggy grin.

“Did Sam park the camper for us? What did you think of that?”

Bonnie flattened her ears and wagged her tail frantically.

“I’ll take that as a vote of confidence.”

Sam patted Bonnie’s silky head and rubbed her ruff.

“I never thought I’d be craving the approval of a dog,” he remarked.

“She’s a very aristocratic dog.”

“True.”

Then he laughed and scooped Anna into his arms.

“I’m fed and watered, but now another appetite has raised its ugly head.”

She giggled and nibbled his neck.

“Satisfying sir’s appetites must be my first concern.”

She walked her fingers into the top of his shirt and his grin turned feral as he marched indoors with his arms full of giggling woman.

Jane Jago

I despicable
Fighting hourly temptation
Scratching succubus

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

“Well, you know what they say, don’t you pet? What don’t kill you, will make you stronger.”

Jess felt her teeth clench together with the effort of not snapping back. It was one of those glib sayings people trotted out every time they realised there was harm done they couldn’t heal. She wanted to snarl that what didn’t kill you could just as easily leave you broken and bloody, weakened and vulnerable and much less strong than you were before. It could also leave you changed as well as damaged, struggling to know who this stranger was that you had become – the one who jumped at shadows and whose heart started racing when a car engine started up.

It was not a good look for a woman who had once been decorated for valour.

She forced a smile and did not cringe at the hand pat that went with the words of wisdom, delivered from the place of someone whose worst nightmares were about being caught on Scarborough seafront without her make-up on.

“Your aunt means well, Jess.”

The voice came from the door of the lounge, which was being pushed open. There was a smell of fresh coffee as Uncle David carried in a tray with a samovar and tiny cups.

“Oh don’t be so daft, Dave. She knows I mean well, don’t you pet?”

Jess nodded and managed a half-smile, then busied herself moving the newspaper, and a couple of magazines about horoscopes and tarot cards, from the table in front of the paisley-patterned settee. Her uncle set the tray down with care then served the coffee as he always did – strong, black and sweet.

His eyes were not patronising when he looked at her, then she knew he had fought at Goose Green and brought home his own ghosts to roost in the rafters of the perfect life his wife devised for them both. No children of their own, but they had Jess.

“So are you off to Whitby again to see that young man?” Aunt Susan peered over both the top of her cup and her bifocals.

 

For a moment, just hearing someone naming the place sent a shiver through Jess’s spine, and her imagination bridged the miles to place her on top of the cliffs, screaming gulls wheeling overhead, the wind that never slept and Roald, the image of a modern-day Viking, hair blowing over his face, shoulders half-hunched in a fleece, face animated, telling her the history of the ruined abbey as if he had been there at the time.

“It was all started by a woman – Hild. They made her a saint, but that was later. She was an amazing woman and not one you would want to cross. A princess of sorts. And for all she was an abbess eventually, she didn’t decide to become a nun until she was  in her thirties and she’d done one heck of a lot of living by then.” He paused and made a really broad gesture with one arm as if including the ruins and all the headland where they stood. “She loved this place. Would stand up on the cliffs, by the beacon that was here then and look out over the sea, and unbraid her hair so the wind could play with it. And, you know, when she established that first abbey it was nothing like you would think of a monastery today. It was more like a community – both men and women.”

It was easy to picture Hilda in her Saxon dress, facing out over the waves. Jessica thought of that actress she’d seen playing Rowena in ‘Ivanhoe’.

“No,” Roald sounded almost angry, “Hild was of Anglic blood – not Saxon. The ones Pope Gregory famously spoke about when he saw some being sold as slaves: ‘Non Angli, sed angeli’.

Jess looked at him her mouth very slightly agape. He did that a lot. It was very unsettling.

“Non angerlee – what?”

Roald grinned and gave an exaggerated mock wince as if her pronunciation caused him pain.

“Non Angli, sed angeli – ‘These are not Angles, they are angels.’ You must understand back then there was no idea of ‘Anglo-Saxon’, they were different peoples, different cultures.”

She had still been on crutches then and he had helped her back to the car park soon after then they had found a small pub in Robin Hood Bay, where they could look out of the window over the tumble of cottages and tourist shops. Picture postcard stuff, except the sky had been an obstinate slate-grey all afternoon.

“So what has this history lesson to do with anything?” she asked at last when the small talk dried up over their beer.

“Your dream,” he said, “the one you keep having about a glowing necklace of strange pearls.”

Jess nodded, she had told him of it when he asked her if she ever remembered her dreams.

“I’m not sure they were pearls, just the kind of odd light they gave off made them seem like it. They were like pearls, but shaped in ridged spirals.”

In the dream she had seen something glowing under her uniform blouse, shining through it and everyone staring until she had run away and been standing on a cliff edge, then ripping open her blouse to see the strange necklace lying there on her naked breasts. The image came into her mind clear as a photograph and she heard Roald draw a small, sharp breath, which brought her back to the pub.

“Uh, yeah,” he said, his expression slipping into an odd smile, “that’s the one. They were shaped like ammonites. When they made Hild a saint that was her symbol, you see.”

For some reason, she felt uncomfortable and looked out of the window to escape the moment.

“It’s only been since the – the accident. I’ve never had that kind of dream before.”

Standing naked on the cliff-edge, her hair so long it ran the full length of her back and blew out around her, sparking with energy, and feeling so whole, so complete – so powerful.

“I know.”

The way he said it, made her blush. She started pulling herself to her feet, leaning on the crutches.

“I need to get back – I promised I’d take my aunt to the talk on astrology. She loves all that kind of stuff.”

Roald rose too.

“And you don’t?”

“I never used to,” she admitted, as he helped her ease back into her coat.

“And now?”

She tried to shrug, but it was not so easy with the crutches.

“Maybe believing in fate helps makes what happened to me seem less meaningless. Maybe it helps make sense of the senseless. Even if all I’m doing is seeing patterns in the stars by joining the dots with random lines.”

He stopped on the way back up the hill to the car. Asking her to wait as he dived into a tourist shop, full of costlier craft items. She studied the window but could not see what had caught his eye. When he came out, he pushed a small flat box into her hand.

“Just something to remember today by,” he said. Then leaned forward to kiss her, lightly, one hand running up over the curve of her breast, lingering as he whispered: “You look beautiful naked.”

She was so stunned that she had frozen, her whole body stiff, paralysed. Just as it had been when she had woken up to find herself in hospital. So she didn’t say a word as he turned his broad back away and strode off into the crowds of tourists, lost to sight the moment he did so.

 

Sitting drinking coffee poured from her aunt’s ceramic samovar, it seemed a lifetime ago.

“You know the young man I mean, don’t you pet? He came to one of my rune workshops? You went out with him a couple of months ago – he seemed such a nice young man.”

“I don’t think they got along, Susan,” her uncle said, frowning.

“No. We didn’t have much in common,” Jess said quickly.

“Oh, that’s such a shame.” Her aunt sounded almost as if she really meant it. “He was at the workshop again yesterday, I told him he should be the one teaching it, he’s very good. I invited him over for dinner.”

Jess felt her hands lose all their strength and the tiny coffee cup slipped through her fingers to shatter on the polished wood of the floor. It was suddenly hard to breathe as if something was stifling her. Then her uncle was there, helping her up, helping her to escape to the sanctuary of her own room, knowing what she needed, so leaving her alone after a brief hug.

“Don’t fuss over the girl so much, Dave. She’s not a piece of china. And get something to clear that up, good thing it was mostly empty. I’d never get the stains out of the curtains…”

Her aunt’s voice receded as the door to the lounge closed.

She sat there for a moment, on the edge of her bed, resisting the temptation to bury under the duvet, to hide. Then she started to pack.

 

From ‘Maybe’ by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago. To receive your free copy, either subscribe to the blog by email or request a copy by leaving your email in our Contact Box. That also signs you up to receive any newsletters we might get around to putting out one-day too!

Good morrow bambini mea.

It is oneself, Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV. Author, teacher, bon viveur, and all-round example to the uncultured youth that surrounds one’s sainted head. Famed for the classic example of science fiction excellence ‘Fatswhistle and Buchtooth’.

One is displeased aujourd’hui.
The climate displeases.
One’s maternal parent displeases.
And the taste of bile in one’s throat displeases even more.

One’s pater, it seems, is about to withdraw one’s allowance. Deeming, as his latest paramour declaims in tones of purest East Ham, that “thirty-whatever is fucking old enough for the useless twat to have a job and start supporting himself”. One’s mater, of course, finds the whole thing funny in the extreme. To quote her dulcet tones “I haven’t laughed so much since granny got her tits caught in the mangle.”

Such crudeness displeases almost beyond measure, and on many a night one has wet one’s pillow with tears of frustration and shame. But one shall survive. And the vulgarity of one’s progenitors brings one neatly to the topic of today’s lesson.

Lesson 29: The Write Euphemism

In the quest for literary perfection there are two parallel, but divergent, routes upon which one may set one’s delicate tootsies.

One may, if that is the limit of one’s creativity, embrace the route of sordid realism, whereupon every wart and wrinkle is described with anatomical precision. The road where a delicate sexual encounter may be described as a f**k. The dark alleyway along which bodily functions are both described and enjoyed. The foetid pit of filth and fecundity into which the crassly uncaring author pushes his anti-heroic characters with the sole aim of discerning whether they sink, swim, or come up smelling of hyacinths.

This, mes estudas, is not our way. It cannot be our way. It eschews the beauty of language and embraces the visceral. Should this be your inclination, why then one washes one’s hand of you. Should you wish to join the ranks of those penning ‘kitchen sink’ (pah! sewer more descriptively) fiction then avaunt ye. One will have thee no more in one’s tribe. The children of Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV shall never sink to vulgarity. One’s daughters shall never develop three chins and a heaving dewlap of belly fat. One’s sons shall never bake in the tropical sun for so long that their skinny bodies resemble some wrinkled denizen of the reptile house in a low-rent zoological park. Oh no, mes estudas, we shall be beauteous until the day we tread sedately to Saint Peter’s golden gate. And in order to retain our beauty, we shall eschew all that is coarse, elemental and unlovely.

Here, then, is where the euphemism is your friend above all others. The gentle euphemism, that courteous suggestor whose orchidaceous syllables allow us to infer the crude, the ugly, the sexual, and the painful whilst protecting the delicate sensibilities of both artist and admirer.

We shall not speak of drunkenness – rather let our persons feel tiredness and emotion exacerbated by the intake of glorious nectar.

We shall not speak of the bodily functions of the bottom – rather infer that time spent in contemplation eases the pangs of the inner man.

We shall not enumerate the vulgar grunting of the joining of man and woman – rather shall we speak of the tenderest of caresses, and of the female lady garden and of the male’s fleshy sword.

Let our pens not dwell on the reproductive organs at all if that is possible – instead speak of sweet peaks and masculine heat.

We shall not speak of death – rather should we gently suggest a walk to the side of one’s maker.

We shall not enumerate pain – rather allude only to discomfort bravely borne.

We shall never speak of physical ugliness – no, let those who are plain of visage and ungraceful of form remain undescribed wherever possible and where description is unavoidable let ugliness be veiled under such kindly words as homely, honest-faced, strongly built, and even, dare one suggest, the damning of little physical beauty.

Indeed my children, consider my words of wisdom with care and never be swayed from following the primrose path of euphemistic glory. Let others dwell on the ugly and misshapen while we rise above such crudeness in our flying boat with the wings of the whitest swan and the beauty of a golden twilight.

Study your euphemisms, whilst your teacher goes fort in the vain attempt to detach his female parent from the public bar in the Beagle and Bumhole in sufficient time to converse with her own parent who is now our sole source of financial support.

Au revoir. Etudez bon

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

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Eric Klein is the author of the science fiction novel The One: A Cruise Through the Solar System and books on cyber-security.

Question one: What was the most difficult piece of research you did for this book?

Actually, the most difficult part of the research was stopping. It was so much fun finding and connecting the various pieces together. But the hardest part was digging up details about chelation therapy for heavy metals. Turns out that eating cilantro has been found to help reduce some heavy metals in the body, and this translated to some of the dishes served in restaurants on Mars.

Question two: If you could name a space mission to explore beyond the edges of our galaxy, what would you call it? And why?

Well, avoiding the various silly names. I would name it Minerva, after the Greek Goddess of Learning. I expect out initial forays out of our solar system and galaxy will first be to learn what is out there while later missions may be exploration, colonization, or even military. But I must admit, I was tempted with boldly going with Enterprise.

Question three: If you were given the chance of a one-way ticket to a colony on Mars would you go?

When the Mars One project came out with a chance to win such a one-way ticket, I was tempted to put in my name. But as much as I would love to be part of such a project, I have too much here on Earth to give up. Now if it was a round trip tourist ticket I would be first in line (something out to Jupiter or Saturn, and back, would be even better).

Eric Klein in his own words:
I have been dreaming of space ever since being woken up to watch the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing at three in the morning. The fact that as a three-year-old I demanded to be woken up (or that my parents actually did wake me) was not a surprise. You see I was watching the Original Star Trek TV series in color from the 9th episode because they had the audacity of starting to air the series before I was born. (Trivia fact: I was born on the day of the original airing of the episode Miri). I credit my love for all things Shakespearean to starting with the many references in Star Trek. A hint to these origins can be found by my use of the play Hamlet in space, similar to that used in the Star Trek episode ‘The Conscience of the King’ in my first novel.

You can find Eric on Goodreads, Twitter or his own Website.

We return to Helium for some free time. The group split. Some wanted to go shopping; some went looking for a local geologist that one of them went to school with; others just went looking for lunch.
I see Dodge walking down the street with a bunch of people. As they pass I can hear her say, “A person is defined by his actions, not their memory.”
Interested in lunch ourselves, we go down a street of food vendors. Chinese, Mexican, Vietnamese, Moroccan, or Thai; each has a window of green herbs. Displays announce proudly and clearly the use of cilantro, fresh coriander, and Chinese or Mexican parsley in the dishes – all the same herb, but under different names. Stopping outside a Moroccan restaurant I ask the proprietor why such a fascination for this one herb.
“You must be tourists. Here on Mars, most people worry a little about the chance of the heavy metals in the soil getting into the food. We all know that the scientists say that the plants don’t absorb these metals and they are safe, but there were times when they told us that tobacco was harmless and salt was causing heart disease; then they ‘discovered’ they were wrong. So we eat cilantro. There was a study that showed it was found to remove mercury, lead and other heavy metals from the tissue of the body via chelating them out of the body. Even though each individual meal is safe, most of us try to prevent a buildup by eating a good amount of cilantro each day. Better to be safe than sorry when they revise their findings.”
Thanking him, we decide to enter his restaurant for lunch. As we sit down, he puts out lots of little plates of salads, including a tomato and cucumber one, and another made from radishes. The best is an artichoke salad with garlic, spices and preserved lemon. All are full of flavour – and cilantro.
The restaurateur says, “With the lower air pressure here, we have to modify some of the original recipes so that the flavour will come through.” The yak tangia is wonderful with dried fruit and a slightly sweet sauce. Fay has the fish balls, and the sauce is full of cilantro. After the meal we are offered sweet mint tea and Kaab el ghzal – crescent-shaped cookies filled with almond paste and cinnamon. Absolutely wonderful.
Taking the maglev back to the spaceport, we enter the security area and find two TSA agents hand-searching Dodge. While they are working, we are waved on to other agents, who quickly scan and pass us for returning to the ship. They are still working on Dodge and her day bag when we enter the transfer tube.
Letting out a deep breath, I release the tension I had not even realised I was feeling. It was comforting to be back on the ship. In only two weeks it had become ‘home’ and a safe refuge from edgy security teams.

The One: A Cruise Through the Solar System is the debut novel from Eric Klein.