Science Fiction

V is for Virus and other Lurgys in SciFi…

humanist55

 If you have been following this blog’s A2Z Challenge then you will know that I have been trying to finish a novel, “Train Wreck”, and publishing a chapter below each post – at least until day 15 when I ran out of completed chapters – there is another one in progress – but if you have been following the novel and would like to receive the balance of the chapters – let me know in a comment. Meanwhile, on a subject which we have all become unwilling experts…

An artist’s illustration for NASA’s Astrobiology Program. (Image credit: NASA)


There is a genre of Science Fiction known as Microbial Science Fiction – who knew! An article defining the sub-genre also lists some of the prime examples of the genre – although I would have placed the genius of HG Wells in his “War of the Worlds” right at the top of the list. In that book, the Martians who have invaded Earth are finally destroyed not by our less advanced military apparatus, but by Earth germs. Many of the sub-genre’s books have it the other way round, instead of aliens coming to Earth and taking ill, it is either a mysterious illness that falls to Earth or earthmen encountering microbes on their future travels through the universe.

There is a real science- Astrobiology – which attempts to understand the origins of life on Earth by considering it in the widest context of Earth as a planet, in a vast universe, which presumably supplied the raw materials of life at the very least, and perhaps life itself – this is known as “Panspermia” – the seeding of life via comets or some other, unknown mechanism. Not to be confused with Xenobiology which I will look at tomorrow.

Realistically, and who on Earth would suggest that SciFi should be realistic, what are the chances of encountering microbes that would endanger us, on a new planet such as Hawaii 2 in my book “Train Wreck”? 

The study of microbes includes virology, mycology, parasitology, and bacteriology and in the age of Covid 19, who has not learned the creepy way viruses break into their hosts cells and subvert them to the production of more viruses – so much so that the cell literally bursts – releasing more viruses… How “Alien” is that! However, the bigger picture for viruses is that they are uniquely tied to our DNA gene-based method of reproduction – they run a parallel (arms) race that arguably stimulates our immune system to constantly adapt to the new threat – although if the little blighters didn’t exist – we wouldn’t need to adapt anyway, and does that adaptation help with anything other than the threats posed by viruses? It is a measure of how closely related to other animals we are, genetically, that with quite small variations, viruses can jump species birds/ pigs/ humans. If we reach other planets, viruses may not be one of our problems – other than any we might take with us because the gap between us and aliens might be too big for viruses to jump…


Bacteria and fungi are a different story, they can be opportunistic and whilst not as cell-specific in their preferred home as viruses, they might well thrive on another planet, both the ones we take with us, and ones we might encounter there. – If the Panspermia theory turned out to be correct, it might turn out that through the (panspermia) bacteria, our DNA based evolution and reproduction could mean there are new lurgys waiting for us and quite able to affect us. Here on Earth, fungi, whose original niche in the environment might be, say, a rainforest, is capable of finding a new niche in human lungs, so they are a prime candidate for causing infection by alien versions should they have evolved there.

Our bodies carry so many microbes that for 30 trillion human cells, we have on average about 39 trillion microbial cells making us only 43% human but remember, many of these microbes are helpful to us and we would be very ill if they were magically removed. It is a question of internal ecological balance and sometimes, the microbe balance within our bodies is upset, and then we are ill without the addition of any extra, ill-making microbes. Astronauts usually isolate before missions to make sure they don’t come down with colds, for example – imagine sneezing in your space helmet…

If we transport so much microbial matter about our person, then the very environment of space might upset our microbial balance, zero-gravity, solar-radiation, lack of fresh food – all of these might enhance an unfavourable mutation of microbial DNA – not very sexy for a science fiction plot though – not unless the resulting illness makes its victims go whacko…

And hey! Parasites! Once again, there are examples on Earth that make SciFi plots look tame – read the grisly story of how ant behaviour is manipulated to make them climb grass in order to be eaten by cows as part of the lifecycle of a parasitic flatworm here. Or another unfortunate ant who is host to and eventually killed by a fungus growing out of it. The fungus also exerts mind control to get the ant to find the exact location required for the fungus to thrive…


Of course, much Science Fiction that is concerned with other topics, simply sidesteps the microbial hazard – before the airlock opens on a new world, the computer samples the atmosphere and pronounces it safe in a few seconds or else it is assumed that human medicine will be a match for anything alien worlds can throw at it or else the whole issue is simply ignored. Well I have to hold my hand up to the latter, so far at any rate, I have described Hawaii 2 as an Eden like planet without apex predators of any threat to mankind, let alone any microbial menaces. I suppose that it is not the real subject of the Speculative Fiction of which “Train Wreck” is an example but hmmm…I still have a long way to go, many pages to fill… 

U is for Utopias…

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  If you have been following this blog’s A2Z Challenge then you will know that I have been trying to finish a novel, “Train Wreck”, and publishing a chapter below each post – at least until day 15 when I ran out of completed chapters – there is another one in progress – but if you have been following the novel and would like to receive the balance of the chapters – let me know in a comment. Meanwhile, Utopia is a central theme in the book…


I looked at how the desire for someone to be living a Utopian existence, led us to project the idea onto Scandinavian countries under my entry for S, and how we have eventually discovered that they have feet of clay like the rest of us. But what exactly is a Utopia and must we always be doomed to disappointment?

The word Utopia was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book of that name  describing a fictional island society in the south Atlantic Ocean off the coast of South America. The term has come to be used as a synonym for “deluded”, “impossible” or “far-fetched” and it has a counter term Dystopia. The very SciFi picture at the top, comes from a blog piece that argues for the additional idea of a False Utopia – one which initially appears Utopian but hides a dark secret. An example of this would be HG Wells’ “The Time Machine” where the happy, beautiful people living their utopian life above ground, are in fact fodder for the Morlocks who live underground.

The Wikipedia article on Utopias suggests that whilst mainly a literary endeavour, thought experiments if you will, Utopias can be the subject of real-world experiments too but quotes Lyman Tower Sargent who argues that “the nature of a utopia is inherently contradictory because societies are not homogeneous and have desires which conflict and therefore cannot simultaneously be satisfied”. In other words, to offer equality to all people – a fundamental aim of the Utopian dream – you cannot offer the same thing to all people because they are different.  Lyman Tower Sargent further states “There are socialist, capitalist, monarchical, democratic, anarchist, ecological, feminist, patriarchal, egalitarian, hierarchical, racist, left-wing, right-wing, reformist, free love, nuclear family, extended family, gay, lesbian and many more utopias…”

We tell stories, I believe, as a fundamental aspect of our human nature – a consequence of our big brains. For if we can deduce “Those are lion tracks, they were made three days ago and there was a cub too, so a lone female, with a limp – so wounded…) then we can also put together a story which is completely made up, because both the deduction and the fiction require the use of our big-brain imagination. So in telling Utopian stories, we are trying to imagine a better way to live, one which will reconcile the flaws in human nature and the contradictions those flaws create in the real world.

Are we wrong to keep trying to visualise Utopias? Of course not, our human nature might remain essentially the same but our superficial circumstances change all the time and we must constantly re-envision utopian possibilities…

“Train Wreck” is just another Utopian experiment imagined and described and then traversed to uncover its inevitable flaws and contradictions – but I hope, that in the tradition of HG Wells, my SciFi tale is a good enough story to be worth the reading…

“And now I was to see the most weird and horrible scene
of all that I had beheld in that future age.”

crop from File:The Time Machine by H. G. Wells (Famous Fantastic Mysteries, August 1950).pdf


T is for Terrorism…

humanist55

 If you have been following this blog’s A2Z Challenge then you will know that I have been trying to finish a novel, “Train Wreck”, and publishing a chapter below each post – at least until day 15 when I ran out of completed chapters – there is another one in progress – but if you have been following the novel and would like to receive the balance of the chapters – let me know in a comment. Meanwhile, some thoughts on a subject that plays a very small part in “Train Wreck”.

The image above is the nearest I could find to the dream-vision I had that launched the writing of my novel (work-in-progress) “Train Wreck”. Nearest in the sense that it is an explosion on a train in the desert although in my case it takes place on another planet onboard a MagLev train whilst this image is from David Lean’s classic film “Lawrence of Arabia”.

In my book, terrorism is discounted by official sources and the public are told the explosion was due to a gas bottle malfunction. Privately though, government investigators remain mystified by the explosion which they determine to have been a bomb and yet no claim of responsibility has been made and no motive can be imagined…

We do come to learn the motive – not terrorism – but the whodunnit forms the narrative trajectory of the book. Still, I have a few thoughts on the subject of terrorism…

I suppose I first became aware of the phenomena of terrorism during the 60’s and 70’s when the hijacking of airliners – mostly by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)- was a regular occurrence. I remember wondering at the time, why airplanes? If I was a terrorist and wanted to create terror, I would blow up elictricity substations, unguarded and too many to protect, plunging random residential areas into darkness and striking at the heart of a target people rather than some remote group of travellers. (I was not as dangerous a teenager as this may suggest…) The answer to why airpanes was, I suppose, because they guaranteed publicity worldwide. International airflight was still relatively new and glamourous so trains would definitely have been infra dig as a target.

As a result of these activities, the PFLP and later factions such as the PLO, attached the word terrorism to the Palestinian people as if they were the prototypical terrorists – a fiction unceasingly re-enforced by Israeli propaganda. For let us not forget, that if the Palestinians got the idea that terrorism might get you what you wanted, they learned it from the Zionist gangs that commited atrocities such as the bombing of the King David Hotel in which 91 people of various nationalities were killed. The hotel was the headquarters of the British administration and the members of the Irgun right-wing zionist gang infiltrated the hotel dressed as Arab  (Palestinian Arab) workers. If that isn’t ironic I don’t know what is… The attack took place in the run up to the unilateral declaration of the state of Israel which has continued, against its own declared constitution, to steal the land from Palestinian Arabs. 

There is a maxim “One man’s Terrorist is another’s Freedom Fighter!” and although terrorism is the underdog’s tool in the assymetric warfare of liberation, the converse statement must be true of government. “One man’s Legitimate Government is another man’s Illegitimate Occupying Force!”

Terrorism was elevated during the latter part of the 20th and into the 21st Century, by the rise of Islamic suicide bombers, recruited by shadowy manipulators who would never put themselves in harm’s way and promising a quick ticket to Paradise to idealistic (mostly) young Moslems. Suicide bombers are not a new phenomena and have in the past been state sponsored – think Japanese Kamikase pilots but the suicide vest allied with the mechanisms for recruiting and grooming suicide bombers in “support of Islam” has reached new levels. Whilst my adolescent musings were of a terrorism that hurt nobody (directly anyway), the latest form of suicide terrorism are designed to cause maximum carnage indiscriminately. 

Does Terrorism work? In the UK, the toies, led by Margaret Thatcher, despite vowing not to talk to terrorists (the IRA in Northern Ireland), were forced to do so once the bombing campaign reached mainland Britain and in particular, the bombing of The Arndale Shopping Centre, Manchester in 1996. The government then entered into secret negotiations( influenced by Jermy Corbyn’s more nuanced approach to the IRA) which eventually led to the Good Friday Agreement. Presumably insurance companies put their feet down and said enogh is enough – negtiate or we will not insure commercial properties. Commercial Unoin itself, lost all its windows in the Baltic Exchange bombing. So yes – terrorism can achieve results if applied to the right pessure point.

Arguably, bringing war, (so often inflicted by the US on countries around the world), in the form of 9/11 to american soil, did not work to make the US question why such an act might have occured and applied more of the same by launching yet more wars in the Middle East which continue to this day, justifying and feeding the military industrial complex.

Israel continues to mislead and brainwash its children into thinking that Palestinian Arabs are the agressors rather than the Zionist project – “truth is the first casualty in war” and I ask you – in Israel, who are the real terrorists?

S is for Scandinavia, Sex and Social Workers…

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If you have been following this blog’s A2Z Challenge then you will know that I have been trying to finish a novel, “Train Wreck”, and publishing a chapter below each post – at least until day 15 when I ran out of completed chapters – there is another one in progress – but if you have been following the novel and would like to receive the balance of the chapters – let me know in a comment. Meanwhile – this post explores some myths about the supposed utopian society of Scandinavia…



When I was a teenager, there was rumour that Scandinavian women were hot! In fact the words Sex and Swedish were almost synonymous, at least as far as women and certainly by contrast to us allegedly uptight British men… 

In recent decades, another myth has done the rounds, that Scandinavian countries were all exemplary utopian societies. Okay so the tax was high but then so were the wages and the social welfare net unprecedented. More recently, this myth has proved to be just that – a myth and newspapers will have to search elsewhere for the next big meme. You can read a quite amusing article on the subject here or an article on why America’s left might be unwise to embrace the idea of Scaninavian utopianism with aspects of Swedish society best forgotten, forced sterilisation of 63,000 people who might have physically or mentally deficient offspring. I will not repeat all the arguments in these two typical articles seeking to revise our view of Finnish, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian society but here are a few random facts:- 

  • Danes claim to be a happy people but are second only to Iceland in consuming anti-depressants
  • In Norway, September 2013, the rightwing, anti-Islamist Progress party – of which the mass shooter Anders Breivik had been an active member for many years – won 16.3% of the vote in the general election
  • Norwegians boast of using only renewable energy sources but their wealth comes from selling fossil fuels to the rest of us. (subject of the excellent Scandi drama “Occupied”)
  • Women in Nordic nations deal with high levels of rape and abuse even as the countries lead in gender equality
I think that two issues are raised here, why did we so want to hear about the supposedly utopian Scandinavians with their Hygge and secondly, why is there a gap between the myth and the reality. One thing is about us and the other is about them…

Taking the point about the Scandinavians first, and reading between the lines of several articles, some things happen because governments devise them in top down programmes such as high tax to pay for high social security and other things come from the grassroots up. In a book called “Made in Sweden: how the Swedes are not nearly so egalitarian, tolerant, hospitable or cozy as they would like to (have you) think”, Elisabeth Åsbrink, an acclaimed Swedish journalist writes “Sweden has a very strong self-image of being a good country,” Asbrink said. “It’s in the tradition of Sweden to put itself forth as a moral role model.” and later in the book, “As soon as welfare is based on all citizens contributing,” Asbrink writes, “those who are not considered contributors become a problem.” Hence the enforced sterilisations and anti-immigrant attitudes. Hygge, it seems is a residue from traditional values that don’t stand up when the people are threatened by new influences from new people.

Before you think I am swinging too far the other way and painting the Scandinavians too noir, (and Scandi noir has given us some great dramas – why are we so fascinated with gruesome crime?) – no! They are just human like the rest of us! It seems that human nature allows us to befriend strangers from other places as individuals whilst simultaneously feeling threatened on a group, welfare or cultural level. To pay high taxes for a great social welfare net but not then be so willing to share it. Margaret Meade, the anthropologist, said that rather than the burying of dead, she saw the beginning of civilisation as being when we see evidence of healed broken-bones – evidence that we not only had time and resources plus the knowledge of how to set bones, but the will to support a fallen comrade. (The story of this quote is told here and here) This would appear to be an issue which is always in the balance in human nature depending perhaps, on the availability of resources…

So why did we want to believe in the myths about Scandinavia? Perhaps it is human nature to think that the grass must be greener somewhere and so all us uptight English boys, lacking as we did, either the, climate or the  surf-culture of Beachboys California, fantasised about embracing the nearly in reach,uninhibited, blonde, Swedish sex-goddesses and later in life we wanted to embrace the supposed values of Hygge as we sat surrounded by our not always soft and cuddly IKEA furniture. There is indeed a post-modern irony in the Swedish “death thrash” band naming itself “Bleeding Utopia” (pictured above).

“Train Wreck” is about a Utopian experiment on a planet where a completely fresh start with a handpicked population are not threatened by mass immigration or poverty and their society has been carefully structured in cantons equating to the earliest tribal size of mankind – a size at which everyone knows everyone else in each community and – so it is thought – policemen are therefore not necessary. But can you root out and socially structure away, the worst aspects of human nature? The private demons of greed, envy, hubris and the things that cause dysfunction such as sexual abuse? Hawaii 2 may or may not need policemen but it may well need Social Workers… Our central character, Jack Gulliver is like someone who accepted at face value, all the myths about Scandinavia of the last decade, and is now travelling through the less palatable circles of existence on Hawaii 2 with his guide Stig. Where will it lead and who planted the bomb on the train and killed Jack’s wife…? 

R is for Rockets, Ram Jets, and Re-usability…

humanist55

  If you have been following this blog’s A2Z Challenge then you will know that I have been trying to finish a novel and publishing a chapter below each post – at least until day 15 when I ran out of completed chapters – there is another one in progress – but if you have been following the novel and would like to receive the balance of the chapters – let me know in a comment. Meanwhile – is a little more about an issue that is at the heart of the book…

Hawaii 2 has a very unusual problem in my book “Train Wreck” – you can land on it, but you can’t easily take off again, at least not without some Strar Trek type Sci-Fi Magical technology. Yes! Yes! I hear you repeat Arthur C. Clarke’s famous quote that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” and I accept that science is coming up with some pretty magical things like Quantum entanglement, but I don’t see anti-gravity drives coming along any time soon and I am not going to go along with magical thinking – especially as it would deprive me of my Plot!

The problem I had back in Chapter 2, was that this technological problem with Hawaii 2 is quite complicated and I didn’t want to lose the reader straight away but at the same time, it is a central premise of the book – how to tell it or show it as we authors are supposed to do! Well I broke it up into sections told by different characters and even through in a SEX SCENE – one which was also very pertinent to the plot and in no way gratuitous (don’t you just hate that!).

But here in the blog I can share a few pictures and additional facts…

At the top, is a video of the Apollo 11 moon mission launch – or to describe it another way, three astronauts sitting on top of a massive bomb with their fingers crossed… Before the moon race between the USA and the USSR, the Americans had been experimenting with the Bell X2 Rocket Plane which was launched from a bomber as high as it could carry it and from whence it’s own rocket could carry it to the edge of space. 

This was only a one-man test device but it points to the better way to get into space which has been resurrected by Virgin in its commercial offering seen below. Virgin aim to take very rich people (who must still be very fit) into low orbit spaceflight and who is to say that this might not inspire the very rich to appreciate and save the planet a little more…

The proposed Virgin Galactic Spaceship and Mother-ship combo

You can that a major difference between the respective mother-ships, is that the later model, is jet-powered and this is why there is a problem with Hawaii 2. You may remember the disruption to air travel “In 2010, an eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland sent clouds of ash and dust into the atmosphere, interrupting air travel between Europe and North America because of concerns the material could damage jet engines. More than 100,000 flights were grounded, stranding millions of passengers.” see the full story here. I happened to be visiting Iceland at the time and there was a distinct possibility that we might have had to be bussed to another airport to avoid the plume of very fine volcanic dust that was capable of banjaxing jet engines. The fine material was produced by volcanoes beneath ice fields melting the ice and explosively rendering the output into unusually fine dust! Hawaii 2 has so many volcanoes in just this special circumstance, that to follow the mother-ship route back to space is impossible. Rockets are uneconomical (and dangerous) so what other possibilities are there?

One route to saving money was to compromise by making the space vehicle re-usable and thus the Space Shuttle was born. An even larger rocket with extra boosters tied on, the Shuttle was a “lifting body” or rather a controlled falling body that could fly back down to earth. The programme ran long enough for flights to become almost commonplace and with familiarity, contempt for safety led to two disasters in which all crew were sadly lost. Spaceflight is dangerous…

The Space Shuttle had a large cargo bay and famously launched the Hubble Telescope (and later repaired it) but the real commercial bread-and-butter of commerce in space, consists of launching much smaller satellites and using a re-usable rocket is making this much more economical too. Elon Musk has eschewed taking rich tourists into space for more lucrative commercial payloads -developing the Space X rocket which you can see not only landing upright but landing on a boat – such precision! Elon Musk’s ultimate goal is to send a mission to Mars…


The last possibility for getting into space is one I dealt with in an earlier post, – the Space Lift (or Elevator if you are American). G-is-for-gravity-well-and-greening the desert and whilst this idea relies on technology or rather – materials we do not yet have, many believe it could be possible…

So there you have it, a concise guide to the challenge of getting into space should you choose to accept it…
I promised you Ramjets but hey! It’s in the book “Train Wreck”!




Q is for Questions – Dear Reader…

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 If you have been following this blog’s A2Z Challenge then you will know that I have been trying to finish a novel and publishing a chapter below each post – at least until day 15 when I ran out of completed chapters. I always planned Q to be an opportunity to question YOU, Dear Reader, so please answer one, all or none of the questions below…

  1. Do you or have you read science fiction?

  2. Who are your favourite Science Fiction Authors?

  3. Have you read any of this author’s book “Train Wreck” here on this blog?

  4. If you have, then what stands out for you?

  5. What do you not like – don’t be shy…

  6. One of the chapters introduced the topic of childhood sexual abuse, given that the book is an examination of a utopian society, were you surprised/shocked to encounter this topic in a science fiction genre and do you think it good or bad to cross boundaries?

  7. Would you like to live on Hawaii 2 and if so why?

  8. If you have been following the book – would you like to receive the rest of the chapters when they are finished? (If so please leave an email address…)

P is for Politics, politics and the Pan Human Federation…

humanist55

 My goal in the 2021 A2Z Challenge was to complete a novel I started a few years ago but which has languished for lack of love (writing!). Each Post, daily in April (Sundays excepted), was to consist of some aspect of the novel plus a chapter from it. I hope that the Alphabetical items will give a bit of extra background, muse on the writing process, but most of all, help me develop certain ideas to improve the novel. I had 12 chapters already written at the beginning of the month but my day job has taken too much time and I have only completed another two. So although I hope to complete some more chapters before the end of April, I will continue with these posts for sure. If you have been following the novel and would like to receive the balance of the book then please leave an email in the comments…


Political party, politician, playing politics, isn’t politic -we all use the word and its adjuncts frequently, but when I came to consider the politics of Hawaii 2 in my book “Train Wreck” – I realised that I didn’t know what the real definition or etymology of the word was. Of course, Wikipedia was there, itself a form of political example since anybody may edit a definition and this has famously led to tussles with some items being repeatedly re-edited. Here then, is the definition from their very excellent article:-

“Politics (from Greek: Πολιτικά, politiká, ‘affairs of the cities’) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations between individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status…”

The  article goes on to refine the understanding of the word “politics” usage – “limited” referring only to the process of governance whilst “extensive” meaning a total view of life as it is lived, as in a feminist view of the power relationships between the sexes as in the statement “The personal is political!”

Another dichotomy over the meaning of Politics is the Moral/Realist schism. Aristotle believed that every societal dispute could be settled by discussion and never by recourse to war – an ethical approach which is strongly exemplified in Utopian ideas. Political Realists like Machiavelli and Hobbes, thought that might is right, although Bernard Crick argues that “politics is the way in which free societies are governed. Politics is politics and other forms of rule are something else.” (My emphasis).

The way I think of politics is this, there are essentially only two positions, those who believe that everyone is born with equal rights (even if differences between people sometimes mean offering them different things to fulfil that equality) and those who believe that some people are intrinsically better than others. For example, the belief of Native Americans that the land could not be owned and the view of immigrant settlers that it could, represents a conflict which was solved by political realists – the settlers ran the Native Americans off the land, and confined their non-ownership of land to small reservations. It is hard to see what kind of alternative, politically equitable settlement could have been reached between two such different peoples with their totally different political philosophies and that would have allowed a peaceful disposition of the land – in any event, power won.

In most societies, where differences in wealth, power and equality exist, my two political positions can be called Left and Right respectively, but in a utopian society, set up to avoid just such differences, there would be no need for Left and Right and true equality should prevail – Hawaii 2 is just such a utopian society.

In Ursula le Guin’s masterpiece, “The Dispossessed” – there is a similarly utopian society but what emerges is that even within a system of political equality, there can emerge a tyranny of the majority. Convention becomes oppressive and gossip, (charitably defined as a force for social cohesion) its enforcer. We do use politics with a small p to describe the machinations and manipulations, pleas and accommodations that occur between individuals and their immediate neighbours and no amount of utopian philosophy can totally eliminate certain aspects of human nature, envy, pettiness, jealousy.

The canton system of local government that exists on Hawaii 2 is described in Chapter 10 and representatives are sent to a planetwide government body and they in turn send representatives to the Pan Human Federation that is a forum, but not a government of the three worlds which humans have colonised Hawaii 1, Arctane, and Hawaii 2. But at the canton level, every member of the locality must attend at least three out of every six meetings and so the people govern themselves rather than being governed by elected representatives – something which can give rise to a class of self-interested politicians whose motives can diverge from those who they represent…

Without giving too much of a spoiler, I may hint that the solution to the mystery of “Train Wreck”, involves politics, but whether with a capital P or a small p remains to be seen…

O is for Oil in Science Fiction…

humanist55

  My goal in the 2021 A2Z Challenge was to complete a novel I started a few years ago but which has languished for lack of love (writing!). Each Post, daily in April (Sundays excepted), was to consist of some aspect of the novel plus a chapter from it. I hope that the Alphabetical items will give a bit of extra background, muse on the writing process, but most of all, help me develop certain ideas to improve the novel. I had 12 chapters already written at the beginning of the month but my day job has taken too much time and I have only completed another two. So although I hope to complete some more chapters before the end of April, I will continue with these posts for sure. If you have been following the novel and would  like to receive the balance of the book then please leave an email in the comments…

Oil refinery at night looking very futuristic…

This post considers the oil industry and whether it would exist in any future setting.

If we had the chance to start over on some pristine planet (such as Hawaii 2 in my book “Train Wreck”) would we have an oil industry.

Firstly – this begs the question, would there be oil on other planets?
There is, in geology, a Principle of Uniformitarianism which says, in a nutshell, that processes that can occur in one place and time, can occur anywhere. So that means that all planets can evolve according to the same rules and whilst they might be different due to their size, composition, and distance from their star, all things being equal, a planet like Earth could very well exist and support carbon-based life forms including those that lead to the formation of oil deposits. If there are tree-like forms, there will be coal, if there are plants, algae and bacteria equivalents (and there almost certainly will be – at least bacteria) in seas, then there will be oil. In the course of Earth’s geological history, there have been many different ages – long periods of stability then sudden changes to quite different climate and conditions. Certain ages favoured the creation of coal (the Carboniferous period) and others that of oil as that organic material sank to the bottom of the oceans and was eventually buried and transformed into oil.

Secondly and more importantly, would we want or need to use that oil if we found it?
Crude oil is a thick, sticky substance – it can be seen at the surface at the La Brea tar-pits where it has trapped and preserved many hapless animals over time. When refined, broken down into it’s constituent parts (fractionated), crude oil yields a plethora of chemicals, from the lightest, most liquid such as petroleum and kerosene, it yields lubricants (oils), through the substances used to make plastics, to the bitumen we use to make tarmac roads. Which was handy for the evolution of the age of the motor vehicle – crude oil gave us the fuel, plastic for components as well as the material that binds the roads vehicles run on.

When I was a boy, oil reserves were synonymous with “energy” reserves, but now that we understand the consequences (unintended), of burning all those fossil fuels, we are having to regard oil as “stores of locked up carbon” – the burning of which, release carbon, as carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, back into the atmosphere. This is not new – humans have been contributing to climate change for millennia by cutting down trees either to burn for fuel, or to clear land for agriculture since trees remove CO2 from the atmosphere and lock it up.


In “Train Wreck”, the Earth, original home to the human race, now scattered across three planets, was destroyed as a habitat by a combination of climate change and other forms of pollution. The colonists are painfully aware of what human activities are capable of doing to something as large as a planetary ecosystem and ecological sciences are some of the most advanced that they carry with them to their new homes. Hence the greening of the deserts on Hawaii 2 by using tree planting and irrigation to produce a self-sustaining climate change of a positive kind!

So back to the question – if they found oil deposits on a new planet, would the use them? Well the plethora of chemicals found in oils have so many applications beyond simply using them as fuel that it is hard to resist the idea of using them. Other things besides internal combustion engines need lubricating and plant oils do not always meet the specifications. Burning fossil fuels to a limited, could be off-set by planting trees. Plastics are not he devil, but some of the uses of plastic are! The phrase “Unnecessary Plastic Objects” has never had greater resonance as we start to see micro-plastics turning up in the oceanic food chain (of which we partake) and even in the deep oceans.

If motor vehicles had not been invented at the beginning of the 20th Century, then our cities would not have sprawled such that, for those living in the suburbs, life without a car is difficult. on a new planet, planning could obviate the need for cars which besides their polluting fuels, are a huge waste of resources and more energy just to produce. But we have always had vehicles and I hardly think the new ecology of future planets would involve a return to donkeys and horse-drawn carts! What are the alternatives? Motor cars began around the same time as universal electrification, but electric cars were not a missed turning on the road to the present. In fact even in the present, electric cars are still at the expensive new tech stage and the pressure to create better batteries is intensifying – eventually they will become better and cheaper through greater mass production. But just as control of, or access to, the best oil resources has led to wars and defined the political geography of Earth in the 20th Century, so access or control of the Rare Earths needed for the new tech may occupy a similar place in the 21st Century. China recognised the possibilities of the deposits within its territories and developed the industry so that it now supplies 55% of the world’s current demand. It turns out that these “rare” earths are actually quite common at the bottom of the deep oceans but you can imagine the environmentalist alarm at the suggestion that mining those would obviate dependence on China…

So there you go, the skinny on oil in science fiction because I cannot remember any science fiction book which referred to oil production (please correct me if I am wrong) – generally speaking, science fiction writers prefer futuristic magical thinking – flying cars, for example, that defy the laws of physics as we currently understand them. It has given me peculiar pleasure to use “Principle of Uniformitarianism” as a tag…



N is for Naming of Parts…

humanist55

 My goal in the 2021 A2Z Challenge is to complete a novel I started a few years ago but which has languished for lack of love (writing!). Each Post, daily in April (Sundays excepted), will consist of some aspect of the novel plus a chapter from it. I hope that the Alphabetical items will give a bit of extra background, muse on the writing process, but most of all, help me develop certain ideas to improve the novel. Some 12 chapters are already written so I have a bit of a head start…

Please comment with any opinions good or bad – you have no idea how much I need feedback at this stage…


Names are important! Names mean something or several things and when a person or object has several names, meanings multiply and that’s before you take metaphorical meanings into account…

The poem Naming of Parts sticks in the mind because of that several times repeated line but also because whilst ostensibly a lecture by a sergeant, one of a series preparing soldiers to go to war, the soldier whose thoughts we are privy to, allows his attention to wander to neighbouring gardens and to the bees (and birds) – “ Japonica – Glistens like coral in all of the neighbouring gardens,” and in verse four, the symbolism is quite sexual – 

“And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
They call it easing the Spring.”

I considered the use of made-up languages in Science Fiction the other day, and came down – at least in my book “Train Wreck” – against the idea. But names are a different matter. They evoke things, they indicate certain things – whether consciously or unconsciously.

In “Train Wreck” our hapless hero is called Jack – an everyman sort of name – but his surname – Gulliver – is a nod to Gulliver’s Travels. Stig Johannson is a Scandinavian name – the surname indicating his father’s name which he can trace back to the bold explorer who first took a chance by landing on Hawaii 2 without the possibility of taking off again. I hope that Stig’s name reflects his pioneering ancestor. Robert Widnes – though President, has a rather bland name – appropriate to a politician, I hope.

But there are not just names for people, but places too and they also have significance. The capital – New Orleans – we are told in Chapter 4, is so called because of its similar location to the original New Orleans back on Earth, at the mouth of a vast continental river. On the long journey to the stars, the planners of Hawaii 2 had plenty of time to choose names and locations for the network of towns and cities that would make up the colonised planet. Bringing old names from “home” gives people some sense of continuity, but also says something about the new world, you wouldn’t,t call a rainforest New Sahara…

Erehwon is also a nod to the 1872 novel “Erewhon” by Samuel Butler, but in that older book, the name, though thought to be a reference to Nowhere, spelt backwards – has the h and w transposed. The people of Hawaii 2 who gave this town its more direct reversal of Nowhere, were not referencing a – to them – obscure 19th-century book, no – they made up that “joke” all by themselves! It is only you, as the reader, who may get the allusion. The Erehwon of Hawaii 2 really is the back of beyond, the place you go to disappear – Nowhere spelt backwards…

Here’s a thought though, when we name something or someone, with a name loaded with meaning, is that thing, or person ( in real life as well as in fiction), likely to be moulded by and gradually live up to the name they have been given? Take New Orleans for example. Those planners not only referenced the location of the city on its river, but they had a lot of pictures and words about the original city, a city which had long ago drowned, one of the early casualties of rising sea levels and extreme weather events – hurricanes and the sea eventually obliterated the levees and the city itself. But the fragments of the internet taken by man to the stars, had a lot of references to old New Orleans, because it was a holiday destination! Like porn and cat videos, the internet was riddled with holiday ads and promotions – so much so, that the photographs and text were almost guaranteed to survive. It’s like those 2D barcodes, they look too complex for us to spot the patterns and repetitions, but they carry their message several times, so that if the barcode is smudged or torn, the degree of redundancy means they can still be read. The pictures of Earth’s New Orleans were so pretty, the verandahed houses so appropriate to the climate of Hawaii 2 at that location, that these styles crept into the architecture of the new world as well as the name.

The tourist destinations play another important part in developing Hawaii 2. Pictures of Iceland showed the eponymous Geysir which gave its name to all other geysers and having spotted these volcanic features on Hawaii 2, another tourist image – “The Blue Lagoon” and its origin as a cooling pond for a geothermal power station, gave the planners the idea of developing such “green” facilities on Hawaii 2. Unfortunately, the parts of the internet that gave the method for constructing these power stations, was lost – only the tourist literature remained. However, the engineers figured it out – you drill two holes down to a volcanic hot spot, pump water down one and steam emerges from the other to generate power – no carbon footprint and no ongoing cost!

Thank you for your patience as I work out these little details which may make it into the book! The chapter today, is as far as I have got with the book so far and mainly due to pressure of work from my day job, I know I will not get the book finished in the month. There may be some more chapters to come though, however, what I would like to do, if you have read along so far, is to gather email addresses of anyone who would like to receive the rest of the book as and when I finish it. Please let me know in the comments along with what you think of the story so far… 
I shall continue to do these A2Z posts as well as any new chapters I do complete so don’t go away – watch this space please…

Chapter 14

Gervald’s Story.

 

When Stig and Alex returned a while later, they found Jack assisting Katie to prepare a meal by peeling potatoes whilst she made a sauce. There was a comfortable atmosphere between them. Katie moved the saucepan off the heat and took Alex off into another room for a moment saying she had something she really needed to tell him. They were gone a while and Stig and Jack stayed in the kitchen watching over the potatoes which Jack had set to boil.
“Did you find Gervald?” Jack asked.
“We did! And it proved useful, not just about him and his story, but it may have some implications for your story too…”
“Do tell!” said Jack – they were sitting at the kitchen table sipping cans of beer.
“Alex took us to the place he thought the stranger who might be Gervald was and he was right. We snuck up on it – not easy in near desert country, but it was the right approach – Gervald was on the back veranda and he took off inside and locked the doors as soon as we showed. If we hadn’t seen him first we wouldn’t have known he was inside. He wouldn’t answer so Alex went round the front and I picked the lock.”
“Really Stig? I’ve always wanted to know how to do that! Not that many people lock their doors here but still – maybe you could give me a lesson!”
“Easy Tiger! We’ll find time one day! Anyway, I go inside but no sign of Gervald so I let Alex in and he says that Gervald hasn’t come out so we start looking round for him. I call out to him – tell him who we are and that we mean him no harm. I tell him about you and your connection to Clem and everything I know about his story as Clem told it. I ask him if he is hiding out because he is afraid of someone and I tell him we can help – that if we could find him, then someone else could do so just as easily…”
Stig goes to the fridge and fetches another bottle of beer but Jack declines the offer of one.
“Finally, at this, Gervald emerges from behind a panel in the wall – a hiding place he has constructed. He is very scared, looks out of all the windows to see if we are alone before sitting down and talking to us.”

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤


“What Clem said about me is true. I was more interested in the recreational drugs to begin with. I liked hanging out with him in his lab – which he allowed me to do once I knew him well enough. He told me his story and he encouraged me also, to go to college and study pharmacology. Gradually, I became more able to be of help to him and although I was still into getting high, I started to develop an interest in the more medical research Clem was doing.”
Gervald had calmed down a bit since he realised he wasn’t in any immediate danger and had started to tell his tale, but only after going over who Stig was – Stig had just said – “a member of the Rangers…”
“Then one day, I was in a bar one evening, Clem was away for a couple of weeks – I think he may actually have been on a trip to Hawaii 1. He didn’t share everything with me and he certainly didn’t allow me to be at his place and his lab when he wasn’t there.
These guys started talking to me, asking what I did and when I said I worked for this genius chemist, they said ‘Clem? We know all about Clem!’
I was surprised and alarm bells started ringing but they went on affably enough to say they had some business connections with Clem – were disappointed to find he was away as they had hoped to see him whilst they were passing through.
I asked them where they were from and they said Hawaii 1 and I was impressed but also surprised since I had this inkling that was where Clem had gone anyway. They asked what I was working on and said I must be busy with Clem away. I said no to the latter I explained that Clem didn’t allow me to work whilst he was away and we were never really what you’d call busy – not since Clem works at his own pace on his own projects. They seemed quite envious of that – ‘Must be nice! Where we come from, you work as hard and fast as you can because unless you’re one of the very rich, everybody is on the clock…’ Then they changed the subject for a bit.”
Clem jumped up and had another look out through all the windows as if he still wasn’t convinced that his visitors were kosher then he came and sat down and continued his story.
“It wasn’t long before they asked what I did, exactly, for Clem. I told them I was a student now and so I was more useful to Clem – to be honest, I was boasting a bit at that stage, I had downed a few drinks before these guys showed up and they kept buying… They didn’t propose anything that night , but a few weeks later, just before Clem came home, they ‘happened to be passing by’ and we had another evening drinking, I asked them about life on Hawaii 1. They said I should come and see for myself – of course – I told them there was no way I could afford a trip like that. They said I shouldn’t rule it out – they might have some work for a bright guy like me, perhaps I could set up a lab on my own and make something for them. Like a fool I asked what? They told me that they knew Clem had a new drug with no come down but that he wasn’t interested in making it for them – if I could do it, then they would buy and import the equipment needed. Of course, I knew they were talking about Sunset. I said I didn’t have the complete formula but I had done some of the testing on it. ‘But you could get the details if you wanted to…’ I told them I could and asked how much they needed, they asked how much I thought I could make. – I told them I would have to work out some figures and what equipment I would need. They gave me a mail contact to reach them – and that’s how it began.

Once they had my lab set up, they came round regularly and gradually they started to press me for odd bits of information from Clem’s computers – some of it probably wasn’t important – it just got me used to doing stuff for them. They paid generously – mostly into an account they said was ‘waiting for me on Hawaii 1’. They started to push for more information about stuff I knew Clem was more circumspect about – medical stuff – and I started to get cold feet. They didn’t get nasty, not then, in fact, they said they were going to take me to a party! I would get to meet some important people from both Hawaii 1 and 2.”

Stig had been taking notes as Gervald told his story and asking the odd question – could Gervald describe the men, what was the contact number they had given him, could he remember any specific dates he had seen them… Gervald cooperated fully, he seemed relieved to let it all out finally. He went on.
“The party was on an island, we went on the biggest private boat I had ever seen and as well as the guy’s I knew, there were some women – very smartly dressed but I thought later, that they were – you know – professional… We all went ashore and into a side room off the main living space I was introduced to someone from Hawaii 1- a Mr Jensen – who seemed to be quite important – the guys were very deferential to him. He said that ‘they were very pleased with my work, that Sunset was the way forward, a good, clean drug with less side effects – just what they needed to keep the workers happy!’ Then the guys and I went out into the main room where we joined the girls. They pointed out the President – you know Widnes! He was talking to the guy that I had the meeting with – they seemed to be friendly, but there was some sort of struggle going on – like Jensen was pushing for something – it reminded me of how it was when the guys came to talk to me! But then one of the women started coming on to me and it wasn’t long before we were headed back to the boat because she said we would have it to ourselves. She poured me a drink and we sat on a couch and she kissed me, I know that much, but after that I remember nothing. Next time I woke, I was in bed in one of the cabins – naked, but what else had happened I couldn’t tell you.
I’ve had a lot of time here to think about what happened and I realised I was well played at that party – I saw some luxury, got complimented by someone who could have been anyone, saw the President but never got to talk to him – or anyone else come to that. I got kissed but that was literally the only taste of the high life I had before being whisked back to normality. Smoke and mirrors! After that, the guys started to get really pushy and downright nasty and I started to realise more and more that I was out of my depth – I owed them more for the equipment than I could possibly afford and they could tell Clem what I had done too, not that I thought that likely. I was on the hook so I decided to just disappear and hope they wouldn’t come after me – tell me! Do you think they will, Stig?”
“I really can’t say Gervald, but I think we will get you moved somewhere safer, just in case. After all, you didn’t really take much finding did you? Said Stig.
“I guess not!” Gervald looked very uncomfortable again.
“Look! I’ll make a call straight away and get someone to pick you up tonight. We’ll get your camper taken in the opposite direction as a decoy, okay?”
“Okay!”
“I will arrange for someone to take a more formal statement too before you disappear into what we might call a ‘witness protection program’ although that is a bit grand for Hawaii 2 – we certainly don’t have a program as such – you would be the first and only member of it if we did!”
“Thank you Stig, I have been terrified, I won’t lie to you…”
“That’s okay Gervald – you have been foolish not to mention disloyal – but we on Hawaii 2 look after our own.”



M is for Music in Science Fiction…

humanist55

 My goal in the 2021 A2Z Challenge is to complete a novel I started a few years ago but which has languished for lack of love (writing!). Each Post, daily in April (Sundays excepted), will consist of some aspect of the novel plus a chapter from it. I hope that the Alphabetical items will give a bit of extra background, muse on the writing process, but most of all, help me develop certain ideas to improve the novel. Some 12 chapters are already written so I have a bit of a head start…

Please comment with any opinions good or bad – you have no idea how much I need feedback at this stage…


When I compiled a list of topics for these posts to accompany the chapters of my novel “TrainWreck”, Music sprang to mind  for M because – well, I love music and I imagined that in the course of writing the novel I would (will?), consider the question of whether all the music was saved from Earth and taken on the exodus to the stars. I cannot believe that it would not be…
But as usual, I like to hit Google before writing these pieces – just to see what is already out there and it turns out that there is plenty about music in science fiction – though it is mainly about music in science fiction films. So immediately we see the problem of writing about music – you can’t literally hear it. (Pun intended!)
There are books that write about music – Nick Hornby’s “High Fidelity” springs to mind, in which an obsessive record collector constantly annotated his life by compiling lists of music suitable for…

But that is not the same as hearing the music so in films, a story which has no music references can be enhanced by “futuristic” music, or the music may actually be integral to the story. From this research, I came across a word for this particular device – Diegesis! I came across it in an article on 15 Best Sci-Fi Movie Soundtracks which cited “The Fifth Element” and in particular the infamous “Diva Dance” Infamous because the composer wrote something that jumps up and down the notes with such fiendish rapidity that he imagined it would be impossible for a human singer to achieve. There are various stories about how the soundtrack was actually achieved, but in the film we see an apparent alien with beautiful blue skin and inexplicable head tubes, perform on a space liner with views of the outside behind her. The Wikipedia definition of Diegesis says this:- “In diegesis, the narrator tells the story. The narrator presents the actions (and sometimes thoughts) of the characters to the readers or audience. Diegetic elements are part of the fictional world (“part of the story”), as opposed to non-diegetic elements which are stylistic elements of how the narrator tells the story (“part of the storytelling”).” 

 In diegesis, the music itself is seen to form part of the narrative and not just background noise! In “The Fifth Element”, the baddies believe that something they want, is hidden in the Diva’s changing room and so the Diva’s absence because she is performing on stage, allows them to rob her dressing room. We see the Diva’s amazing performance intercut with the violent destruction of her dressing room and eventually the Diva herself is shot on stage. 
How does this work in writing where music cannot be heard. Diegesis refers to the times when the author, in the form of a Narrator, addresses the Reader directly, telling them what is happening, including what is happening in the character’s heads as opposed to setting out the action and leaving it to the reader to infer the protagonist’s thoughts. This goes against the writing maxim “Show don’t Tell!” and goes to show that rules are meant to be broken! On stage, this is known as the Fourth Wall, when a character directly addresses the audience without other actors seeming to hear. And then there is Charlotte Bronte’s “Dear Reader – I married him…”

Have any of you employed Diegesis in your writing or can you think of favourite examples of it?

Warning. The following chapter includes references to sexual abuse.

Chapter 13
Erehwhon

 

Jack and Stig were sitting in a bar that could best be described as a shack. The walls and roof were made from AlgRoc a speciality of Hawaii 2 – a corrugated material composed of a seaweed that grew prolifically combined with volcanic rock dust and a few other cheap ingredients under heat and pressure. AlgRock had the special property of growing stronger with age as subtle chemical changes continued to occur in the material over time. Easy to cut when fresh, AlgRoc was cheap and easy to use, you could cut holes for windows, it took paint readily and the corrugation made it strong for it’s weight.
Furniture in the bar was a motley assortment in varying stages of ageing and disrepair. The choice of drinks was limited and Stig, sitting opposite Jack, was nursing a beer and kept leaning across the table to a sickly-looking Jack who had not felt able to drink anything, suffering as he was from the effects of Clem’s pill which he had downed as they walked into town from the store.
”Jack! Buck up mate! I’ll find something to fix you up – try and stay awake…” Stig played the part of concerned friend to a tee. Jack, on the other hand, did not need to play the part of a queasy drug addict in withdrawal – Clem’s pill had done exactly what it said on the tin as he had all the symptoms, dilated pupils, pallor, nervous twitching, paranoia and a need to scratch at his arms. Apart from the paranoia though, Jack felt quite compos mentis and even found himself wondering why on Hawaii 2 Clem would have developed such a drug – maybe just a fortuitous discovery, but fortuitous of what, Jack couldn’t imagine.
Stig went over to the bar where a couple of men were sitting drinking and conversing in a desultory way. After ordering another beer, Stig turned to the two men and after a few icebreaker remarks, Stig leant in and confidentially said “My friend over there he’s really strung out and I’m looking for someone who knows their way around well -drugs. I thought Erehwon might be the  place to find them – any ideas, friends?”
“We don’t like newcomers here!” said the one nearest to Stig and turned his back to Stig but his friend leaned forward and addressed Stig in a more conciliatory tone. “Look mate, I can get you pretty much anything you want. I know selling drugs is not illegal but my friend here is right, you can’t just come in here and expect doors to open – we are all here ‘cos we like our privacy and we want it to stay that way…”
“Sorry guys” said Stig “its just I’m really worried about my friend. He’s been living in Lowtown but he’s not a happy camper and he rubs people up the wrong way. I don’t know anybody there but it seemed to me he had burned his bridges and someone suggested I brought him here.”
“Well like I said I can get you anything you want but if you need advice…” said the more helpful man. At that moment the door opened and another man walked in “Now this man might be the one you need! Here Alex! This man needs some help!”
Unseen by the men at the bar who were looking at the newcomer, Stig winked at Alex who took his cue and said “How can I help stranger?”
“It’s my friend over here er, Alex.” Stig made his way back towards Jack who was lying his head on his arms and mumbling incoherently. “Can I get you a drink Alex?” “Thanks – your name is…?” “Oh, Stig friend, and this sad bastard is my best friend Jack!”
Sure I’ll have a beer and then you can tell me about  Jack.”
After fetching another beer from the bar, Stig and Alex sat down opposite Jack backs to the wall so they could keep an eye on the rest of the clientele. Quietly Stig spieled Alex much along the lines that he had to the men at the bar. Alex  listened and eventually said “Okay Stig, well I might be able to help but I think Jack here needs to chill, have you got somewhere to crash?”
“No Alex, we just landed – can you suggest somewhere?”
“Tell you what, Stig, I’ve plenty of space at mine we could take him there and you and I can chat some more.” “Cheers mate – that’s over and above – appreciate it!”

“Okay – let’s walk him out then – it’s not too far.”

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

 

Sitting on the couch in Alex’s house a rambling one storey assemblage of AlgRoc rooms and with Jack, who was genuinely asleep, tucked up in bed, Stig and Alex let out a big sigh.
“Good to see you Stig – it’s been a while!”
“You’re right – I suppose that’s a good thing – it means things are reasonably settled here…”
“Reasonably I suppose – at least there’s not been anything I needed to call outside help in for.”
And you’re still happy enough with the undercover work?”
“Oh yeah, happy enough -I’ve got a girlfriend – she doesn’t know what I do for you, and, well – she’s a bit off the wall, but I like her and I’m not sure she would transplant anywhere else – in fact, I’m not sure I would now, I’ve got used to Erehwon’s ways – the libertarian sump of the most libertarian society in the galaxy!”
“Ain’t that the truth!” said Stig and they lapsed into reflective silence for a moment.
“Now how about you tell me what you’re really here for ‘cos I take it, it’s not yer man there…”
“No its not, as I said, he’s taken a special pill, courtesy of a friend of his in Lowtown – he’ll be fine when he wakes up. Come to think of it, I didn’t tell you who he is did I. He’s not just Jack – he’s The Jack of Jack and Douglas fame!”
“No! You’re kidding Stig! A ruddy celebrity in me bed!”
“He’s been the subject of unwanted attentions – probably offworlders – they kidnapped him trying to get information about his late wife’s work – best you don’t know about it. I think they’re convinced he doesn’t have what they want – which in truth he doesn’t so I’m just keeping him under my wing till I’m sure they’ve lost interest. No we’re here on another matter.” Stig explained the Gervald situation, his connection to Jack’s friend Clem and the ditched camper van. “If he is here – which seems likely – then we don’t know if he is hiding out because he also received unwanted attention or he’s just a loose cannon… Any thoughts – seen anyone fitting the description Alex?”
Alex rubbed his stubbly chin “Can’t say I have Stig. I did hear there was someone new out at the old Jones place but you know yourself, people come and go here all the time. If he was new, then I expected to see him in town sooner or later, the fact that I hadn’t made me think, in as much as I thought about it at all, that it was someone passing through – we could go and check it out I suppose.”
At that moment, a young woman came into the house, slight of figure and dressed in a faded but once vibrant coloured print skirt and tank top, bead strings fixed in her hair. “Sorry Alex I didn’t know you had visitors – I’ll come back later.” As she turned to go nervously.
“No Katie – stay! We were just going out for a bit. This is my friend Stig who drops by from time to time and the sleeping beauty over there is Jack. Keep an eye on him and look after him will you please.”
“Sure Alex.” The girl looked relieved and sat down in an armchair with a glass of water. She did not observe Alex slipping a handgun under his jacket and into the back of his belt.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

 

Jack awoke from a dream of Anna. She was lying behind him spooned, arms wrapped tight around him. Jack had been crying out to her “Anna, don’t leave me!” As he surfaced into consciousness and eventually managed to bliknk an eye open, he didn’t recognise where he was and he became aware that soft arms were still around him and a voice was shushing him in a soothing way. For a moment, a great hope leaped in Jacks breast that Anna was alive and that all the events of the last few weeks were some terrible dream. But something was wrong, he smelt patchouli – a perfume he had liked as a student but which Anna hated and the voice wasn’t Anna’s. Jack spun and sat up with such a suddenness that the girl who had been clinging to his back fell away from him and out of bed with a little shriek and lay looking up at him grabbing a print dress to cover her bare legs. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Please don’t hurt me!” Katie started to whimper so piteously that Jack’s own distress started to subside as concern for this strange girl grew in him.
“It’s okay, it’s okay – I’m not going to hurt you! I just woke up and I didn’t know where I was and I thought you were someone else…” Jack had an upwelling of emotion at the memory of the dream and the awakening. He began to sob quietly and now it was the girl’s turn to be concerned. She stood up and wrapped her skirt round her and fastened it then she sat on the edge of the bed and put her hand gently on Jack’s. “I’m sorry I scared you, I didn’t mean to, I got it all wrong – I’m always getting things wrong Jack. Alex told me to look after you – I thought he meant that way.”
“Alex – that’s Stig’s friend, right? Is this his place?”
“Yes Jack! They’ve gone off somewhere and Alex told me to watch you and take care of you. I’ve got it so wrong – please don’t tell him – you won’t will you?”
“No I won’t – sorry – what’s your name?” “Katie, it’s Katie!”
“Look Katie, there’s no harm done, it’s just I lost my wife recently and I thought you were her as I woke up – I didn’t mean to scare you. Tell me, is that something Alex asks you to do – to take care of men?”
“No never” said Katie, “it’s just those words…” A shiver went through Katie’s slight frame and she tensed up looking miles away.
“Is there any chance of a cup of tea Katie – I feel parched.”
“Sure! What kind of host must you think me? I guess that’s what Alex meant by looking after you – not – well you know – the other thing…” Katie hurried through to the kitchen area and Jack could hear the clink of cups and rumble of a kettle boiling. He got out of bed, discovered he was fully dressed and went over to a settee and made himself comfortable. Clem’s drug seemed to have worn off and as promised, there was no hangover. In fact, Jack felt quite refreshed by his little sleep and started to look around at his surroundings.
Katie came back with two cups of tea on a tray and some small angel cakes whose prettiness seemed out of place in this frontier shack.
“I am so embarrassed at what happened” she said “I don’t know how it happened…”
“Don’t worry about it” said Jack “though you said something about it being those particular words – ‘Take care of him’ -didn’t you?” Jack said gently.
After a long pause, Katie answered him, eyes downcast. “When I was little, I had a step-father who – well he did things to me – I think he used those words – I try to blank it out…”
“I’m so sorry Katie! I didn’t think things like that happened here. Didn’t anybody notice, didn’t you tell anybody?”
“The only time I tried to tell my mother, she slapped me so hard and called me a liar – said he was a good man and that it was him who took care of us, not the other way round…After that I never tried to tell anyone else – I mean if your own mother won’t believe you…”
“Katie, I’m so sorry, that must have been awful. And when you grew up? I mean did you tell then?”
“You are the first person I have ever told, I don’t know why. I think it’s the way you were crying about your wife. Oh my God, are you him? Are you that Jack – from the train wreck?”
“Yes – yes, I am.” Jack said quietly, his eyes tearing up again with emotion both for himself and his loss and for this waif like girl and her sad story.
“Oh Jack! Alex didn’t say. I am so sorry for your loss. Oh! Where’s Douglas?” Katie looked around as if she had somehow missed seeing the baby and with an agitated look on her face once again and Jack saw that Katie was used to feeling that she had messed up.
“Don’t worry Katie, he’s safe with my mother. Someone tried to – well – they did kidnap me to try and find out about Anna – my wife – about her work. I think I am safe now but Stig thought he should take care of me for a bit longer. Shit – those words again – I’m sorry!”
“It’s okay Jack – it’s not the same – it was Alex saying them to me – well it sort of triggered something. As soon as he had gone, I got into bed with you. I don’t know what I thought I was doing – what I was going to do. I thought I was meant to – you know – like with him but then you were dreaming, and whimpering, twitching – calling out someone’s name but I couldn’t make it out. I didn’t know what to do, so I put my arm round you and held you – stroked your back. But then you woke up – it gave me such a fright – and I fell out of bed!” Katie gave Jack a reproachful look but when Jack’s face filled with remorse, she suddenly laughed at the memory of being suddenly deposited on the floor – and then they both laughed.
“And Alex – he does treat you well, does he? Asked Jack.
“Oh! Alex is lovely – so patient with me. You see, when we first got together, we – well – you know, we did it all the time, like you do. But then something happened – in me – I didn’t understand why but I just didn’t feel like it and Alex – well I know some men would have kicked off. Well, some men I’ve known have kicked off whenever they couldn’t have their way…”
Jack reached out and gave Katie’s hand a squeeze. “That’s terrible Katie – I’m so sorry!”
“Thanks, Jack – not your fault though – I can tell you’re a nice man. I just can’t understand why my step-father did what he did and why I haven’t remembered it till now. Well not properly, I suppose it’s always been like something was at the back of my mind – but how can you not remember something like that?”
“I guess that when something I so terrible, you can just zone out and maybe – eventually, especially when it’s over, then maybe it stays zoned out – well until something cuts through…” They both fell silent for a bit. Then Jack said “You probably need to talk to somebody – get some help, but I don’t know much about that sort of thing…”
“I suppose I do – I’m sure Alex will help – he’s like that you know, he’ll do anything for good people although if somebody is behaving bad – well he knows how to deal with them too!”
“ I guess they might be back soon…” said Jack.
“Tell me about Douglas, Jack – I want to hear all about him before the boys do get back!”