“Developing and Evolving Series Characters

Many writers work with series characters, characters who come on-stage and show up again and again in sequel after sequel, story after story.  We’re talking here about all kinds of characters, from James Bond to Tom Swift, Jr. to John Connor in the Terminator movies.  This is particularly common in television, even film.  Working with characters who continue from one story to another is both rewarding and challenging.  In my own work, I’ve done this enough (see Johnny Winger in my Tales of the Quantum Corps) to have come up with some do’s and don’ts about how to make it all work.

1. Know your character well.  I like to do extensive bios. In previous posts, I’ve shared some details about how to write character bios.  I do a physical description, then a chronological rundown of key events in their lives, then a few paragraphs on their personality and character.  Nothing special and I don’t do it for every character, just the main ones.  But in the end, I know this person pretty well and more importantly, I have something to refer back to and to help me stay consistent with this character across multiple stories.  And sometimes, the details will suggest plot twists and turns themselves.  Do this.
2. Keep your notes.  Refer back to them.  In any long series of stories, like Tales of the Quantum Corps or Nanotroopers, you can never remember all the details. Yet consistency and accuracy are critical.  Readers and reviewers love to point out inconsistencies. In one story, Tom has blond hair.  In the next story, he has brown hair.  What happened?  Hair transplant, Grecian formula or writer laziness?  You be the judge. 
3. Lay out the arc of your character’s development and change beforehand. Give him or her  increasingly difficult challenges.  The simple word for this is planning.  Try to sketch out and write down how you want your main character to change or evolve.  We all change.  Lionel started out an introvert but he managed to overcome this and became a great inspiring leader.  How did this happen?  List some details of scenes and challenges that caused this change, including how Lionel responded.  You don’t have to write a psychological treatise but a little prep goes a long way in keeping you on track.  I can’t emphasize this enough.  I seriously doubt you can maintain a consistent and consistently engaging character over a series without some forethought. 
4. Ask questions of your character.  ‘Interview’ him (or her).  I don’t actually do this but I heard of this technique from a fellow writer and I offer it as a possibility.  Pretend you’re a reporter and you’re interviewing your main character for an article.  Ask penetrating questions: “Why, Colonel Johnny Winger, did you actually decide to join the Quantum Corps in the first place.”  This might actually be a better approach than what I described in (1) above.
5. Add some idiosyncracies but don’t go overboard.  Idiosyncracies are defined as a structural or behavioral peculiarity, from the Greek word idios, meaning peculiar.  You want your main character to be memorable in some way, without giving him two heads or a club foot or the ability to speak a hundred languages, unless all that is germane to the story.  TV writers and shows are notorious for giving series characters ticks or odd quirks or mannerisms that become comfortable to long time viewers but are easy to ridicule and make fun of.  Think Columbo and his rain coat and his lisp.  Maybe this is ‘acting’ but I call it literary laziness.  Writers can do better.  In written entertainment, they’d better be more creative.  Idiosyncracies are fine but they shouldn’t take over the character, at the expense of behavior and character evolution. 
6. Are your primary characters different enough to be distinguishable?  Ask yourself this: what do we remember about Pinocchio?  His long nose.  Do we remember anything about his character or why he has a long nose?  Not so much.  A main series character should be memorable and distinguishable by what he does and what he says and how he reacts.  Often, I portray characters with only minimal physical description, letting the reader form their own opinion from dialogue and narrative.  In your planning, make sure you give your main characters different enough trajectories so that the reader doesn’t confuse one with another.  This means developing and describing different life experiences and different ways of reacting to those experiences.  Just like real life!
7. A word about names.  One of my favorite sources of names is a map or an atlas.  Cities and towns, in many countries, are often named for people.  Don’t bother with phone books.  Scan the newspapers or a map.  Most people have common names.  How many Smiths or Jones are there?  Give your main character a name that doesn’t cause eyes to. roll, that rolls off your tongue, that doesn’t have obvious symbolic or pornographic overtones and that wouldn’t make high schoolers snicker in English Lit class.  Okay, so maybe Johnny Winger isn’t the best choice, but it sounds (to my ear) local, approachable, all-American, and primed for action.  That’s what I wanted to convey.  Nothing more.
    
   That’s it for now.  Remember: series characters require some forethought and planning.  It’s easy to get bogged down in trying to be consistent but if you don’t try, your readers will lose faith in your ability to tell a good story and they may wind up even laughing at your hard work and using the book as a paper weight.
    
   The next post to The Word Shed comes on November 20.  In this post, I’ll lay out some early details for a prospective new series of novelette-length stories called Time Jumpers.  Look for it.
    
   See you then.
    
   Phil B. 
    

 

Post #9 November 6, 2017

“Current Projects”

My current projects deal mostly with my sf series The Farpool Stories.  Below is a little chart that shows how these stories (published and upcoming) fit together in time:

Earth Time	Title	Seome Time
2115 AD	The Farpool*	764.2 Tk to 769.3 Tk (Epoch of Tek’potu)
1942 AD and 2115-2117 AD	The Farpool: Marauders of Seome*	779.3 Tk to 785.2 Tk (Sigma Albeth B supernova; Seome destroyed
2115 AD	The Farpool: Exodus	1.1 to 1.5 Kv (Epoch of Kel’vishtu)
2130 AD	The Farpool: Convergence	2.5 to 3.2 Kv
2141 AD and 3.2 BYA (billion years ago)	The Farpool: Union	10.5 to 11.5 Kv
2195 AD	The Farpool: Diaspora	47.5Kv

*Published and uploaded to Smashwords.com

Last week’s blog was an excerpt from my current work in progress: The Farpool: Exodus.  The book is going along well and I expect to be able to make this available for download in early spring 2018, probably March or April.  Look for it.

As you can see from the chart, the series follows sequentially in time, with both Earth time and Seome time indicated.  Upcoming stories will continue the sequence as shown, and the stories will take place on Earth and other places.  One of the characteristics of the Farpool itself is that it is a gateway, a wormhole in space and time, so some stories will take advantage of this. 

For Exodus, I’m working off a pretty detailed chapter and scene outline that gives me direction for the sixteen chapters I believe it will take to tell this story.  As of this writing, I’m close to fifty pages in.

There are a number of challenges in writing stories in a series.  One is just keeping track of all the characters and what happens to them.  I found myself not long ago writing about a character who had actually died in a previous story.  I had to do some quick re-writing to get around this.  The best advice I can offer to any writer doing this kind of work is keep all your notes handy—don’t rely on memory alone.  Sometimes, in my current outline, I’ve found it advisable to write page references to earlier work right in the outline so I can readily refer back to something relevant to a scene.

While I’m writing the first draft of Exodus, I’m also working on the story outline (chapter and scene details) of Convergence, which is next in line.   Doing one outline while writing the first draft of the previous story seems to work pretty well, as my head and brain are still in the story and it’s easier to carry over plot points or character details from one to the next. With any luck, The Farpool: Convergence will exist at least in detailed outline by the end of the year and I can anticipate starting the first draft in the early summer of 2018.  Details and ideas for the next stories after Convergence are still too nebulous to mention here.  But the titles should give you some idea of where I’m going.  Remember we’re dealing with three intelligences here: human beings, the Seomish and the Coethi (nanobotic swarm life from sixty thousand light years away).

In fact, here’s an early look at the story outline for The Farpool: Convergence:

Chapter 1

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute

Conicthyosis Lab

Woods Hole, Massachusetts

September 2, 2130

Angie Gilliam has arrived at the Conicthyosis lab, with Chase Meyer, to undergo the amphib hybridization procedure.  She is nervous.  She also knows that her mother is adamantly opposed to having this procedure done, for when it is done, Angie will be an amphib like Chase, part Seomish, part human, and able to travel in and out of water, just like her boyfriend.

 

The procedure was developed by Dr. Josey Holland, who now runs the lab and is also an amphib herself and somewhat of a global celebrity.  Dr. Holland and an assistant sit down with Chase and Angie and they go over what the procedure entails.  It is a surgical procedure, with some gene therapy and nanobotic intervention.  The actual procedure will take a day.  The recovery and rehab will take several months in total.

 

We follow the procedure, as Angie is placed in a special chamber where she will remain for several days.  The procedure is described.  It goes well.  While he is waiting for her to come out, Chase watches a Solnet report on how many people around the world are also going through the same procedure.  Dr. Holland and her procedure have become extremely popular, almost a fad, and the Solnet reporter Aimee Tolstoy interviews several who are doing this or who have already undergone Conicthyosis. 

 

Tolstoy also interviews U.S. senator Ryan Palette (D-KY) who is opposed to all these procedures and to the way amphibs are everywhere and how modern culture seems to be increasingly dedicated to amphib needs, ways and concerns.  Palette informs the reporter that he is forming a new organization to ‘regain the way of life we used to have in this country’ and be an advocate for normal people.  It is to be called Sons of Adam (SOA).

 

Chase then finally gets to be with the now-modified Angie Gilliam.  He’s proud she’s taken this step.  It’s like becoming a new citizen of a whole new race.  They announce to Dr. Holland and all the techs that Chase has just proposed and they will be getting married in November, 2130.

 

Dr. Holland is less than enthusiastic about this as she always had designs on Chase, from the very beginning.

 

 

That’s Chapter 1 from my outline for the story coming after the one I’m writing now.  I hope it intrigues you.

 

The next post to The Word Shed will come on November 13, post #100.  In this post, I’ll cover some basics and guidelines, some don’s and don’ts, for developing and evolving characters that continue over multiple stories and sequels.  

 

See you then.

 

Phil B.

 

 

 

 

 

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 22^nd 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, 28^th 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.

 

Excerpt from “In Plutonian Seas”

A few weeks ago, I completed a new sf short story.  It’s called “In Plutonian Seas.”  As is my normal practice, I will be submitting this story to a variety of print SF markets, rather than making it available (at least initially) online.  That process has already started and if I manage to make a sale, I’ll let you know right away.

To prime the pump, here’s an excerpt from the story:

In Plutonian Seas

“It is better to conquer yourself than to win a hundred battles. Then the victory is yours.  It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or demons, nor heaven or hell.”

 Buddha

“For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.”

                                                                                                            Khalil Gibran

Aboard FCS Trident

Pluto, Sputnik Planitia

Two hundred meters below the ice surface

June 15, 2144 (EUT)

0400 hours (local)

 

Alicia Yang Lifelogger File #30:

It was Marta Sepulveda’s idea to quarantine Commander Skellen in his quarters, for his own good.  And for ours.  It was hard but it was the right thing to do…even Marta the Bitch Goddess said if we didn’t, the skipper would be driving Trident right back to the Wreck again.

Nobody wanted that.

I’ve taken the liberty of downloading and synchronizing everybody’s lifelogger files for the last few days, so as to put together some kind of chronological report on what happened.  Win Blakely calls it CYA or a form of self-justification but we all have a responsibility to make factual reports during the mission.  If we don’t, Frontier Corps could easily send another unsuspecting crew right into the very same trap.

As it stands now, the vote is three to one, in favor of boring back through the ice, getting to the surface, somehow driving back to the lander and returning to orbit.  From down here, comms with Fort Apache in orbit are pretty spotty, so they don’t have a clue as to what we’ve run into here. 

I just hope they can figure out a way to treat us, all of us, before this thing, this infection or whatever it is, gets worse.

Here’s the first of the lifelogger files I patched together…

 

Joe Skellen Lifelogger File #27 (appended):

I was looking over some old maps and sea charts when the sonar contact alarm sounded.  Okay, so I like old maps.  The Corps psychs tried to convince me, after Trieste and Europa, that hanging out with old maps was symbolic of me wanting to run away from Kristen, from my boy Tyler and all that.  Can you believe that?  Really, I just happen to like old maps.

Trident had been cruising serenely at thirty knots, in level trim, when that first alarm sounded.  I guess I had dozed off because it startled me.

I realized as I startled myself awake that it was the sonar alarm.  Trident had detected something ahead, something big from the looks of it.  Auto-helm was engaged and she had already begun slowing.

I came fully awake and rubbed my eyes.  I studied the sonar plot.  Whatever it was, it was a large object, some ten thousand meters dead ahead.  

Probably a chunk of ice from the surface crust…broken off, I surmised.  From the nav console, I could see Trident had just about made her first waypoint coordinates, hundreds of meters below the ice at Sputnik Planitia.  I got on the intercom.

“STO 1 to the command deck…Marta, get up here to the command deck at once….”

I disengaged autohelm and took the controls myself, slowing the ship to a crawl.  I didn’t want to run Trident into something this big without studying it first.

Sepulveda’s head popped into the compartment a few moments later.

“What gives, Captain?”

“Take a look at the plot.”

Marta Sepulveda—our STO 1 and chief engineer-- slid into the second seat and studied the sonar return.  “What is it, Skipper…one of your shipwrecks?  Can we get a little closer?”

“We can try,” I said.  I ignored the jibe.  It’s no secret Marta and I don’t get along but that’s for later. 

Slowly, Trident closed on her target, dead ahead.   The subsurface ocean below Pluto’s ice surface was completely devoid of light, black as night.  But the returns from Trident’s sonar indicated that the object could be something worth investigating.

Marta studied the plot.  “Doesn’t look like ice to me…too convoluted.” 

Eventually, I brought us to a complete stop, five hundred meters away. 

We discussed our options.  Alicia came up too.  She’s an astroglaciologist and she said it didn’t look like ice to her either.  Both Doll-Face and the Bitch Goddess concurred.  “We need to check this out.  What about Uncle?”

“This is about as well as our sonar can resolve the target,” I agreed.  “From the returns, it seems to be a large platform, with some kind of structures on top.  I’m getting faint returns around the main one, too, smaller objects of some type.  Get Uncle ready, both of them.  Win can help you.  And Alicia, get back to the galley and get me some of that amunofen…I’ve got a splitting headache.”

Marta disappeared into the main gangway and headed aft to G deck.  That’s where we kept Uncle One and Two…our little robotic ships that often did initial recon on objects and sites of interest.  Alicia came back a few moments later. 

“You too, Skipper?  My skull’s been about to crack all morning.”  We both washed down several pills and concentrated on getting the feed from Uncle. 

As soon Marta called up and said the drones were ready, I started inching us forward, cranking up our spot and floodlights, trying to bring as much illumination to bear on the targets as possible.  It was like shining headlights through a dense fog.

“Launching Uncle One and Two, “came Marta’s voice.  Presently, the murmur of their jets could be heard nearby.

“Got ‘em,” Alicia said.  “I have full control…both bots…steering straight ahead…you want sonar, Skipper?”

“Sound away,” I said.  “I’ve got nothing but scrambled eggs on my scope.”

 “I’m calling up Uncle One,” I told everybody.  By now, even Win Blakely had come up to the command center.  “Let’s see what the drones can find out.”  I pressed a few keys on my wristpad and the underwater bots surged forward, their jets whirring gently.  They both plunged into the murk and were soon lost to view.  Blakely patched in to the bot’s sensors.  Soon, the whole team was getting sonar, EM and visuals back from Uncle One.

What we saw made my throat go dry.

It was some kind of shipwreck.  No one could deny that.  In fact, it looked like a smashed-up, crumpled version of Trident herself.  You could see the borer lens up front…it looked like a broken dinner plate.  And the rest of the ship—you could only call it a ship—was broken into a misshapen hulk.  Treads along her hull had mostly come untracked.  Her stern pod was stove in like a beer can.  The hull had been breached in several places, like some kind of flooding casualty, like--

“What the—” said Marta.

“It’s a ship…like us--? Blakely muttered.  “I don’t—”

“Hey, just keep it down, will you?” I warned everybody.  “Everybody stay cool.”  Even as I said it, I could feel my own heart jackhammering in my chest.  And my head was about to split in two.”

Maybe I should pause here—  unintelligible noises in the background—okay…that’s better.  Looks like we lost Uncle Two…Win’s checking to see what happened but One’s still with us.  At this point, Alicia and Marta started arguing about our mission and I had to tell them to pipe down.  The mission parameters were simple enough to list…we all know ‘em by heart: land on Pluto at Sputnik Planitia and bore through the ice layer, penetrate subsurface ocean and conduct cruise science ops for ten Earth days, take samples, measure gross ocean properties, map currents, temperature profiles, chemical, salinity, brine…all that stuff.  Then we return safely to the surface.  Return to orbit and dock with Fort Apache.  Transmit all the raw data and experimental results on high-band to UNISPACE Gateway Station at Earth-Moon L2. 

That’s it.  It was after I had recited all that to Marta, Alicia and Win for about the millionth time that Marta pointed out something on Uncle One’s vid.  I looked.  It was some kind of lettering along the side of the sunken ship’s hull.  When I realized what it said—it was partly obscured by some kind of barnacle-like growth—my blood ran cold and my heart skipped about ten beats. 

T-R-I-E S-T-E.  Trieste.  The submersible I had nearly died in on the Europa Explorer mission in ’43. 

No way.  It couldn’t be—

-----

So that’s the excerpt.  This story is one that had been gnawing at me for several years so I finally got it down as a short story of about 10,000 words.  If this excerpt intrigues you, stay tuned for progress reports.

The next post to The Word Shed comes on October 30.  In this post, I’ll give you an update on my next book in the Farpool series, entitled The Farpool: Exodus.  By the way, my last uploaded book, The Farpool: Marauders of Seome, is doing pretty well online.  As of this writing (October 11), Smashwords is showing 173 downloads. 

See you October 30.

Phil B.