Post
#98 October 30, 2017
“Excerpt
from The Farpool: Exodus”
On October 17, I will be starting the first draft of
my next sf novel, with the title as shown above. This story is a sequel to The Farpool: Marauders of Seome and the
third in The Farpool series.
With any luck, I should be done with this in March
or April 2018 and be able to upload to Smashwords.com around that time. Stay tuned.
I stuck an excerpt of this story at the end of
Farpool: Marauders, which I reprint below, as a way of priming the pump, so to
speak, for dedicated readers.
Here’s the excerpt:
Chapter
1
Earth
The Atlantic Ocean, near Bermuda
May 1, 2115
After the detonation, no one detected the small
fleet of Coethi jumpships quietly withdrawing from the Sigma Albeth B system, having
let loose a final volley of starballs, which had impacted the sun and initiated
the deadly sequence of events.
Several hundred thousand Seomish, from all kels, had
managed to emigrate through the Farpool to Urku…to Earth. Twenty million others had died in the End
Times…the great ak’loosh. The Farpool had been destroyed…for now. The Time Twister, originally built and
operated by the Umans of the First Time Displacement Battery, had now been
destroyed, as had the wavemaker the Seomish had constructed from Uman
schematics, to keep the Farpool going, to keep an escape route open for the
doomed world of Seome. To re-create the
Farpool now, another Time Twister would have to be built.
The emigrants (known among themselves as tu’kelke) had mostly traveled in
lifeships and modified kip’ts to 22nd century Earth. However, some of the immigrants did not have
proper control of their lifeships and wound up on Earth in different time
periods…mid-20th century Earth, 16-century Earth, 28th century Earth
and one small group in the Cretaceous period of Earth, just before the big
asteroid Chicxulub struck, dooming the dinosaurs. None of these tu’kelke had any way of communicating with each other, or
traveling, since the Farpool was gone.
In a small cave near the growing encampment of the tu’kelke at the Muir seamounts, Chase
Meyer (still em’took-modified) found
a familiar face in the form of Tulcheah li, half-Omtorish, half-Ponkti, working
with other members of her em’kel to
unpack pods and cases and make some kind of home in the dim warren of
caves. They were glad to see each other
and they embraced hard, first in the Uman way, then as Seomish, though Chase
was only a halfling. Chase then invited
Tulcheah out for a roam about the settlement.
“They’re calling it Kee’nomsh’pont,” Tulcheah was
saying. “Kind of like ‘Little
Omsh’pont’.” It had been named for the
great capital city of the Omtorish, nearly destroyed long ago in a Ponkti
assault.
The base of the seamount was a craggy broken land, pockmarked
with caves, niches, folds, burrows and hollows, nearly four kilometers in
circumference, blending into the broader Bermuda Platform, itself a flat-topped
guyot thousands of feet above the abyssal plains of the seafloor. Over every fold and crack at the base of the
seamount, small knots of kelke had
built shelter, drawing hundreds of sheets of fibrous netting over the openings,
carving out small tunnels, channels, warrens and passageways right out of the
volcanic tuff of the mountain. The
effect was to make the base of the Muir complex resemble a vast spiderweb or
honeycomb of cells and caves.
Tulcheah pulsed the vast heaving expanse of the
refugee settlement, noting how frightening the trip through the Farpool had
been.
“We just made it, eekoti Chase. Our ship
twisted and turned and shook and shuddered and we thought it would come
apart. It was awful. Thank Great Shooki we were lucky.”
Chase could barely pulse for himself the extent of
the congregation of Seomish immigrants—Omtorish, Ponkti, Eep’kostic, Skortish,
Orketish—they were all crammed together, beak to tail, in the bosom of the sea
mount and her surrounding hills.
“Yeah, sometimes the Farpool is like that. But I wonder: how many didn’t make it?”
At this, Tulcheah turned somber. “Perhaps a number beyond counting, eekoti Chase. It is written that when Shooki sends the
great wave, the ak’loosh, many will
die.”
They roamed in silence for a time, circling above
the crude camps scattered about the seamount.
Tulcheah spoke quietly, swishing her tail back and
forth against downdraft currents coursing down from the upper reaches of the
mountain. “See how they’re are already
gathering themselves into kels? We
haven’t even been here very long and the old divisions, the old conflicts, are
returning. Even in new waters, we
fight.”
“I guess that’s to be expected. It’s the same with my people. By the way, we don’t call ourselves
Tailless. We call ourselves Humans. Get used to it.”
At that, Tulcheah smirked and bumped him
playfully. “You’re both, eekoti
Chase. Human and Seomish.”
And it was true.
The thought of it made Chase both sad and proud at the same time. If only
Dad could see me now, he told himself.
His beach bum son has become a
kind of intergalactic ambassador.
They soon ran into a school of Ponkti midlings,
engaged in learning tuk moves and
defenses from none other than Loptoheen himself. Tuk was
the martial dance and close-quarters combat discipline for which the Ponkti had
long been reknown. Loptoheen had been
the acknowledged master of tuk for as
long as anyone could remember.
Tulcheah and Chase stopped to watch but it was
quickly clear that the Ponkti wanted to keep to themselves.
Loptoheen growled at them. “Be off, kelke! There’s nothing here for you. And stop stirring up the waters too…these
students need to concentrate.”
Tulcheah, who was half-Ponkti, barked back at
him. “Litorkel ge, old Loptoheen.
Calm waters to all of you.” There
was a twinkle in her eye and she tried to stifle a half smile. “It won’t be long before your students give
you a real thrashing.”
“Kah!” came Loptoheen’s reply. The Ponkti school moved off and was soon lost
in the chaos of the settlement below.
Tulcheah and Chase resumed their roam about
Kee’nomsh’pont. It was clear to both, though
unspoken, that even in this strange and difficult new setting, the kels were
organizing themselves into traditional water clans again.
Listening in to the chatter, they soon learned of
the rumors of a great roam being organized by the Metahs of all the kels:
Mokleeoh, Lektereenah, Okeemah and Kolandra…a roam for the purpose of settling
disputes and setting conditions for how the new settlement would operate. Already big crowds had started to gather near
the edge of the settlement, anticipating the start of the vish’tu.
“We should grab a spot, eekoti Chase. Get in
position, near the front. The best spots
will be gone quickly.”
Chase had other ideas. “Tulcheah, it’s not leaving for a day. Maybe more.
Besides, I think I know a place on the other side of the mountain.”
“A place?”
“Where we can be alone. You taught me that, you slut. There’s more to roaming than just seeing the
sights.”
“I thought you came by to learn how the rest of the
Ponkti are getting along.” She stopped,
picked up an old scentbulb somebody had left behind and sniffed experimentally.
“That’s not why I came.”
“I know why you came…it’s written all over your
insides. A blind tillet could see it
halfway around the world. What makes you
think I’m in the mood?” Tulcheah held up
the scentbulb and let its odors drift out.
“For the love of Shooki…that
thing smells like a seamother herd…what is that stuff?”
Tulcheah sniffed indignantly at the bulb. “Home, eekoti
Chase. This is all we have left…of
home.”
“I’ve got something better than an old bulb,” he
told her. Chase swam up close and bumped
her. “Look, I’ve got to get back to
Tamarek’s place…how about we—“
But she put a hand to his mouth, fondling his lips,
the way she always did. “Eekoti Chase, you never change. Come with me, o’ great and famous
traveler. I’ll show you things you never
imagined—“And she slapped her tail at him, disappearing into a small cleft in a
nearby space, a narrow fold in the rock, draped with torn shreds of fabric and
fiber. It was dark inside, but the scents
were strong. Chase followed.
From
somewhere out of the dark, Tulcheah spoke.
“Do all eekoti look so ugly as
you?”
“Hey, this was some kind of surgery, remember…you
know, to let me live in your world better.
Normally, I’m just a stud.”
Tulcheah laughed at that. She nuzzled up under Chase’s chin with her
beak. “You have funny words, eekoti Chase. You know about Ke’shoo and Ke’lee?”
As she bumped him again and rubbed herself along his
side scales, Chase said, “Love and life…I think I understand it. You like to have a good time.”
Tulcheah pulled up and stared into Chase’s
eyes. She had black button eyes, and
they gleamed in the faint light. “You
pulse anxious…no need for that. Just
relax…these threads look like old man Terpy’t’s.” She smiled.
“I’ve got an idea…here, I’ll show you.
Take this knot in your mouth—“
She gave Chase an end of the thread.
Chase stuffed the filaments in his mouth. It tasted like rope. “Like this?—“he mumbled.
“Hold on to it and pull. Follow me… I’ll guide you.” Tulcheah took one arm and together, the two
of them swooped up and down the hold, spinning and weaving denser strands of
the frayed web, back and forth. It was
erotic and sensuous, all the more so as Tulceah rubbed herself against his
sides with each cycle.
Blast
this scaly skin…I’m getting turned on…can’t feel what I—
The mat of fiber grew thicker as they made turn
after turn.
Tulcheah asked, “Where is the other eekoti?
Female is this one?”
Chase was in a heavenly daze and had to shake
himself to clarity. “Huh, oh…Angie? Yeah, female.
A girl. My girlfriend…yeah.”
“And where is this eekoti Angie?”
“Right now, I really don’t know. I need to find her. Back at Scotland Beach, I imagine.”
By some unseen signal, Tulcheah stopped the spinning
and hovered on one side of Chase. She
nosed up and down his body with her beaks, clearly looking for something,
poking, probing, sniffing.
Then she stopped, looked up into Chase’s eyes. “I’m not familiar with this em’took…where is the ket’shoo’ge?”
“The what?”
Tulcheah laughed.
“All of us have ket’shoo’ge…how
do you translate this?…little lover…maybe, small…em’too… love hold?”
“Hey, mine isn’t that small, if you’re asking. Hell, if I know…this skin is so scaly…I don’t
really know where—“
Then Tulcheah found it.
Later, after they had coupled, Chase remembered
seeing something on Nat Geo, a vid or something, about how fish had sex. Many females just ejected eggs into the
water. The males ejected sperm. The eggs got fertilized…end of story. But some marine animals had specialized
organs called claspers. That’s when
things got interesting.
Tulcheah had found Chase’s claspers. The Omtorish, in their infinite wisdom, had
designed the em’took procedure so
that the Lizard Man that Chase had become would have claspers.
And it was clear that Tulcheah knew what to do with
claspers.
When Chase and Angie made love, the best time for
Chase was in the little fishing boat in Half Moon Cove. You had to have lots of blankets to make a
soft landing. It was awkward at
times…you had to be clever and inventive on how to use the space—but when the
boat was rocking in the swells and you had the right rhythm…it was …really awesome!
That’s what Tulcheah did to Chase.
Chase found his claspers exquisitely sensitive. The two of them formed one body and drifted
softly about the tiny hold, occasionally getting entangled in the webs, tearing
them, pulling them apart.
Terpy’t
won’t like that, someone hissed. More giggles and laughter. And bubbles.
Lots of bubbles. Bubbles and
claspers…that was the key.
Chase was in heaven.
So they glided and undulated and rolled and bubbled
and poked and tickled and rubbed and squeezed and Chase thought he was going to
die, the feeling was so intense. Thank God for em’took! he told himself.
It was the first time he was really glad he looked like a giant frog. Those wacky Omtorish really did know what
they were doing.
They had been quiet, dozing for a time, when Chase
thought he heard a strange noise, just outside the hold…a sort, of whirring,
faintly whooshing noise. Tulcheah was
still, drifting asleep about the hold, so he gently untangled himself and
pushed toward the opening.
He was so startled at what he saw that he cried
out: “What the--!”
There, just beyond the opening, was a big eye. No, that wasn’t it. It was a face, grinning, leering at him with
huge white teeth…it whirred and hummed and that’s when Chase realized he was
staring right into the camera of a small submarine. The face was a paint job…someone’s idea of a
joke, with its gaping mouth and outsized teeth, it looked like a great white
shark painted right onto the nose of the sub.
The thing was maybe five feet in length, with stubby
wings and spinning props at the end, a semi-transparent nose, festooned with
all kinds of gear, including what were obviously cameras and imagers.
“Tulcheah!
Tulcheah…get up…wake up!”
He felt more than heard the scramble of a thrashing
body behind him as the female collided with his back. He could feel her breath on his neck,
hovering just behind, shaking.
“What is this, eekoti
Chase? A Tailless monster?”
Chase just glared back at the hovering
intruder. “I don’t know…it’s some kind
of sub….” That when he noticed a logo
and some reddish script-style writing on the side of the sub. He spelled it out under his breath:
W-O-O-D-S
H-O-L-E
O-C-E-A-N-O-G-R-A-P-H-I-C
I-N-S-T-I-T-U-T-E
Chase swallowed hard. The U.S. Navy already knew about the growing
presence of the Seomish in the Atlantic.
It had been a closely held military secret for months.
Now it seemed that others would soon know as
well.
“Tulcheah, I don’t know how to tell you this…but I
think they watched everything we just did—"
So, that’s the excerpt. I hope you find it intriguing enough to stay
tuned for the full story. I’ll be giving
The Word Shed regular progress
reports on how it’s coming, as well as my other writing projects.
The next post to The
Word Shed comes on November 6, 2017.
See you then.
Phil B.
