The Children of Tok-Cenb

Here's Luke Bellmason, sharing the first chapter of his NaNoWriMo novel:

It was easy to tell the first wavers from the second wavers; as the shuttle approached the surface of the planet, the second wavers were all standing at the panoramic forward windows of the upper deck, while the first wavers, like Victor Warbur, remained in their seats.

Warbur had seen Vonbek many times before, and was more interested in watching the passengers. Taylan was the focus of his attention at this moment, and when he glanced around at his fellow passengers he could see that she was the focus of theirs too. It was perfectly understandable.

Firstly, she was young. About twenty-eight years of age and full of health and energy. Secondly she was enthusiastic, a trait that many of the first wavers had long since lost in the decade that they’d all been here, and thirdly she was single.

There was very little chance that she’d be interested in the slightest in any of the boring old men who’d found themselves assigned to this particular excursion down to the planet, but that didn’t seem to bother them Warbur observed. It was more of a case of fixating their playful fantasies on someone who was completely unavailable and yet real, rather than whatever dream woman they had created for themselves over the years to maintain their sanity out here.

Most of them had families of course, but they were either back home in the Earth system, or were living here and so were part of the everyday mundanity that had become the dull background to their existence.

Taylan’s attention was not on them. She was standing next to the man who was only a little older than her, but who was already in one of the most senior positions within the Corporation.

Between the three of them, Warbur, Taylan and ‘corporation boy’, they represented the three main factions of the Earth Expiditionary Force, which was the whole point of having them attend the presentation on the planet. It was yet another official engagement that some senior executives at the top of the chain of command had decided would make good press for the propoganda machine which even now, almost ten years after they’d arrived at Vonbek, was still trying to persuade the alien population that this was a great, bold new era for them.

Since the ‘couple’ had arrived on the shuttle, at the station in orbit, the girl and the corporation representitive had been inseparable. They hadn’t said more than three words to anyone else, yet had talked constantly to each other all the way down. Corporation boy was quite knowledgeable about every aspect of the alien economy, politics and social make-up as any high-climber in the corp would have to be, but Warbur knew he’d studied it all from books and reports. There was a huge difference between knowing something and experiencing it, as Warbur had. Many of the early reports had been proved wrong and assumptions made about the alien society and the way it functioned had been shown to be far too simplistic.

There were many facets to the society they had encountered. contact with one group or local authority did not guarantee that another would want to have anything to do with them. There was no central leadership as such, everything was local. That was what was so brilliant about the ‘children’. It had been a very useful ploy, to get at least one small group of aliens on their side, though at the time it had been nothing more than a solution to the language barrier. As Warbur listened, he heard the corporation’s representative recite the standard version of the events to his companion.

“You see, they had this problem with communicating with the Aliens when they first arrived,” he began. “It seemed like an intractable problem. How do you understand a language that you have no basic understanding of? It’s totally alien, in an alien culture where you can’t even figure out context. What you do is you find a bunch of children and you teach them English.”

“Why English?” Said Taylan, showing her true colours as the ‘independant observer’.

“It had to be something, I guess they could have picked Spanish or Chinese. In a way, it didn’t matter. Once we’d taught them one Earth language, we could translate it into any other. English is universal enough that most of the who countries who contributed to the Expedition would agree to it being the lingua-franca.”

Taylan extended her left arm and tapped something out on her wrist, notes to be reviewed later. Then she looked back out at the approaching planet. It was close enough now that Warbur could see the greenish tint of the sky starting to illuminate the upper part of the troposphere.

“So they picked a group of children on the planet and taught them English,” prompted Taylan, who knew the story anyway.

“Yes, but they didn’t bargain on how successful they would be. I mean, all they did was leave a few tablet computers lying around in a village where they knew they’d be found and load them up with language apps. You know what happens when you give technology to children. The adults largely ignored it, I mean they knew where it had come from, but the children, oh they figured it out.”

At this point in the story, Warbur decided to make his introduction. He could not bear to hear this story, his story, being told by someone else.

“After one week they’d mastered the alphabet,” he said from his seat, “after two they could match words with images. After three weeks they knew most of the rules of pronunciation, syntax and grammar. By the end of the first month, they could read, write and speak fluent English.” Warbur stood up and walked to the window, next to Taylan and the Corporation Representitive.

“And after two months they had hacked into the Earth Government communications network,” Corporation Boy said, no doubt trying to embarrass Warbur. It had the opposite effect.

“The alien children who were selected were nothing special, but there are gifted children in every group. Once we began to educate them, we discovered that their minds were easily as advanced as our own.

“But you can’t educate someone to a higher level than yourself,” said Taylan, “they might be even smarter than us given the proper training.”

“Ah well, that would be the Corporation’s department,” said Warbur, “I believe their AI programme is going to do all this and more.” He said this knowing full well that the Corporation’s AI programme had been five years away from fruition for the last twenty years, and was an intense source of embarrassment to them.

It suddenly occurred to Taylan to introduce her friend to the Government Offial and she turned to Warbur and said, “this is John LeVant of Corporation Operations,” they shook hands.

“Victor Warbur of the Earth Government,” said Warbur, keeping things deliberately vague. “And you must be ELIJA,” Warbur chuckled at the girl, noting the insignia on her suit.

“Yes, Selina Taylan of Earth League Interplanetary Joint Alliance,” she shook Warbur’s hand. “So, you’ve actually met these children?” She asked. Warbur smiled, wryly.

“I helped to create them. I set up the project after initial contact with the aliens, that was over ten years ago. They’re all grown up now. The boy your friend mentioned, the one who hacked into the comms network, he’s the one we’re going to meet.”

–

The shuttle set down on an open grassy plain about a kilometre from the town of Tok-Cenb. There were fewer people than Warbur had anticipated, but then aside from its importance to the Expeditionary Fleet, Tok-cenb wasn’t that remarkable. In reality it was little more than a mining village, with one ‘mayor’, one ‘elder’ and a few ‘councillors’. These titles were approximations of course, but the translation between English and the native tongue had always been tricky.

The Children had made this small town famous around the entire planet, but this didn’t seem to have had much of an economic impact on it, in the ten years Warbur had been coming here, he’d observed very few changes aside from the rapid maturation of its citizens. Vonbekians aged about at about twice the rate of humans and seldom lived beyond the age of thirty-five solar years. Still, it was disappointing to see such a poor turn-out, especially with the visitors here.

They all waited for the ramp to descend at the back of the shuttle and walked down into the damp, barely breathable air. There was no fanfare and no applause, since both of these practises would have been totally unknown to the locals, but one alien did approach them and extend an appendage in a very human-like way. This was the ‘boy’. Now a full grown adult and a long time acquaintance of Warbur’s.

“Mr. LeVant, Miss Taylan, this is Dita.”

Warbur knew the Second wavers would have studied the aliens during their trip, but now as he watched for their reaction, he knew they were realising the great gap between the idea of a thing and the reality of having it stand in front of you. The aliens were squat creatures, about four feet high, and were an odd shape. Three legged, three-eyed, three armed and arranged somewhat like a three-pointed star when seen from above. The arrangement extended right down to their toes and fingers, three on each arm and leg.

Both LeVant and Taylan were not merely speechless, but breathless, hyperventilating. Warbur waved a hand and a crewman from the shuttle rushed forward with a portable oxygen container.

“You’ll have to excuse my friends, they’ve never met an extra-terrestrial before,” said Warbur.

“It’s ok, I remember the first time I met a human. It was stressful for me too,” said Dita, in perfect English.

They followed the alien, LeVant and Taylan gripping on to their masks as they walked, to the stand. It was nothing grand, but a simple stage built onto rocks and packed down straw. There was seating for the humans along the front, while the Vonbekians required only a clear space to rest, folding their rear two legs together to form a kind of seat.

Warbur had studied the schedule for the day’s presentation and knew that, like most Vonbekian events, it would take up many hours and be intersected by multiple stops for refreshments and informal chats. They never did anything in a hurry.

LeVant offered the seat next to Warbur up to miss Taylan, then took the seat on the end. Some of the other officals who had come down on the shuttle with them took up the seats in front and behind them and Dita sat at the back of the group.

The Mayor took to the stage and began speaking in the local dialect, which was immediately translated into whichever language was necessary by the computers in each human’s headpiece. The speech was standard, non-threatening and bland. Designed, it seemed, to offend no one and to welcome the new visitors to their humble planet. The effect of hearing second hand and spoken in the same flat automated voice that they listened to all day every day did little to counteract the soporific effect this had on each individual. This and the stifling air they were breathing between puffs on the oxygen cylinders had most of the human audience teetering on the verge of sleep within a minute of the Mayor’s address.

They were all suddenly brought out of it by a large explosion, which eminated from just behind the stage and expanded out into the audience. It took out the stage so completely that those who had been standing on or near it were instantly vapourised. The front four rows of people were killed either by the blast or the lethal shards of rock which were thrown outwards. Anyone behind that was in with a chance of surviving, though random luck seemed to determine the severity of the injuries suffered.

Warbur been forced back on top of Taylan, but LeVant who had been on the end had been hit. He was still alive, but barely. One by one each survivor rose from the ground to see which of those around them had not made it. Dita came forward from the rear and went straight for Warbur, picking him up and shaking him to his senses. Warbur could see Dita talking at him but could hear no sound at all, his ears were filled only with a single tone, like the feedback from a faulty microphone. Taylan stood and then saw LeVant and rushed to his side.

The Vonbekian response was slow and disorganised. The crew and security from the shuttle were on the scene long before any of the local emergency services had arrived. The injured humans, including LeVant, were bundled onto the shuttle and flown back up to the fleet’s medical ship. Taylan went with them, though she was able to walk to the shuttle herself. Warbur elected to stay behind and assist the security services in making sure any vital evidence was not lost and the scene was left as undisturbed as possible.

“What happened?” Dita asked Warbur, once the worst of the ghastly situation seemed over. Warbur had to consider his response.

“It was an attack I believe,” he said.

“An attack?” Dita repeated. “I don’t understand, what kind of attack.” Warbur didn’t quite understand it himself, but could think of no other explanation.

“Nothing like this has ever happened on your planet before?” He asked. Dita shook his head.

“There have been wars, fights in the past, but this, I don’t see how it fits with what you are saying. Where are the attackers?” He looked about him, seemingly puzzled by the concept.

“It’s called terrorism. It’s something we used to be very good at on Earth in one period of our history. And it looks like now we’ve brought it to with us to your world.”

-2,357

Catching a Glimpse of a Wild WriMo

Today and tomorrow, I'd like to share some NaNo-related entries from Luke Bellmason's blog. I'm a little late with them, but I think you'll enjoy them just as much.

In a few days I am going to be taking part in NaNoWriMo. For those that don’t know, this stands for National Novel Writing Month (though actually it’s International).

The idea is that during the month of November you have try to write a 50,000 word novel. This might sound difficult but 50,000 words in 30 days works out to about 1,666 words per day, and there is no stipulation in the rules which says the novel has to be any good.

NaNoWriMo is all about getting people writing, and the emphasis is on volume rather than quality. For writers who do lots of planning (but very little writing) this is an opportunity to change things up. Instead of editing and stressing over minor details of plot and character you just write. It’s a bit like jumping on a motorcycle, pointing it towards the sunset and heading off into the unknown.

One of the best things about it is that you’re doing it with thousands of other people and there’s a lot of support given to participants, with writing events across the whole month both online and off. The groups are also divided into regions so you can find out who’s participating in your area and maybe even go along to a write-in and meet some of them.

Everyone wants to know what you’re writing and how far along you are, and yes there’s a healthy sense of competition involved. Dare I say you even get a buzz out of beating someone who was ahead of you in word count the week before. As writers crash out and fall by the wayside, you’re determined that ‘this won’t happen to me’ and it pushes you on.

You aren’t allowed to start writing until midnight on the first of November, but you are allowed to plan your story out before this. I’ve been working on my idea for this year’s NaNo for quite some time and I’m actually really looking forward to starting work on it.

The story revolves around the first Earth expedition to an alien planet. The first wave has already been established, first contact has been made and a small colony of humans are living on the alien world.

All of the main characters are based on my favourite characters from various spy shows and books.

The theme is going to be a kind of mash-up of science fiction and spy thriller. Think John LeCarre meets Philip K Dick, or Isaac Asimov meets Ian Fleming.

The hard problems of preventing bacterial contamination and translating the alien language have already been solved by the first wave of the expedition. As the novel starts the second wave have arrived from Earth and one of the three main characters has spent the last seven or eight years travelling aboard and interstellar ship to reach the alien world.

There are three main factions on the Earth side; The Earth government who are the official representatives of all of the planets in the solar system who funded the expedition. The Corporation who provided almost all of the technology used to reach the alien system. And then there’s the UN type organisation called ELIJA, which stands for Earth League Interplanetary Joint Alliance.

Obviously there are multiple tensions between these three groups. The Corporation has been granted licences to sell various Earth technologies to the aliens, whose technological level is equal to that of Earth in about the year 1950. This means the Corp can look forward to many years of profitable technological advancement at a slow and steady pace as they drip feed everything from washing machines and refrigerators all the way through to iPods and jet packs over decades and decades. Meanwhile the Earth force is trying to establish a more permanent colony on another planet in the alien solar system which is a sort of Mars like planet that requires extensive terraforming before it can be made habitable. Then on top of all this ELIJA is ensuring that all the rules governing ethical behaviour and law is observed and neither faction exploits the Aliens.

The aliens themselves are also split into different groups. One is what you might call the pro visitors, who represent the younger generation who have grown up in the shadow of Alien visitors and to find them exciting and interesting, while on the other side are the Separatists who want the aliens to go home and leave their planet as it was.

My idea is to use all the tropes of spy fiction but in a totally new setting which is a blank canvas of my own creation allowing me to play around with hi-tech spies and the like without Earth history getting in the way of things. Which is another way of saying that I’m too lazy to do any real research on the last 200 years of global politics and making up your own global politics is more fun anyway.

I’ll be posting each day’s chapter (assuming there is one) on my blog the following day so you can all read along and see how the story develops in real time, plus you can add your own comments and ideas as we go along and I might even incorporate some of them into the story!

I did try NaNoWriMo in 2011 (with a story called vampires versus zombies) but only got as far as Day 15. So this time I’m hoping to get at least a little further if not finish the whole thing.

Please check back for more updates and watch this space on and around the 1st of November to read the first opening chapter!

NaNoWriMo 2013

One of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite movies goes like this:

Alien: Best laid plans of mice.
Human: And men.
Alien: What?
Human: Best laid plans of mice and men.
Alien: Oh. No, I don't think men had much to do with it.

I had every intention of participating in (and winning) NaNoWriMo '13. The book was going to be called Sixteen Thousand Nights. I already had an outline as early as last winter.

But I had to sit out this year. November's half over and I'm just getting back into blogging. I'm happy to be promoting Resist the Devil and getting The Sandfruit People ready for release, but I do miss the adrenalin rush of NaNo. To everyone who is doing it this year, I want to let you know I'm thinking about you and look forward to joining you again one of these Novembers.

The Slaver's Tale: Development Notes

It's always a treat when Luke Bellmason blogs about how he creates his stories. Here he is:

Having just completed a story about a miner, the next Tale in the series follows on with the miner’s sort of evil counterpart; the Slaver. For a long time I wasn’t sure what the “evil miner” would be. As I explained in the intro to the Canterbury Tales Vol. 1, I originally came up with six main character types and a ‘good’ and ‘evil’ version of each one. For example the good Trader was the Merchant, and the bad one was the Smuggler. There’s a Bounty Hunter (good) and an Assassin (bad).

Slaves were a commodity in the original Elite and the players manual describes a little about how some spacers who ejected from their doomed vessels could sometimes be blown up in their pods, or collected with a fuel scoop, when they would become slaves!

In my story, the lead character uses slaves to mine out huge asteroids because minerals just aren’t worth very much and slaves are free labour. If she had to pay everyone for their work, there wouldn’t be any profit in mining! Of course, this is a very current topic with half the world working in horrendous conditions to mine precious minerals and do menial assembly tasks so the other half can have their smart phones and cheap clothes. Of course many of these consumers are themselves slaves, wage slaves or trying to earning thier way out of accumulated debt each day. Then there’s the troubled history of my own country with the slave trade and the extensive benefits the British Empire and its contemporaries gained through effectively having thousands of unpaid workers. In fact it seems like any global superpower has got where it has through the exploitation of people.

I’m not sure how much my story is going to be able to address these issues, probably not much since it’s only a short story and I intend to focus more on the plight of the characters and their actions rather than moralising about history, but it’s in my mind nonetheless.

I’m also thinking about the robots and how the word actually comes from the Czech word for forced labour, by way of K. Capek’s story ‘Rossum’s Universal Robots’. Ironically, the Slaver doesn’t use the robots to do the actual mining because it turns out they’re not very good at it, at least not as good as slaves. This is largely because robots can’t be ‘motivated’ to work harder like sentient beings can. When I say ‘motivated’ I of course mean the stick rather than the carrot, but thereby hangs the central point of the Slaver’s Tale and I don’t want to give you too many spoilers before the story itself comes out.

I know roughly what kind of ending I want, but have been stuck on the details. I realised some way into the planning stage of the story that to really work out the ending I needed to know precisely how the mining operation worked. I’ve also been watching a lot of Mission: Impossible and playing GTA:V which relies heavily on really well thought out and planned heists, so my brain is sort of in a certain place with this Tale.

All this has led me to the biggest bit of development I’ve had to do for any of the Tales so far, and that is to work out exactly how the Slaver’s operation functions. I used to love this kind of thing when I ran Role Playing Games. I would spend weeks constucting huge space stations or ships (kind of a similar activity to drawing up maps for Fantasy games) on the basis that you never really knew where the players were going to go.

So without knowing how my story is going to end, I’m building everything without knowing which bits are going to make it into the story. Probably most of this stuff will never make it into the story, but it’s fun working on the background anyway. It also reminds me of a video game setting as well, which is appropriate given the general theme of the Canterbury Tales.

It’s interesting to plan stuff like this though because you never know what’s going to come out of it. I could discover a gap in a wall where one of the characters keeps a set of cutlery, because it reminds her of home, and this could become a crucial plot-point, there’s just no telling! I could even turn the whole thing into a text adventure level or something.

I can’t guarantee that the following doesn’t contain spoilers because I haven’t written the story yet, but I will forgive you if you find it all too boring to read. Anyway, if you do like knowing things like exactly how many spare rolls of toilet paper are keep in the lavatories on level 109, then this is the blog entry for you!

(note. names for alien races, planets and characters I haven’t come up with yet are usually marked with four letters ‘yyyy’, etc. If you want why not suggest your own names.)

__THE MINING OPERATION__

+OVERVIEW

The operation is a mineral mining facility spread over a large area within an asteroid field. It is one of several dozen similar facilities run by the Dosians.

Since raw mineral ore is relatively bulky to transport, it is not profitable to ship it back to the homeworld. Therefore the ore is processed on-site. Multiple minerals are processed and even a few precious gems are found among the ore.

Even in its processed state the minerals themselves are very low profit, so large quantities are required to make the operation viable. Unpaid, slave labour is used to mine the ore from the asteroids and in the processing plant. Robots are also utilised in the mines, but are not considered efficient enough to be used as miners. The robots are instead used mainly to control the slaves remotely (security) and to perform various other specialised and routine maintenance tasks.

The facility comprises a Main Hub where the central administration and accomodation is housed, along with the processing plant and loading dock, a Storage Warehouse, where containers of processed minerals are stored for collection by bulk freighters and multiple Asteroid Mines where ore is collected.
+ MAIN HUB

This large asteroid lies at the centre of the facility. It was originally mined out as part of the facilities construction and the mined ore was used to construct much of the infrastructure.

The topmost part of the Hub comprises of two separate exterior structures; the ‘Palace’ and the Shuttle Dock.

++ The Palace is the living accommodation of the Facility Director (FD) and houses all of her living quarters, food stores, life support, power plant, communications and other ancilleries. In the event of an emergency it can be jettisoned and survive for up to three months in space.

The Palace is connected to the Shuttle Dock by two subsurface tunnels, sealed at each end and in two mid-points. All supplies are moved through here each month when the re-supply shuttle arrives with the Bulk Freighter.

++ The Shuttle Bay provides storage and maintenance for three personal shuttlecraft. These are medium sized, short range interplanetary shuttles which are generally used by the FD and her staff to travel around the facility.

++ The Security Station is manned by robots and monitors all of the facility, thousands of cameras trained on all the slaves wherever they are. Should trouble arise in any location, Security sends in guards to deal with it using whatever methods seem appropriate. Though given the low value of an individual slave there is rarely much regard given to their safety. Any slave which shows even the slightest sign of stepping out of line is normally met with lethal force and riots are dealt with similarly.

++ Robot Maintenance & Control (RMC) is where all robots are repaired, maintained and programmed. All robots working out in the asteroid field and in the processor are autonomous. Their programming is set and updated at regular intervals during their routine maintenance cycle. The robots themselves are much more expensive than the slaves, but they last longer in the harsh environments of the mines and processing plant. Damaged or malfunctioning robots can be brought here from the mines and replacements sent out as necessary.

The basic unit is the Rossum-4260K, which is a multi-purpose unit ideally suited to heavy industrial environments. This unit can be then fitted with a variety of modifications to serve as guards, miners, loaders, maintenance, engineers or almost any other task. Their programming is basic and usually specialised to a particular task. Their human interaction protocols are limited unless fitted with specialist upgrades.

Robot Types;

FL-49: These are sophisticated command units with high-level AI used in the Security Station and in the Hub Admin section. They are capable of near-human level speech and can interpret instructions given to them into programming commands which are then downloaded to the lower level robots.

(All RM-4260 units are interchangeable and can be reassigned and reprogrammed at the RMC.)

RM-4260K-D: Guards
Used for processing slaves and keeping order in the mines. Fitted with stunner-prods, gas tanks and guns should things get out of hand. Interpersonal interaction units are fitted to allow limited communication with the slaves. These units also have security monitoring systems which relay back to the main Security Station on the Hub.
RM-4260K-S: Miners
Though they don’t do any real mining as such, they are configured to set up the tunnels, lay down the extraction equipment and generally assist with operations.
RM-4260-E: Engineer
These are configured for construction and more specialist mining procedures, such as the installation of lift shafts, habitable modules and other such structures. They do not work on other robots, but can recover them to be sent to the RMC on the Hub.
RM-4260-R: Loaders
Used in the various loading and unloading docks around the facility these robots operate a wide range of bulk lifters, haulers and plant machinery. Anywhere there’s ore, product or other supplies to be moved, loaders are used.
RM-4260-T: Maintenance
These are the robots which repair and maintain the other robots. Most work in the RMC on the Hub, but each asteroid has its own maintenance unit which can take care of minor faults and repairs.

[The slaves have nick-named the different types of robot based on their designation letter; R=Robbie, E=Eddie, S=Sammy, D=Davy, T=Tommy. So instead of calling them guards, a slave might say "Look out, Davy's coming." Nobody knows who the slave who came up with this was, but it seems universal that sentient beings in harsh environments will do anything they can to lighten up their dreary lives or to 'humanise' machinery.]

++ The Power Plant consists of four starship class power cores. The Processor consumes 98% of the total power output of the plant, but at any one time only two of the cores is required to be operating at full power. Normally though the load is spread over three cores working at 33% capacity each. This allows for peak requirements to be met more easily and reduces overall wear and tear on the reactors.
There is a secondary backup system in place should the main cores fail for any reason, but this system would not be able to power the Processor.

++ The Processor takes up almost the whole of the inside of the asteroid. Some of the upper sections have admin offices, control rooms and ancillery accommodations, but the operation of the processor is largely automated so only rarely does anyone need to come down here. There is a lift from the Palace into the admin section of the processor, and from there most of the interior can be accessed if necessary, but this is rarely required.

The main processor takes ore from the sleds, analyses it and subjects it to various chemical and mechanical processes. Slave labour is used throughout many of these procedures, but due to the nature of the environment slaves don’t last more than a few weeks on the job. For this reason, being assigned to the processing plant is considered a death sentence and is used as punishment for low productivity. After one week slaves will be sent back to their asteroid having learned their lesson, but most don’t recover from the experience and soon find themselves back as their failing health leads their productivity to drop even further.

++ The Loading Dock is where the containers are loaded with processed minerals ready for transport back to the homeworld. The containers are lifted out by automated tugs which take them to the storage facility.
+ THE STORAGE FACILITY

Containers of processed minerals are brought here from the Hub for storage. Once a month a bulk freighter from the Homeworld collects the full containers and leaves empty ones. The warehouse itself is carved out of a spent asteroid, the second one to be mined after the main hub asteroid. Everything here is automated, from the tugs to the unloading and storage to the loading of the freighters. There is no life support or habitable areas so any maintenance must be carried out by robots.

+ THE MINES

Each asteroid has its own designation based on its position/bearing relative to the Hub and its distance. In this way an infinate number of designations may be generated as new asteroids are added to the operation. At a certain point the distance of mines from the Hub becomes economically unviable, at which point the operation is shut down and the vital components (processor, power-plant, vehicles, robots) are removed to a new site.

A mine consists of several common features, with precise configuration being dependent on mineral content and asteroid size/shape.

++ The Docking Point is a universal access port fixed to the outside of the asteroid. It is similar to the the Shuttle Bay on the Hub, but is on three levels. All personnel are shipped through here including Slaves and Robots. Other equipment can be shipped through here also, but large machinery is moved through the Loading Bay.

++ The Airlock is a system of interconnecting passageways and chambers connecting the Docking Point to the interior of the mine, which is kept at standard pressure. Robots may use the Docking Point as an open area, but other personnel need to lock their vessels to the airlock doors inside the bay.

++ The Security Area is immediately behind the Airlock and is designed to handle Slaves in and out of the mine onto and off the Slave Transports. The section is run by Type-D robots. As slaves pass through the section they are routinely searched and scanned for any prohibited materials. They are also logged in and out with thier ‘tags’ and any slave with a malfunctioning or missing tag is sent for re-tagging.

++ The Robot Control Area is a section immediately behind the Security Area and inaccessible to any slave. Here all routine maintenance is carried out and robots are cleaned and serviced. Anything more major requires the robot to be shipped back to the Hub.

++ The Loading Bay is where the raw ore is loaded onto Ore Sleds to be shipped to the Hub. The ore is fed up through the mines along a complex series of grav-feeds and belts. When a slave loads a cart it’s mass is recorded and logged to that slave’s tag. That ore is then fed through the system to the Loading Bay.

++ Living Accomodations for the Slaves are basic in the extreme. In one small area there is a food unit which dispenses food pellets and water at pre-programmed intervals and sleeping racks. There’s little room to move around and three or four slaves might have to share one sleeping rack. There’s no communal area for socializing, but this rarely becomes a problem since outside of the four hour sleep cycle slaves are expected to be hard at work trying desperately not to be at the bottom of the week’s productivity list.
+ VEHICLES & VESSELS

All vehicles around the facility are automated and controlled by a central computer on the Hub. This avoids traffic conflicts and manages the flow of materials, slaves and robots throughout the whole operation. Shuttles may also be controlled by this system or flown directly by a pilot.

++ Ore Sled – These are large vessels designed to carry ore from the mines to the Hub. They are basically a huge cargo hold with an engine and guidance system attached. At the hub end they dump out the loose ore into the processor.

++ Container Barge -
slave transport
personal shuttle

++ Bulk Carrier – This is the ship which turns up each month to collect the loaded containers and ship them back to the homeworld. It is manned.
[aurubesh]

Diosian Alphabet

Auru
Bith
Chee
Migil
Delu
Hoh
Va
Ziu
Shih
alef – aleph
bet – beth
gimel
daleth – dalet
heh
vav
zain – zayin
cheth – het
teth – tet
yod
kaph – kaf
lamed
mem
nun
samekh
ayin
peh – pe
tzaddi – tsadi
qoph – qof
resh
shin
tau – tav

Catching Up on Sandfruit

Earlier this year I announced that my next book, The Sandfruit People, would be released on November 28. And then my mother disappeared and I stopped working on it.

I'm back at work on it now, but I doubt it will be ready in just two weeks. I do believe it will be ready before Christmas. I'll keep you informed.

Meanwhile, it's looking like this short story collection is turning into a novella. As I'm bringing out more and more detail and backstory, the various stories are becoming so connected that there's no definite break from one to the next. And since there's already an overall story arc to the collection, there doesn't seem to be any reason to fight the trend.

Here's an excerpt:

Together they walked to the pool and slipped in. The water, like the air, was warm and rich with plant life. Jett found her little sibling - the legless, genderless tadpole that would one day become a bipedal child like herself - and placed him gently in his transport case. Chegg picked up the case and they both climbed out of the pool and walked out of the tangle of carefully interwoven trees that made up their home, out into the sunshine where Chegg's car waited.

The baby didn't have to stay in the carrying case long. Chegg carefully transferred him to the tank in the back of the car and set the case on the floor in front of it.

Jett gave her little sibling a rub on his smooth, soft head, turned her nose up for one more touch from her father's knuckle and watched him go. He knew she didn't want to stay, but she was fourteen now and had school in the afternoons. 

Sometimes, Moving On Is the Hardest Thing to Do

In many ways, I have moved on since my mother disappeared. In the little, practical ways, I had to. I had to eat and sleep and sweep the floor and buy groceries. I had to cook the little packets of salt-free meat she had set aside for herself in the freezer.

I've even, recently, begun to write again. Yesterday I finished a chapter and, for just a second, I was about to send it to her. She would have enjoyed it.

But then there's this blog.

Somehow it feels disrespectful to follow all those entries about her with anything so enjoyable, so business-as-usual, as the normal contents of an author blog.

But here goes. It must be done. Next up: picking up my dropped book, "The Sandfruit People".

Missing Person, One Month Out

Today is October 12th, and tonight marks one month since anyone has seen my mother. My brother and I very much want to thank all the wonderful friends and family who have been so supportive and loving, just giving support and thoughts and prayers and good wishes.

What we have to say is not easy, but all of you who knew her and all of you who are encouraging us and supporting us and there for us really deserve to hear it and need to know what's going on.

There has been a very strong tentative conclusion to the case. We and the police are just about as sure as anyone can be without a body. The investigation has revealed that when she left on September 12th, she left with the intention of taking her life and keeping her body from being found. It seems that she must have succeeded on both counts.

It's very difficult to make an announcement like this, not only because the truth is painful, but also because my brother and I are in this very intensely every day. We had a very strong hunch fairly early, and we had time to get over the shock of what it was looking like. And we had time to see the evidence as it came together, as the investigation progressed. And we had time to process the reality over the weeks.

For others who are a little further out in the circle, and not dealing with it every day, a lot of you may need more processing time. It may be very difficult for you to hear this at this time. You may just not be ready for this, and I want to apologize because we really can make this announcement only once. We can't wait till every person is ready, but I wish that we could.

But unfortunately, this is the reality that we're faced with and you deserve to know. We don't like to let day after day after day go by and say nothing or say just that they haven't found her yet and nothing more.

On Thursday, October 3rd, we received a letter from the Washington Police Chief. He said,

"At this point we have followed up on all leads that we have learned of, as well as tracking down the early sightings, all of which proved unrelated.  We did 4 searches with boots & paws on the ground." (That means professionally trained search dogs and their handlers.)

He goes on to mention a lot more investigation that was done, and some very specific details that would not mean anything to most of you. Then he he goes on to say,

"She is entered in the National Crime Information Center so she would come [up] if she tried to leave or enter the country, tried to renew her license or get a duplicate passport, got stopped by the police or had another official contact.  Her bank account has been flagged for notification should there be any new activity.  I'm not sure that there is much more I can actively do without new information.

"My suggestions for proceeding from here would be:

"I send out a press release as a reminder and get her picture out there again to see if she has appeared anywhere in the last 3 weeks.

"You should contact a lawyer versed in probate law to find out what you need to do about her assets and liabilities."

Based on that advice, we contacted a lawyer and he recommended that we pursue a conservatorship with the Sullivan County Probate Court. So we're going ahead with that.

Our police chief spoke with me this past Wednesday and with my brother on Thursday. He returned a few items that had been held while the case was active. A report has been issued. The case is not considered closed, but it is wrapped up as cleanly as can be expected until, in all likelihood, a body is discovered someday.

At this point the only reasonable thing that we can do is take some time individually and together to process this in our own ways.

We have to go with the premise that she is gone, because anything else would be unrealistic and not helpful. If we're wrong, and she does show back up alive, then that'll be really a very happy surprise. And if that happens, then of course we'll see exactly what her needs are, and do everything we can to meet them. But both the local and the state police have told us not to expect this.

Once again, my family and I very much want to thank everyone for all your wonderful support and words of encouragement. Just sometimes little Facebook posts or messages or text messages like 'Thinking of you. How are you doing?' make so much difference because they remind us that we're not alone. We're surrounded by love.

We haven't started any planning yet, but we are about to start making arrangements for a gathering so that we can all come together to show our love to each other and help each other through this difficult time of transition.