Serial Adventure Fiction

2009-09-07T20:53:00.002-06:00

I must apologise for this blog becoming an orphan since the other one started at http://thewildcatsvictory.wordpress.com/ to promote the release of the second novel of the Iskander series.

Since then the third, Arrival, has been released. I also lost my website to a purveyor of sex aids but have a part replacement at http://www.freewebs.com/chriskander/ You can see promo and read first chapters of all the novels there.

I'm starting another new direction on The Wildcat's Victory blog -- this time promoting the utility of becoming a contrarian to free ones self from some of the false trails society is heading down. I'm looking at socially beneficial contrarianism, but will be mentioning the others as well.

2008-03-14T15:51:00.000-06:00

Hello All:

I’m at Day 10 with the virtual Book Tour, but I’d like to mention something that happened while I was promoting The Wildcat’s Victory on Facebook. I originally thought I had received a reply from a child or young person, and replied gently with that in mind – but after I received a reply I began to think someone was hitting me up for identity theft.

Tell me what you think – I posted more detail on my blog today (March 14th) at http://thewildcatsvictory.wordpress.com If anyone is interested in learning more I’ll pore through the emails and Facebook messages to post the original message and what I sent. I may be overly suspicious, but forewarned is forearmed.

2008-03-05T16:09:00.000-07:00

Free POD Paperback of The Wildcat’s Victory

For the month of March, I am going on a Virtual Book Tour for my new release, The Wildcat’s Victory. Follow me along and leave some comments to qualify for the draw. The novel is a sequel to Deadly Enterprise released last July and features the same gutsy and sassy protagonist, Gisel Matah. If you check my new blog at http://thewildcatsvictory.wordpress.com you will see links to this week’s visits.

On Monday (which was election day around here and occupied much of my attention) I was a guest blogger at The Book Connection and yesterday morning (at 5:30 my time) I was on a blog talk radio interview at You Don’t Know Jack. The interview can be heard at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/sydneymolare/2008/03/04/Guest-Chris-Hoare I was surprised at how strongly my old Brit accent reasserts itself in such situations – I sound as if I just got off the boat.

Today the Virtual Book Tour visits Buzz the Book http://buzzthebook.blogspot.com For a brief description and a part of the first chapter.

The site does more than this, because at the bottom of the entry it posts this:-
If you would like to follow Christopher's tour, visit http://www.virtualbooktours.wordpress.com/ in March. Leave a comment on his blog stops and become eligible to win a free copy at the end of his tour! One lucky winner will be announced on this blog on March 31

YES at the end of the month long Book Tour, one person who followed the tour and commented on even one blog will win the draw for a free POD paperback copy of The Wildcat’s Victory. The draw will be handled by Pump Up Your Book Promotion, but I will mail out the free copy from here.

Talking about the POD copies, I’m hoping to see them today. They are late, but I was able to use the tracking number and learned they arrived in Lethbridge overnight and set out on the truck at 7:30 this morning for delivery. Four of them have to be mailed to reviewers for this blog tour – I hope my reviewers can read quickly.

2008-01-31T21:43:00.001-07:00

The second Iskander series novel, The Wildcat's Victory, is in the process of being released. The Double Dragon site is up -- http://www.double-dragon-ebooks.com/single.php?ISBN=1-55404-538-X
Go and take a look.

The other sites -- Amazon for the POD paperback and Kindle, Fictionwise, etc will follow in the next few days.

I'm not too sure about the cover picture yet. I like the dramatic atmosphere but I'm not sure I see the figure clearly enough to understand the pose. Maybe it's me, not looking with the right eyes.

I will be starting a virtual book tour for the novel. A new blogsite will be part of the procedure, but I will also announce the activity on this one.

I did join another writer's blog, late last year. http://mdbenoit.blogspot.com/ The idea is we can keep posts coming more frequently with more writers. That'd be a great idea, but I'm told search engines will flag the sites as spam if they see the same posts in several places. It means I have to write something different at each one.

Oh well, I guess I call myself a writer.

2008-01-10T19:18:00.000-07:00

Announcement! Announcement! Announcement!

Er . . . do you get the idea? This blog is actually about to display some news.

The Wildcat’s Victory.

The sequel to Deadly Enterprise, my SF adventure novel about the tough and reckless Gisel Matah, is soon to be published. This month.

Here, for the first time unveiled, is the promotion blurb for the novel. Read, salivate, and prepare to buy. The novel will be on the Double Dragon site by the end of the month, as well as on Amazon as both a POD paperback and a Kindle edition.

Here goes –

Follow Gisel Matah and the thunder of hooves as she strikes back at the Imperial armies that threaten all she has worked for. She must defy every established world power to bring justice to common peasants and workers in societies now ruled by greedy aristocrats. Her covert activities require her to protect her fledgling Radical movement from both friends and enemies.

Risking her life and her love, Gisel negotiates even greater hazards in a wide ranging adventure. Her partner, Yohan Felger, becomes a problem when the Baron has him smuggle a steam engine to the Empire. Gisel knows of the subterfuge but cannot admit it, while Yohan is almost torn apart by the need to deceive her. Faced with removing the pressure on Yohan as he moves his contraband engine, she accepts the offer of General Lord Ricart, an ex-lover, to command a cavalry unit in battle. Her reckless courage is needed to carry out missions against two Imperial armies.

The fight finds her opposed by ever increasing odds until in the final confrontation she must outwit two enemies who vie to dominate Iskander. New friends, allies, and enemies as well as all the old ones fill the pages when Gisel Matah sets out to gain "The Wildcat's Victory".

2007-12-21T15:41:00.000-07:00

Hi All:

Wishing everyone holiday greetings. Just a short post this time.

I’m starting to cooperate on another blog with another writer. Must admit that I haven’t been very punctual with my posts here, so the idea is that the more bloggers the better. The site is called “Life’s quite a ride” and the link is

The best news of the season is that the Double Dragon anthologies, Twisted Tales II, Volume One – “Time on our Hands” and Volume Two – “Out of Time” are both listed as finalists in the Eppie Awards for 2007. I have a short story in volume two – actually the first short story I’ve written in years – so I’ll perhaps look more kindly at the activity if we win (maybe even if we don’t). I’m only one writer in the volume. With nine other writers in the volume, I can’t claim to have made a big difference, but hey – I didn’t screw it up, either.

Marilyn Peake was the member of the group who entered the anthologies in several contests this year – spent $800 on entry fees and book copies to be judged. She says it was part of her promotion budget for the year, but we are all chipping in a bit of cash to play our parts.

I remember reading the website of a small publisher a few years ago, who was everything but enthusiastic about the marketplace. He had a page titled “Ten things I’ve learned in Publishing”. One of them was “Awards don’t mean shit.” I have noticed that some of the online award sites that allow visitors to vote in their competitions are open to . . . well, the charitable word might be ‘influence’. It’s rather like picking a President – whoever has the most friends wins.

One last word about the season. Shirley is out at her aquasizing this afternoon and I’m baking a Stollen. Never tried it before. I’m using the bread machine to make the dough, so I had to juggle the Stollen recipe in one book with a slightly similar recipe in the bread machine book. It’s currently halfway through its last rising, but I’m not going to peek. Everything has gone quite well so far, except I couldn’t get the ovals to close properly after I filled the centres with the melted butter, sugar, and cinnamon. I expect some of the filling will leak out.

Call it my festive activity of the season. It’s really a Chris-stollen.

2007-12-15T19:52:00.001-07:00

E for electronic; E for environment.

Not a lot of change on the writing front at my end, but with my “Deadly Enterprise” now available for both Amazon’s new Kindle e-book reader and the Fictionwise downloads for the more affordable eBookwise 1150, I’m hopeful the new year will see much more activity in e-book sales.

While a huge segment of the population know nothing about e-books and e-book readers the sales have been glacially slow, but I’m looking forward with optimism at the prospect of doing all my new novel readings from an e-book reader and growing a fan following from new converts to a technology that avoids cutting down forests.

Which is a good lead in for some topical current affairs comment.

There’s a new twist to the old joke about how many whatever does it take to screw in a lightbulb. “How many government officials does it take the go to Bali and agree to hold future talks about holding future talks about considering doing something about climate change?” The answer – twelve thousand.

Of course this is an excuse for all the right wing remarks about politicians and the uselessness of the United Nations. Not really -- it’s an indictment of all the greedy bastards in the governments and countries that stonewalled the outcome the world waited for. Naming the guilty – we have the USA, Japan, New Zealand – and of course Canada, courtesy of the Alberta mafia. The United Nations is slightly more democratic that most of its members, which is why the unscrupulous find it so easy to hijack the policies.

You have to notice that it’s all the fat cats who can afford to buy yachts to float above any rise in sea level that are opposed to doing anything to curb their excesses.

But the nature of reality is change and some changes are already visible. In North America, pulp mills are closing down because of a lessening demand for newsprint. People are switching from newspapers to electronic forms of news media – TV, of course, but increasingly the online versions of newspapers. A breath of fresh air for those of us in captive markets to be able to access truth in a market dominated by corporate Newspeak.

While postage and other forms of transportation are so expensive it is impossible to spread the ideas and social values expressed on paper from one area to another, even in the same country. Having purchased a small batch of my own books to sell locally, I’m well aware that the loss of such things as Book Rate postage is diminishing our ability to disseminate our words adequately. Society is losing access to ideas and competent commentary in book and magazine form. Which is why it is important that the spread of electronic books for free, via the Internet, should increase. Why more and more people should become comfortable reading off a screen instead of from a pound weight held in the hand.

Join the e-book revolution. Use the Internet to spread the ideas that corporate medias see fit to suppress. Save some trees and reduce the carbon load of transporting tons of books and magazines. The new generation of e-books read just like words on paper, without glare and without getting hot. And just think, if you doze off and drop an e-book, the pages don’t close and lose your place.

2007-11-29T17:24:00.000-07:00

I had to post this new review for Deadly Enterprise (below) that I received this afternoon. I contacted the reviewer, Lisa Haselton, almost two months ago after seeing her address on one of the Muse on Writing boards and sent her a copy of the paperback for review. For other online writers seeing this, I'll mention the timelines here, since I know only one e-book publisher that makes an effort to get out review copies ahead of release date, the way the hard copy side of the business works.

DE was released in July, as an e-book download with a link to Lulu for POD paperback. The publisher provided me with a copy of the final pdf file to send out to e-book reviewers. I sent out a few at that time and one review transpired. I didn't send out Lulu copies for review, not being a millionaire yet. When I persuaded my publisher to put my novel on LSI as well, I received a batch of paperbacks costing about half as much. I sent out two copies for review on October 15th. The first of those reviews arrived today, six and a half weeks later, and nineteen weeks after release.

Since the first six months after release of an e-book are the prime promotion times, you can see that the system needs a bit of supercharging. If you are fortunate enough to be a brother-in-law of someone high enough up in one of the NY publishers to be published there, (cynical? Who, me?)you can see that their system, that starts sending copies for review and other promotions months before release date has a far better chance of getting an optimum buzz going. Of course, their system also has the dreaded 'Return' syndrome that cuts in about three months later, when half of the books sent to booksellers come back unsold -- for shredding.

If you have an idea what e-book authors can do to duplicate the ARC, you might post a reply. And don't forget the new availability of Deadly Enterprise -- as a Kindle edition on Amazon for $4.89 -- it's at http://tinyurl.com/35rlrz . Besides that, take a look at the review below, and note Lisa's site address in order to look at other reviews she's done.

Chris.

Deadly Enterprise
Written by: Christopher Hoare
Science fiction / Fiction / Time travel
Rated: Very Good (****)
Review by: Lisa Haselton http://lisahaselton.tripod.com/index.html

Lieutenant Gisel Matah is resourceful, daring, and from a future earth. She’s also beautiful and rebellious–a wild cat. At 20, she’s the Iskander’s top operative. She thrives on the adrenaline rush of each assignment. Able to stay focused, in character, observant and determined, Gisel may not always follow orders to the letter, but she always gets the mission accomplished.

Iskander technology is well-advanced of Gaia, the older earth which the Iskander’s find they must adapt to. With battles raging between the Emperor and other factions, the Iskanders are interested in finding peace and making allies. To that end, they choose to approach the Felgers, a successful merchant and banker family, to assist them with their trading and production plans. Gisel must convince Yohan Felger of the benefits to him and his family business if they join forces. It’s not an easy task. She has to share enough information about their technology to convince him of their worth, but not too much information which he could use against them.

In a world where women are required to be under the care and supervision of men, Gisel must remain disguised as a man in order to accomplish her mission. Complicating matters are rumors on Gaia about a female agent named ‘Wildcat’ who is nothing but trouble, and who is being sought by Zagdorf, his troopers, and hired local forces.

The story is intriguing and entertaining. Deadly Enterprise is a page-turner. The reader is naturally curious to see how Gisel will manage to keep her identity and heart disguised while escorting and protecting Yohan through the warring territories in order to make alliances for a peaceful and prosperous future for everyone. Logic can sometimes be overruled by emotions and plans don’t always go as expected, especially when innocent people are put in harm’s way. Gisel must make a lot of tough decisions.

Christopher Hoare’s strong female protagonist in Deadly Enterprise is well-crafted. The descriptive scenes and tight writing keep the reader engaged and turning the pages. Deadly Enterprise contains elements of time travel, past worlds, future worlds, politics, battles, strategy, survival, and a small dash of romance. After all, Gisel may be a soldier, but she also has a heart.

I solidly recommend reading Deadly Enterprise for the pure enjoyment of a well-written novel containing strong and clearly defined characters, clear, crisp details that propel the story forward, and an enticing glimpse into a new world. I look forward to more novels from this writer, especially if they include Gisel Matah.

2007-11-20T15:40:00.001-07:00

It’s been a hectic . . . whenever, but I managed to plant my backside to the seat long enough to write and post this.

Deadly Enterprise is now available as a Kindle edition on Amazon.com for their new Kindle E-Reader. It’s even at a new low price. Check it out at http://tinyurl.com/35rlrz (You wouldn’t want to see the full address at Amazon.) You can even find the links to learn about the Kindle on the page. Go and take a look – I’ll try to get a discussion about the book started on the page today.

The paperback Deadly Enterprise is also for sale at local stores (if you live near Pincher Creek or the Crowsnest Pass, where I do) and at The Sentry Box if you happen to be in Calgary. I had readings and book signings at the Pincher Creek and the Blairmore libraries last week. Lots of opportunity for me to talk, which people sometimes claim I can do more prolifically than writing. I’m surprised how little people know about e-books, POD books, and publishing in general, but they are always interested to learn.

OG 11

When I worked in the oilpatch I always enjoyed being away on my own with the equipment and information to complete my job – and with no need to call into the office every day. In fact, when the oil companies started hiring consultants to look after the work, who actually knew very little except setting up offices and having everyone waste working time reporting to them each morning, was when I decided to retire. I guess the idiocy of corporate office culture was bound to work its way down eventually.

These drones, who are the classic managers who manage because they’re not competent to do, seem to have weaseled their ways into the hierarchy by magnifying the issue of control problems over crews working in remote locations. Of course, if the managers in town were competent enough to hire good people and keep them, they’d have no control problems – so the whole thing comes down to incompetence feeding off incompetence.

Not that the oilpatch I worked in didn’t have its share of nitwits who could be counted on to give the clients headaches when they sent them out into the wild unknown – you know, anywhere beyond the city limits.

One ex-party manager, who shall be nameless, used to re-surface from the whiskey bottle periodically to hire on for a job that would contribute financing for his major career in life. He used to take on a post in whatever capacity the victim company happened to need. One time he took on a survey job in the Grande Prairie area and left the company lot with a survey pick-up, equipment, and maps with a promise to travel that day and start work in the morning.

The supervisors in the office seemed to have been fed a very favorable report of this guy’s work because they didn’t start to worry how things were going until they’d not heard from him at the end of the week. But they were soon able to find out for themselves – he came trotting into the office before five o’ clock, freshly shaved, bathed, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed , saying he was all ready to go to Grande Prairie whenever they needed him to leave.

One winter I moved onto a prospect where I was to take over from another guy working as cat-push – looking after the Cat dozers clearing the lines. Calgary office had sent me with instructions where to meet him, so that I could take all the approvals and maps from him and find out what had already been done. I was there to meet him but he never showed. I drove around exploring, looking at as much of the prospect as I knew about from what I’d heard, and didn’t see him all day. I went to a rig that was drilling in the area for our client and learned a bit more from the engineer – but none of this was as productive as having the proper paperwork.

I was just about to leave the prospect as darkness fell when the missing cat-push arrived – all spinning tires and roaring motor. Turned out he’d been in jail all day. “Just a little problem about unpaid traffic tickets,” he said.

The Mounties had stopped him for a routine highway check, and when running his license through the computer had set off enough bells and whistles for a slot machine jackpot. Apparently he’d missed a court appearance, and the law didn’t consider being away in the bush for three months sufficient excuse. After spending a night and most of the day with them they’d let him out with instructions to get back to the city and face the bench.

He left me the maps and approvals and set out to drive overnight. “Don’t get stopped on the way down,” I advised.

Not everybody was capable of finding their way to a remote jobsite from the map information and before GPS enabled any jackass to determine his location, some work would be carried out in the wrong place every winter. Sometimes the error would be a few hundred metres, and once I heard of a job that was shot in the wrong Province.

Some of the program maps the crew would set out with left a lot to be desired. The oil company geophysicist would be so obsessed with this new prospect he’d discovered that it never occurred to him that the surveyor needed a map with latitude and longitude, or at least township and range, marked. I’ve had scruffy scraps of paper handed to me that don’t indicate anything more than the surrounding work carried out previously by that company. Sorry, but I’m not privy to oil company secrets, will you tell me where this is, or must I guess from the name of the nearest town? I kept old program maps over the years and have some for $100,000 jobs that might have been located anywhere.

I know of one oil company that was sued for defamation by a professional engineer who had cut some seismic lines in the wrong place in northern BC. They had run him off and threatened to sue to recover the cost of the wasted work, so he countersued. His claim was that the information they’d provided was on inadequate maps and their action constituted an attack on his professional reputation. I also worked for that company and found their information packages one of the best in the industry – I never had a problem with my lines, but I guess I would have had to be out of my depth to really screw up. One has to wonder why he wasn’t working as an engineer.

2007-10-30T20:04:00.000-06:00

I guess it’s time to post a new installment of the blog, but if you read to the bottom of this you will learn a great secret.

Firstly, news about the promotion of my novel Deadly Enterprise. We were in Calgary this weekend in order for my wife to be near the front of the traffic jams when her medical appointment time came near. To be fair to Calgary, which – being an oil town – is more than it is to the rest of us, we took less than thirty minutes to get across town to the Foothills Hospital and we weren’t involved in a multi vehicle pile-up or even a huge construction site necessitating a lengthy diversion.

In the morning, I called in at the Sentry Box, a store on 10th Ave SW – out close to the Crowchild Trail – that specializes in Science Fiction and Fantasy (both books and games); wargaming of all kinds; miniatures and everything else along those lines. My intention was to drop off a couple of copies of Deadly Enterprise for them to sell, but the book manager did one better, he ordered two copies in from Ingram.

So, if you live in Calgary, or close enough to visit, take a drive down 10th Avenue SW almost to the end and call in to the Sentry Box. (Actually, you’ll need to make a diversion around 14th Street because 10th is barriered there.) I doubt you’ll be able to leave without buying something, and with luck it will be one of the copies of my novel.

In lieu of another installment of my Oil Gypsy stories I’m posting a link to my other blog – the rant one. It’s at www.trailowner.blogspot.com . I’ve not posted anything there since June but I was touched by an ad my wife read out of the Calgary Herald, and thought it merited a few thoughts. I gave it a quite innocuous title, The Courage to do the Right Thing.

If you are as fanatically pro-Bush as . . . dunno, hardly anyone is these days, are they? Well, start again, if you are fanatically so Republican that you’ve closed your eyes to all the things Bush has done contrary to Republican ethics, like pervert the Constitution, you might want to give it a miss. But . . . if for fun you can’t resist answering blogs you disagree with, take a look. The site had been totally ignored until a few days back when someone as famous as Anonymous commented twice on one of the blog entries. Well, actually he tried to hammer a second time at my response, but he gave up the fight after that. It has some classic entries like The CSIS Way with Terrorists, or All Honorable Men: Eulogy for Saddam. Come and say a few words.

So, there you have the secret. I have come out of the closet and revealed myself as a Liberal – a Canadian Liberal, living in Alberta. I should be worth something, even if only as a rarity.

2007-10-24T17:13:00.001-06:00

I intended to wait a few days over the week before posting another update here, but time got away from me.

Firstly, let me provide the tinyurl link for Deadly Enterprise on Amazon. It’s http://tinyurl.com/yryhs7 The copy price is $14.99 and postage & handling will bring that to about $20 - a bit more in Canada.

The copies I ordered through my publisher arrived and I have copies for sale in several local stores. One is even a bookstore, although the owner specializes in used and special order used books. The Internet provides an valuable service for tracking down specific items, like books on buy/sell sites and other objects on eBay. If I weren’t writing fiction I’d probably be finding resources for others or doing their research.

OG11

You might expect guys who work in remote locations are really good navigators. What a laugh. Most of them get lost in parking lots. But it’s not always their own fault.

I’ve met lost truck drivers in the winter bush whose instructions consist of a few scrawls on the back of a cigarette package. “Winter road – Manning. Turn left sign Cyrus Drilling.”

Halfway through the winter work season there are dozens of left turns off snowcovered signs. Some of them could say Cyrus Drilling, but they only mark where they used to be. New roads have been opened up and so it may seem that the road in question is a right turn.

One winter day a supply truck driver came into a Chevron crew camp down the Manning winter road into the Chinchaga – he was looking for directions to a rig camp, and his instructions looked exactly like my example. No one had heard of the particular camp, but they sent him on with a bit more useful advice than he’d started with.

Two days later the same truck and driver pulled into the same camp with the same questions. He was still looking, hopefully the food supplies in the back of the truck hadn’t spoiled by now. The cook invited him into the mess trailer for a warm up, a coffee, and hopefully more current information. The poor driver fell asleep over his coffee as the Chevron people were talking to him.

In the Arctic, two guys set out in a tracked vehicle for a five day scouting trip. The location they were to scout was north, so they drove the length of the airstrip to give themselves direction and then turned in what they felt was the correct one. Unfortunately, with all their discussions and preoccupation with their intentions when they arrived, they wound up heading a long way off north. They drove for hours and were mystified when they arrived at a shoreline that didn’t appear to be on their map. They stopped for dinner and got out to char some steaks over a catalytic heater.

Fortified, they decided to explore this mysterious shoreline further and followed it for a few more hours. Surprise, surprise – there were the lights of a camp in the distance. Whose camp is it? We’d best head over there and find out.

Turned out it was their own camp. They quickly swerved away and repeated the drive down the airstrip. They figured that if anyone noticed them it’d look as if they’d planned to do this all along. But this time, they turned the right way off the end of the strip.

Similar things happened when I worked in North Africa.
We had moved our work area in the Libyan Desert by something like 500 km. We had been near the Dahra oilfield about a hundred kilometres from the coast, and were now way south, almost at the Tazerbo Oasis.

One evening a Schlumberger well-logging truck came rolling into camp, the driver hoping for instructions how to find a particular drilling rig. Turned out the driver was an old acquaintance of many of our crew – they’d shared drinks with him when we were working near Dahra. When the driver asked for directions to the rig, our vibrator mechanic, who had a devilish sense of humour,
gravely corrected the driver’s expectations. “We’re just over the hill from Dahra.”

“What? Impossible I’ve driven two days from Dahra.”

“You’ve been to our camp before,” the Vibrator mechanic said seriously. He pointed. “The warehouse is over there. The waterwells are that way. And the airstrip is over there.”

The poor driver’s jaw dropped and his eyes grew round.

“You must have been driving in circles for the last two days,” another crew member suggested.

By this time the driver must have been close to fainting. His face turned red, his perplexity deepened. If you’ve ever been lost you know the feeling that creeps over you when certainty evaporates. The world no longer has any solid foundation.

But not all the crew members could keep a straight face. The driver caught someone laughing into his sleeve.

“You stinkin’ liars! I am so, near Tazerbo.”

The vibrator mechanic darted out of reach, but they had to kill a case of beer before the poor guy calmed down and agreed that the expressions on his face must have been priceless.

2007-09-27T20:24:00.000-06:00

I have to announce some progress with Deadly Enterprise this week. Lightning Source-Ingram have started producing POD paperbacks and the cost is a lot less than the Lulu PODs. Not only that but the novel is available on Amazon.com at
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1554044901/ref=cm_cmu_up_thanks_hdr/105-1777775-9048405

The Amazon price is $14.99 USD, which means that my selling price in Canada, with taxes, shipping, and currency exchange should be between $15 and $20. I’ve ordered some copies to take to book signings, through my publisher, and expect to receive them soon.

Beyond that I’ve done much less on the promotion front than I’d hoped. I have a full length novel clinic I’m working on, for a fellow writer, as well as the mountain exploits to complete the new fence line handcut before the winter snows arrive. That has been slowed because I managed to twist my ankle badly on Saturday when I was out cutting winter firewood. I’m not using the crutch as often today, but it will be awhile before I’m up to scrambling up and down mountain slopes again.

OG10

When I supervised saw crews cutting lines in the Canadian bush I met a lot of natives and Metis, as well as Newfies. The oil company clients were encouraged to hire local people for the work, and so it seemed I always had to explain what the men were allowed to do and what not when they went to work for the industry.

I had one job in the forestry just outside a Metis colony, and I could never convince them they had to abide by different rules whenever they crossed over the boundary. The whole crew and contractor were the colony’s own – and they were hoping to leapfrog from working in their own area to gaining contracts for jobs farther away. Even so, they didn’t take the regulations the company crews worked under seriously.

For access to their working area, the oil company was negotiating with the regulators to construct a temporary bridge across the small river running through the colony. The requirements seemed a bit excessive, extending as far as bringing in washed gravel for the bridge abutments and taking it away afterwards. The riverbed was already gravel and it still seemed safer to use it than import some. Maybe some deadly fish virus would be clinging to the underside of a stone. I guess that possibility wasn’t in the bureaucratic mind – washing was equivalent to sterilizing. No vehicles were allowed in the water either, so we were prohibited from fording the stream even though it was very shallow.

I dutifully drove the extra thirty miles every morning to take the appalling mud trail that avoided the river. And every morning I met my crews already waiting for me. They had forded the river and travelled the short way – of course. How could I convince them not to bring the quads and trucks through the river? They’d done it every day of their lives. I eventually quit arguing and became a temporary Metis every day.

The other rule they thought stupid was the prohibition against carrying a rifle in their trucks. Again, something they had always done. “You are not allowed to hunt during the time you are working for an oil company,” I reminded them almost daily.

They’d shake their heads. “Of course not. We aren’t.”

All the separate crews carried radios at work, and I monitored the traffic to pinpoint problems they were having – that they were usually too proud to admit. Part of my job was to add the survey input to their tree cutting, but they hated to ask for help. They usually used English on air, but sometimes they’d switch languages when they didn’t want me to know what was happening. Mostly the alternate language was Cree, but not all of them were fluent in it.

Whenever the radio burst out with excited transmissions in Cree, I knew they were up to something. Because not everyone could understand everything said, or couldn’t explain themselves fluently, they would use a smattering of English in the mix. By listening carefully, I could get some idea what they were doing – miles away on the other side of the job.

“You guys are not hunting that moose, are you?”

“What moose?” would be the answer.

“The one you’re all talking about on the radio. You are not allowed to hunt while you’re at work.”

“We don’t have rifle. You told us not to.”

“I know I did – many times. So what are you going to do with it – strangle it with your bare hands?”

The answer would be laughter and witty comments – in Cree – but I could read the tone of voice. I could always pack up what I was doing and drive, or quad, over to where I suspected they were. But this was rough country and getting from one area to another was a chore, likely they would be finished, hidden, or miles away by the time I’d managed the journey. I can’t help agreeing with the Taoist dictum – the more laws promulgated, the more thieves and bandits proliferate.

My northern crews were good guys to work with – except for the problem of keeping them within the rules we had to follow. I had to count vehicles and quads every day to make sure they weren’t charging for units that were broken down or away somewhere else – but that was an old trick in the business that not only Metis tried to pull.

They were hard workers and uncomplaining – always a bonus in an environment that was often miserable due to cold weather or dangerous terrain. One day two of them and I headed far south to where the Cats were working. I was on my quad and they shared another – against the rules, but if I enforced them I’d have no crew at all. The terrain was so steep the Cats had been reduced to winching one another up and down hills in places. The trail they’d produced had to be taken at a flying run uphill, and sometimes fast downhill to keep the back wheels behind the front. I used tire chains on the front of the little Honda and they would enable the wheels to bite periodically on those huge bounces as I rushed the hills. That helped me to steer, when each bounce aimed me into a different tree or debris pile. My two crew had no such luxury, and only the option of having the passenger jump off if their quad threatened to tip. Going home at the end of the day I complained to them about being sore from the rough rides. They grinned – and then told me they’d been thrown off three times that day.

On another job I worked on a native reserve with a construction company owned by the band. The manager was a cheerful scoundrel who adroitly spanned the conceptual gap between First Nation thinking, oil companies, and the tax man. Was there a need for an annual general meeting? Nothing wrong in holding it in Las Vegas, but half the band were shareholders and how could they get there? “You could charter a plane,” I suggested. A tax write-off.

Brilliant idea. Maybe this White-eyes isn’t so dumb after all.

The foreman of the saw crews was a chief’s son, who seemed to have the idea that operations could run themselves. One day he brought out a new worker to replace a man on a short handed crew. I was told he drove to a crossroads, waved a hand toward some trees and said, “They’re that way.”

The man had been on a similar job the year before and following an old habit started walking down the trail they’d used then. I called the crew several times that afternoon to see if he’d found them, and each time they’d said no. He carried a radio, but they said they’d not heard him for a long time. No one seemed put out. “He’ll show up eventually.”

Going home time came, and still no one had seen or heard from the new man. One of the saw men was a young fellow from another band who was living on the res with his local girlfriend. He grinned at me, when I started questioning everybody for ideas how we could find our lost man. “Don’t worry, he’s an Indian. A night in the bush won’t hurt him.”

“What if he’s had an accident and needs help? I said.

Another big grin. “The wolves gotta eat too.”

I sent the men home – except for the wolf sympathizer and his partner – and set out to drive as much of a perimeter as I could – given that half of my circle had no roads or trail access. In a search and rescue operation the first task is to establish the search perimeter – the line beyond which the missing person could not have strayed. I followed a new set of access roads to oil and gas wells near the river. At each well site I’d park and call the missing man on the radio. No answers.

At the very last well site I did the same and by setting the squelch of my radio down as far as possible, was able to hear a faint reply. I wasn’t sure if it was him, but I called my other crew of guys who had started walking through the bush in the direction they thought he’d gone, and told them to keep calling him.

After an hour, the radio reply was a little stronger and I was able to tell that this was my missing man and that he was walking back along a pipeline. I phoned the company manager but he was away in town. After another hour I was able to move to another well site and keep in touch with the man who had covered a few more miles toward us. As night fell I drove to the place where a pipeline crossed the road – the pipeline I guessed the man was following. I found the manager’s truck, the quad ramps down, and his children’s nanny who told me he’d quadded off to find the man.

I told the two walking searchers to go back to their truck and go home. It was dark when the quad lights returned. The manager rode in with the missing man riding behind – looking as unconcerned as it was possible to pretend. It was very late when I got back to my motel room that night and all the restaurants were closed.

The very next morning we sent out another new man called Jason in a six-wheeled all terrain vehicle called an Argo. These machines are like plastic bathtubs on wheels, prone to mechanical problems if used roughly but otherwise valuable load carriers for the saw crews. Jason took a short cut while I went the long way by road – and he didn’t show up. We did a short search for Jason in the Argo – me all the while regretting that the classical Greek education in the reserve was too weak for anyone to get my wisecracks about Golden Fleece, and Jason’s Argo. Oh well, he showed up after an hour and claimed he’d never been lost at all. I bet the ancient Greek hero always claimed the same thing.

2007-09-16T10:06:00.000-06:00

This posting is late again. I've been crawling up and down mountains working with the landowner of a beautiful mountain ranch to mark where the new fence lines should go. The old fences wander a bit; even though I started with an offset line to avoid them we've crossed two twice. The terrain is best described as rugged. We took the quad out several days, but one place has such a steep sidehill the quad needs a crew person hanging off the uphill side to keep it from rolling down the mountain. The family and the hired man generally get about on horseback.

I must own to have been quite pathetic climbing the grades – which stop me breathless every thirty or forty feet gain in elevation. However we are almost halfway through the job – certainly in distance, and hopefully in difficulty.

Deadly Enterprise will soon be available as a paperback on Amazon. It has been available as a large print paperback from Lulu, but the cost is such in Canada that I can only sell them to the very rich. I'm yet to find out what the cost per copy will be when I order a batch directly through my publisher, but I'm very hopeful that it will be low enough I can sell a few at book signings.

If any of you have been over-awed by the Lulu price, I'm hopeful that my novel will be available from Amazon at a bargain price. Of course the e-book instant download, my publisher's primary method of operation, has the novel in many formats for $5.99. All at http://www.double-dragon-ebooks.com/single.php?ISBN=1-55404-466-9

And now to more tales from the Oil Gypsy.

OG 9

I have an earlier story here about blowing up an unexploded bomb in the Libyan Desert, and it doesn't reflect well on part-time bomb disposal teams. Actually the professionals could be quite squirrely as well.

I found three thermos mines laying on the surface . . . maybe that's not exactly true. I walked unseeing between them and Old Man Salah, my head Libyan survey helper, began waving his arms at me. Thermos mines were nasty WWII devices that became live once the Luftwaffe dropped them from an aircraft and they hit the ground. Then the trembler switches activated and merely walking past them could set them off. Obviously, the ones I found . . . or Salah found . . . had become a mite sticky in the fuse after 25 years.

So we radioed to town to have someone come out to deal with them. In due course an expert arrived, a German national who had experience with mine clearance. We chatted all the way from camp as I drove him to the mines – finding plenty of interests in common.

When we arrived at the site, I parked a short distance away and we walked over, still talking. We hardly quit jawing the whole time we stood looking at them; my expert looking at them from all directions and then crouching down to look even closer.

I don't remember quite what I was gabbing about when he reached out and gently lifted one of the mines into the air. What to do? Turn and run? Obviously flying shrapnel could travel quite a bit faster than I could. Since I was already as good as dead, I might as well carry on with my conversation. Expert raised the mine in his hands until it was above his head and scanned the underside.

I felt quite proud of keeping a stiff upper lip the whole time the mine was in the air, but I felt a lot better when he set it gently back on the ground. Nothing else was said about the mines until we were driving away. Expert looked at me and said, "I don't believe in taking chances in this business."

I don't know what I answered, but that was a motto I would have been quite pleased to see carried out.

The crew I worked on had once had a mine clearance crew attached but the oil company took it away from us when they decided we wouldn't meet very much unexploded ordnance. That was a pity as Paul, our head mine clearer, had served in the Hitler Youth in WWII as part of the crew of an anti-aircraft gun on the Russian front. He was widely experienced in treating all kinds of nasty injuries, and almost as good as having a doctor on site.

One time the crew came across a blown up ammunition truck. Actually, they drove past the strange dust-covered hump for several days before investigating it. When they found a great pile of live artillery shells lying in the wreckage they called for Paul to take care of them.

It so happened that Paul's brother-in-law was visiting him at the time and quite interested to see him in action. The artillery shells were carefully excavated and piled in a dynamite primed heap, a long firing line stretched away several hundred metres to the blasting machine, placed behind the Land Rover. Paul and his brother-in-law crouched behind the vehicle's cover and set off the explosives.

A wonderful succession of booms and blasts followed – like several 4th of July firework displays going off together. Then there was a slight pause in the explosions. In the relative silence they heard a strange thumpety thump approaching, like a one legged runner. Looking up, they saw an artillery shell bouncing across the desert toward them – a remarkably intact artillery shell, but probably one quite agitated inside.

As the shell bounced along to land beside the front tire of the Land Rover, right under their noses, the quiet time in the explosion ceased and all the shells that had had their internal fuses activated by the explosion began going off.

Bits of flying metal came whistling past and several metallic clanks sounded as the Land Rover collected a few hits. What to do? Stay behind the Land Rover with their puppy dog shell, or run away out into the open – where more shrapnel was flying? I suspect they were too frozen with alarm to do either – just lay flat until the din of explosions ended. Then they jumped in the Land Rover and dashed away before the shell reached its fuze setting.

As the tale was told, the errant shell didn't explode. It just wanted to be blown up on its own pyre, which was done as soon as the mine clearing crew's nerves settled down.

2007-09-08T18:46:00.000-06:00

Deadly Enterprise hasn’t had much promotion this week, until yesterday when I started another blitz of review sites to get more takers. The early part of the week I was busy finishing up the last of the last novel clinic, and then went out to begin the annual firewood collection. The forestry has been closed because of the drought and extreme fire hazard, so I collected a load from along the CPR track. It was harder work that usual because I couldn’t drive to the wood and had to drag it out by hand.

I spent another day on my GPS survey project for a local landowner who wants to replace two and a half miles of fences – into the mountains. I checked the location of a replacement survey corner pin that had been installed by a pipeline company’s surveyors, and after most of a day of calculating and estimating – these hundred year old surveys in the mountains were not perfect in the first place – decided they were as close as it was possible to be. It means some of his fences are not as far off as he suspected, so the next thing is to discuss the project with him.

The dogs and I surprised another bear at the beginning of the week. I never did see it, just heard it crashing away through the berry bushes. The dogs ran out into the open field barking and stood where they might get a good head start if it turned to come out after them. I continued walking to where they were, listening carefully for the location of the sounds in the brush. It didn’t come out or go away any farther, and dogs and I continued our walk.

Now for another couple of tales from Oil Gypsy, that I call --
Fun in the snow.

I worked across Deep Valley Creek, where it flows into the Simonette River, on two occasions separated by nearly twenty years. The first time I was crew surveyor, and had to lay out the line and then survey it; the second time I was catpush – in charge of overseeing the crew sent to clear the lines.

Deep Valley Creek has to receive one of the biggest snowfalls in Alberta, below tree line anyway. I say that based on my two experiences there.

In 1981 we were re-shooting an old line as well as cutting a new one. While Rudy, my chainsaw man was cutting the new handcut line across the creek, working on snowshoes, the rodman and I chained the open line we’d snowploughed with a Cat. We ended one day’s work at the end of the snowploughed line, peering over the huge pushed up snowbank into the creek below. “We’ll do that bit tomorrow morning,” I said. “Park our truck on the other side and walk across the creek to pick up the chain and carry on.”

It was a good idea, but I should have taken a tip from Rudy, who was a local guy and worked on snowshoes because he knew what to expect. We started our trek across the creek quite confidently, until we plunged off the snowbank into the undisturbed snow. It came up to our necks.

Luckily, the rodman was a strapping youngster, so I sent him ahead to break trail. We wallowed, shoved, pushed, and damn near swam through that snow for two hours to get across the half mile of creek bottom to the other side. Snow found it’s way into every gap in our clothing and melted there. We were soaking wet and the air temperature that day was about zero, but we weren’t feeling cold. We sweated like pigs.

At least we didn’t feel cold until we stepped out onto the cleared line and looked at our chain laying where we’d left it the evening before. Somehow it didn’t seem too smart for two wet and exhausted guys to set off across that creek again right away. We walked up the line and found Rudy.

He obliged us with a pile of logs high enough for a beacon to warn of invasion. A few splashes of chainsaw gas and we had a blazing fire. We stripped down to our underwear and draped all our wet clothes on branches before the fire. We hopped about in our bare feet, drying our skivvies and keeping ourselves warm as we drained water out of our snow boots and dried the linings. In a half an hour or so we were dry enough to dress again and set off to continue our chaining.

Even though we had made the crossing once, and could use our beaten path, the return was almost as exhausting as the first trip. By the time we reached the truck, we’d been at work for four hours, had chained a measly half mile and were beat. We drove back to town and told the party manager we’d go back out to work again in the morning – as long as he bought us some snowshoes.

Working on snowshoes proved a new trick to master. Rudy’s helper, an out of work truckdriver he’d hired in the bar, proved remarkably proficient at cutting into the snowshoes with his chainsaw. We had a good laugh when we found him tromping along on snowshoes repaired in several places with sticks and twine. We surveyors got to be fairly competent snowshoers after three days – we didn’t fall off into the snow anywhere near as often.

Surveying from snowshoes proved a novelty. At my first instrument setup I pushed the tripod with theodolite attached down into the snow until it met solid ground. Then I looked down at the eyepiece – on a level with my big toe – and wondered how I was going to look through the telescope. Only one way – unstrap myself from the shoes and jump off into the snow. Climbing back on at the end of the survey was another new art to learn.

We got a laugh out of the drillers when they arrived. “You’ll find a lot more snow here than the last prospect,” I told a driller’s helper as he climbed the snowbank with a permit tag to affix to a tree. “So we were told,” he answered as he stepped off the bank into the piled up snow.

“Bloody hell!” were his next words. We peered over the bank, and all we could see was his toque on top of the snow.

It must have been around 1999 when I returned with Cats to snowplough the existing lines for a new job and with a crew of Newfoundlanders as my chainsaw guys. For some reason best known to the God of Confusion, the saw contractor had teamed up two guys who despised one another. One was tall and gaunt and the other a short, fat roly-poly fellow. The only disadvantage I found as their boss was that I couldn’t understand a word they said if they broke into Newfie – an accent with only a passing acquaintance with English. But they were good and generally, uncomplaining workers.

I drove them to the far side of Deep Valley Creek and pointed them to an old handcut line crossing the valley. Telling them they had to cross on foot and clean up all the deadfall and snags as they went, I handed them a handheld radio and said I’d drive around and meet them on the other side.

Tall and Gaunt started his saw and climbed over the snowbank; Roly-poly picked up the saw gas, supplies and radio to follow. The snow seemed only waist deep where they started, but I knew it’d be a lot deeper when they reached the valley bottom.

I drove over to the place where the handcut line emerged from the creek and waited. And waited.
I called on the radio after an hour or so. I couldn’t understand Roly-poly through all the panting and Newfie. Ah, well – they were still down there and working. I could hear the saw periodically.
Another hour passed. At last, Tall and Gaunt emerged over the snowbank, dropped his saw in the back of my truck and climbed into the cab.

“Where’s your partner?”

He shrugged and jerked his thumb toward the line. “Back there, somewheres.”

We waited some more, and then I decided to call again. I had been carefully instructed in permissible radio calls for Newfies. If you don’t want to be baffled by a barrage of incomprehensible dialect, you ask, “Where you be at, boy?”

The answer to this was muffled and indistinct, but he spoke for quite awhile, even though I couldn’t understand a word. I looked at Tall and Gaunt. He shrugged.

I then asked the other allowed radio question. “What you be doin’?”

At this I received another long transmission, punctuated by panting and strange Island swearwords. I did catch the word “snow” quite a few times. It turned out that snow up to Tall and Gaunt’s armpits was way over Roly-poly’s head. He eventually emerged but averred that he’d be damned if he’d ever go back down there again.

I couldn’t argue with that. Deep Valley Creek had affected me the same way nearly twenty years before.

2007-08-23T19:21:00.000-06:00

Another tale from Oil Gypsy and a brief note on Deadly Enterprise promotions for this week.

I went to a local copy shop and had some posters made up to publicise the book and future events that I intend. I left enough space under the picture of the cover to write in whatever event I intended to publicise. I also had a paragraph about the story, a small paragraph on me as ‘Local Author’, and two quotes from reviews. My wife, who had been in advertising when we married, was impressed with the finished posters.

I have also sold two of the few copies I bought to local libraries and discussed possible dates for doing readings and book signings. The dates will also depend on my publisher making arrangements with another POD company that will offer publisher (and author) discounts on quantity orders. I won’t try to place any books in local stores until I can deal on the price. Later this Fall, he says.

I have almost finished the full novel critique I have to do for my online writing group, so am beginning to see my way to get back to online promotions. And getting postings for this blog back on schedule. Let me know if you are finding the Oil Gypsy stories interesting – I’d love to hear from you.

Chris. kwhyte2@gmail.com

OG7

Today, it seems that no one can take a lid off a jam jar without consulting some expert or other. I don’t remember our getting much expert advice when I worked in remote locations in the oilpatch – we learned from our misadventures and from the accidents to others.

I had an early lesson on the unforgiving nature of the Arctic soon after we began working there in the winter of 1970. The company chartered a light aircraft out of Inuvik, at the mouth of the Mackenzie River, to fly supplies to our two crews in the area. The crew I worked on was an hour’s flight west along the Beaufort Sea coast, while the other one was an hour north near Tuktoyaktuk The company placed an expediter in Inuvik to collect the supplies and ensure they were sent to the right crew.

I’ll call the expediter Kevin, he was from Oklahoma and had a limited experience of Canadian winters. On a fine, sunny December day, perhaps only -20 Celsius, he met the aircraft as it returned from our camp and loaded it with items for the other. He’d not visited the crews this winter, so decided to accompany the pilot for the ride.

He wore his usual town garb, sufficient for the drive between town and the airport, rubber overshoes and a parka thrown over his city clothes. The aircraft cabin was heated, and he’d be back in Inuvik in two hours.

Half way to the Tuktoyaktuk crew, they flew into a storm. They pressed on but failed to find the camp under the blowing snow of a ground blizzard. The pilot figured he was in the right place, so descended to low altitude to look for the airstrip. While they were flying in the storm, peering out through the blowing snow, they crashed into a snow covered hillside.

The pilot was the only one of the two injured in the crash, having both legs broken. Kevin, the expediter, was uninjured. But the storm raged all night and it was about noon the next day before a driver on a nearby oil company road saw the wreckage and rescued them. They were rushed to Inuvik and then flown to the University Hospital in Edmonton that had the best frostbite facility in Canada.

The pilot had been dressed for the Arctic and had mild frostbite as well as the broken legs. Kevin was different – lightly dressed, he had severe frostbite in all his extremities.

The doctors tried to save his feet, but had to amputate them to save his legs. Then they had to remove most of both legs to save his life. They tried to save his hands, but had to amputate them to save his arms. It turned out that they couldn’t save much of his arms – or his ears, or his nose.
His wife collected him to take him back to Oklahoma, what was left of him.

After that I was adamant about my crew venturing out of camp without adequate protection. We subsequently moved to a new job in the Arctic Islands, and the oil company provided a snowmobile as fast transport for any quick jobs out of camp. I would not use it myself, nor allow any of my survey crew to go out of camp on it. I was mindful of a reply given by an Innu hunter to a question why he still used a dog team instead of a snowmobile. With a long Innu history of hunters stranded alone for weeks by storms the hunter replied, “Can’t eat a snowmobile.”

People often asked me which was the most dangerous place I worked in – The Sahara Desert or the Canadian Arctic. If someone were to be wrecked and lost in the desert they could die of thirst and heat prostration in two or three days. They could be lying in a wreck in the Arctic for two or three hours and not survive.

2007-08-17T18:38:00.000-06:00

A slow week on the promotion front as I've been busy critiquing a fellow writer's novel on a crit group. I was able to sell a copy of Deadly Enterprise to the local library and so am on the way to being listed on library catalogs. So today's post has more room to reveal some of the rural eccentricities the Oil Gypsy has lived with.

OG6

The surveyor on a seismic crew in North America used to be charged with getting permission from landowners before unleashing the crew across private land. Even when companies came into existence to perform this service at a cut rate, and less competently, the surveyors still had to mediate between angry farmers and the oil company.

We worked near Smoky Lake for most of one summer, and the company had a permit man who had done most of the work, but I still needed to meet one landowner. He objected to our working past his property on the road and I had to show him where we had adjusted our operation to accommodate him. His bargaining chip, which he told without the hint of embarrassment was that he owned the public road past his house.

Never in a million years, I told him. No municipality could sell an occupied road allowance – it was hard enough to have them part with one that climbed over a mountain, crossed a lake, or was otherwise unusable. He still maintained that he was special, he was involved with a religious charity, so I was supposed to accept divine intervention. We worked past on the road anyway – his house didn't fall down, his well didn't go dry, and no one on the crew was struck down by a bolt of lightning. Not even a surveyor.

Down the road from Noah lived Farmer North, who wouldn't sign a permit for us to work cross country over his land under any circumstances. Permit man signed up his neighbour instead, and Farmer North threatened to sue the company for the geophysical information we were stealing from him under his fence. He was furious that we were able to continue by working on Farmer South's side of the fence.

He must have understood eventually that he had no legal recourse to bar seismic waves from travelling into the earth under his land. The farmer is the owner of the surface rights only in most of Western Canada, and the people of the Province collectively own everything underneath. It didn't prevent Farmer North from hooking on to a mile of our geophones and cables with his tractor – on Farmer South's land – and dragging them away. We patched the repairs, re-laid the line and did the work as planned.

Every district has it's weirdos and crazies – truly – and some are crazy enough to certify. The mistaken idea that the land belongs to them, instead of them belonging to the land – the long term view – seems to turn their minds.

I permitted some land adjacent to the Rocky Mountains so that our heliportable crew could shoot a line over the mountain and into the valley beyond. A heliportable crew travels either on foot or in the air to get over otherwise impassable terrain. The drills that make our holes in the ground to shoot the dynamite that creates the seismic shockwaves are moved in three loads underneath a helicopter. A working crew of four or five drills are set down at intervals of a hundred yards or less of the line and spend anything from a few hours to a few days grinding away into the rock.

At the end of the job, I went back from guiding the line cutting crews to permitman to take around the release forms and pay off the landowners. One landowner raised the accusation that men on our crew had used a helicopter to steal an antique car from its restingplace in a pile of brush on the land next to his. "Hooked onto it and lifted it into the sky," he said.

I was skeptical, but I had to check this out. I would have disbelieved him entirely except the owner of some of the drills was an antique car buff, and not entirely straightforward in his dealings. I was lucky in that the lessee of the land in question was a friend of mine and went with me to check for signs that might reveal where the car had been allegedly moved from. As we walked around, seeing that a collection of five or six quietly rotting wrecks was still in place where they'd been abandoned in the 1930s, I learned why my friend was dead set on determining that no car had been stolen.

The owner of the land had taken a rifle to a pipeline crew when they arrived to lay a major pipeline across the mountains. Moreover he'd also declared war on his neighbours who had been so treacherous as to sign agreements with the company, and threatened to shoot them all. The RCMP came to quietly subdue and disarm him. At the time of this story he was certified and housed in Regina, with an injunction against his ever returning to the family homestead. My friend Mike said, "Even if a car is stolen, I don't want S to find out. He'll be back to make war on everyone again."

The cars were all there, although definitely a magnet for antique car buffs. As far as I know they are all still resting peacefully in their tangles of brush. I should be going past that land later this year; maybe I'll go and look at them again. I think S has passed away.

One winter working around Highway 22 north of Calgary, my brush clearing crew were local farmers. There wasn't a lot of cutting, but just off the foothills, each line had clumps of brush in every field. When the permitman came back with the permit and a story from one landowner visit, things looked to become exciting. It seems the man was the local eccentric who had set his own barn afire while drunk and then ordered a posse of neighbours who had come to help off his land at the point of a shotgun. Permitman reported that this honorable citizen had no less that two loaded rifles stashed around his livingroom, and never got more than a hand-stretch from either as long as they were in the room. Bill, my local farmer brush cutter declared that there'd better be no brush to cut on this guy's land or he'd desert.

When we got to the land, there was brush to cut, in two places. I set up my theodolite at the farm gate and was able to see past both patches to the next hilltop. Bill looked unhappy, but plucked up courage to go after the first patch. "I that crazy s.o.b. comes after me, I'm getting out."

I stood on my vantage point and guided them to place line marking stakes across the field toward the first obstacle. Things started well. Then a VW Beetle zoomed out of the farmyard and bounced across the field toward them. Oh, no. Now what was going to happen?

The Beetle skidded to a halt in a cloud of dust. The driver's door swung open, but no one got out. I watched through the theodolite telescope as Bill gingerly approached the car. A voluble discussion ensued with much waving of hands and pointing, but it was much too far away for me to hear anything. After several minutes the door slammed shut and the car sped away – leaving my crew still standing. It was an hour before the stretch of line was clear and I could rejoin them at the top of the next hill.

"What did crazy want?" I asked.

"Oh, he was mad about a plane. He asked if I'd seen the registration on a low flying trainer, because we wanted to phone and report it." Bill hadn't noticed any plane, and neither had I. Good job farmers can't buy shoulder launched guided missiles.

2007-08-11T16:23:00.000-06:00

Books in my hands.

Hi All:

I received my order of six copies of my novel Deadly Enterprise this past week. Not enough to act as my own distributor and costly enough I'm not sure where to give them away. Some review sites will only accept printed copies to review, but which ones are worth the investment? Now comes the promotion aspect of being a writer and I'm still mulling over how best to go about it.

My local writing group want me to do a reading and book signing at a local library, and some date in September is best for them. I have to take my wife to town next week for blood tests at our nearest town in the other direction, so I'll try to arrange an appointment with the librarian there and ask her advice. No booksellers around here for miles, and I need a different printer if I want to put books and a big poster – "Local Author", picture of the cover, etc etc – in some friendly outlets on consignment.

I was notified that the first review of the novel had been done for TCM Reviews http://tcm-ca.com/index.html but it's not posted on the site yet. I'll check to see when it's going up. So far I have the kind words of Lea Schizas, who runs the Muse Online sites (check the next free conference details at http://www.freewebs.com/themuseonlinewritersconference/) as my best quote:–
"Gisel's character is so refreshing, not only because she is a woman and can defend herself, but the situations she finds herself in and how she eludes the enemy, well, you just have to read to understand why I loved this novel."

I finally made it to a different computer this week and signed up Gisel on Facebook. So my protagonist has her own page there, with her network as Toronto (the largest in terms of membership). I will get back to advertising the book on the site next week – this time I'll splurge and pay for exposure. Gotta drive those readers to look and buy. Word of mouth is the most sincere form of advertising, so Gisel and her accompanying characters have to make friends with enough readers that the word goes out in reader-land.

Now for the light entertainment:–

Oil Gypsy – episode five.

I doubt if any oil exploration crews have worked on the Canadian muskeg for twenty years. In the past, they used to work on tracks every summer. Canada then had several manufacturers of muskeg vehicles, including Nodwell and Flextrac. I've used both in the Arctic to travel over snow. They are large cab-forward trucks that look like tanks, on wide rubber tracks running over lots of rubber tired wheels.

Perhaps you're not familiar with muskeg. The last ice age left millions of scooped out holes in the northern bush that filled with water. Over thousands of years plants have slowly invaded these ponds and lakes and built mats of floating vegetation across them, bound together by tendrils of sphagnum moss. I've worked on them in winter, when the surface is frozen, and they can hold up trucks and tracked dozers over thirty tons in weight. You can drive on them if you don't mind the surface undulating beneath you like the skin of a waterbed. If the vehicle breaks through – you have to hope it's not deep.

In summer time, the Nodwells crawled over and through these swamps of floating muskeg like alligators pulling themselves out of a swamp, leaving huge scars in the surface behind them. That's the reason no one does it any more.

Crews roughed it in those days. No air conditioned trailers and hot showers – they lived in tents. They were generally isolated for weeks, since even a ten mile trip to civilization could take three hours at Nodwell speed, and evening relaxation consisted of sitting outside the kitchen tent amid the mosquitos, yarning and drinking beer. And on every crew, someone would have a dog.

Dogs didn't mind the hardship, the mud, and the strong tea-coloured water, stained with the tannin from the sphagnum – it was all great fun to a dog. Especially chasing bears that wandered periodically into camp to investigate the garbage dump. Mostly the bears were blacks, who would generally prefer to run off than get into a fight.

Not all blacks would run. One evening on PM's crew (PM standing for party manager, who told me this tale) a small group of guys sat drinking and chatting when a new bear arrived. The dog launched into his act – running at the bear, barking and growling. The guys laughed at the antics, especially a French engineer out from head office on a visit. Better than a reality show. But this bear didn't want five minutes of fame on camera – he turned and growled even louder – putting the run on the dog.

Now, where would a frightened dog – tail between his legs – run for safety? You guessed it – right behind all those big tough guys.

The party broke up rapidly as bear and dog arrived. The nearest cover was a Nodwell parked nearby where the mechanics had been repairing it. Half a dozen men took cover behind it.

Left alone amid the spilled beer cans and upended chairs, the dog ran after his unwilling protectors – and the bear followed. Within a few seconds, a race developed around the Nodwell, the dog easily in the lead and the bear, who couldn't make turns very gracefully, in the rear. The guys who made up the pack in between jostled and hoofed it in order not to be last but one.

Each guy in turn put on a sprint for the lead, in hopes of gaining enough distance they could leave the race and find safety elsewhere. Usually the dog would get under their feet and slow the whole procession. PM was lucky enough to find a clear stretch on about lap five that he could peel off and make it to camp. That left five guys and the even angrier bear in the race.

The French engineer took a chance as he came past the cab again, to leap onto the track and dive through the open door. Not wanting to invite bear in behind him, he leaned out to yank the door closed. Pity he wasn't more familiar with Nodwells, as the door had been latched open and his frantic heave almost pulled him out into the bear's path. A horrified yell signaled they'd come nose to nose. Luckily for the engineer, the roof hatch of the Nodwell (the escape hatch for sinking crew members) was also latched open and so he reversed direction and flew through it like a Space shuttle leaving the ground.

When PM got back to the scene with the camp rifle, three men were perched on the cab roof and two more were hiding among the tents. The dog and bear were on lap twenty-two and dog was beginning to panic. As he scampered around the rear of the machine he escaped by diving under the rear differential.

Bear saw where he went and tried to follow. Being a lot bigger than the dog, he didn't fit. His head hit the steel case with a loud clang. First time in his life something hadn't given way for him – bear fell down with a thump. As he rolled over, PM said he could visualize the cloud of stars orbiting bear's head like a cartoon drawing. He didn't shoot. He just watched him stagger erect, put one massive paw to his head, and totter away into the bush.

2007-08-02T10:22:00.000-06:00

Hi All:

I’ve ordered a few POD copies of Deadly Enterprise, but they’ve not arrived yet. To order the large print paperback off the Double Dragon website (at http://www.double-dragon-ebooks.com/single.php?ISBN=1-55404-466-9 ) you need to click on the link at the top right hand corner of the page. BTW, large print doesn’t mean the almost Braille copies produced for the vision impaired – these are 14 pt that are easier to read than the ‘cram in as much print as possible to save cost’ PODs that some others sell.

I will have a new review of Deadly Enterprise appear, tomorrow the reviewer thinks. Eugen Bacon reviewed the novel at TCM Reviews http://www.tcm-ca.com/ for me. She and E. Don Harpe have an exceptional story in Twisted Tales II, volume 2 from Double Dragon.

I’ll remind you of the other sites that have posted promotions for my novel release.
My interview with Rachael Byrd is at http://www.xanga.com/rachaelbyrd
My interview with Cheryl Maladrinos is at -- http://aspiringauthor.blogspot.com/2007/06/meet-author-christopher-hoare.html
Novelspot has a great resource page for me at http://novelspot.net/node/1733

So now it’s on to the latest tale from Oil Gypsy.

We had plenty of trouble from white-outs and ground blizzards in the Arctic Islands when I worked there. Ground blizzards consisted of all the snow picked up by strong winds into a blinding storm; as distinct from a regular blizzard of fresh snow coming down on the wind. The Arctic wasn’t short of winds, but snow was actually scarce – the place is properly called an ice-desert – and the little that fell was blown back and forth all winter until it took refuge in some gully.

White-outs are more bizarre, the air fills with minute ice crystals to make a white fog. The white ground and the white sky merge into a single continuum that allows no perception of depth and barely a sense of up or down. When traveling under those conditions I was always on the lookout for steep drop-offs, which in the varied places we worked could be as little as ten feet or several hundred. I fitted my tracked survey unit with a halogen spotlight mounted in a swivelling tractor mount beside the roof hatch. In white-outs I pointed the lamp at the ground just in front of the tracks and watched the faint spot like a hawk as I drove. If the spot vanished it meant the ground had fallen away.

I would climb down from the cab to check what was ahead, feeling like a swimmer in a tank of cottonwool. I’d take baby steps forward to try to distinguish an edge beside my foot. Snow sculpted into a cornice creates a faint shadow outline against the empty space below it. I’ve even crawled on hands and knees if I suspected I could be at the top of a big cliff. It was always safest to inspect even a shallow depression before driving off the edge into it.

One morning I ran into trouble when climbing upwards. I had been surveying in an ice fog, a strange experience having the accurately leveled instrument tell you that the completely contourless fog in front of you is actually a moderate slope. The rodman had faded into the distance, turned to see I had vanished, and returned to give me a shot on the last visible terrain. I took my turn there, packed up the instrument into the Nodwell and climbed in to drive forward to a new set-up spot.

I knew the ground was uneven, a group of gullies fingered out of the hillside toward Satellite Bay on Prince Patrick Island. I nosed into what appeared to be the widest of these and then aimed at the slope in front of me, judging that I was aimed perpendicularly up the slope. It was a steep climb but all started off well. Then the Nodwell tilted to one side, the tracks lost their grip and the machine tobogganed sideways. At this point I still couldn’t distinguish the ground clearly – it felt like falling in an out-of-control plane.

Machine and I slid sideways about twenty feet before hitting the bottom. It lurched heavily but didn’t tip. I climbed out and the rodman appeared at the top of the slope, peering down. The scuff marks on the hill showed I had started up fairly well but then driven sideways off the spur I’d been climbing. I realized I had a completely mistaken idea of where I was going in the fog. But I wasn’t going any further – two wheels had been smashed and a track partly torn off. We walked back to camp.

Some of our guys had worse experiences in the Arctic. A rodman of mine had one that was a split second from becoming fatal.

I was at time off when the crew finished work on Brock Island and needed to move to the next job on Eglinton Island. Most moves at that time were done by air – load all the equipment into Hercs and make 15 or 20 trips needed to convey everything to the airstrip cleared on the next island. On this occasion they didn’t have the strip prepared and decided I could lead everyone over the sea ice and islands between to our new jobsite when I got back from the city.

It actually worked quite well, but I mustn’t get ahead of the story. While they were waiting for my return, the rodman, Don, made a couple of simple sun compasses of the pattern I had sometimes used in the Libyan Desert and he and the helicopter pilot decided they would begin the move by getting the survey Nodwells across Ballantyne Strait to Prince Patrick Island, about 50 miles away.

Don drove my Nodwell across over the sea ice one fine day and parked the machine on the low sand cliffs before being flown back to camp in the Jet Ranger. The weather closed in for a couple of days but on the next fine day they decided they’d better fly a barrel of fuel across to refill my Nodwell’s tanks. You don’t want a big diesel running out of fuel and stopping in minus 40 or 50 weather.

By this time there were several empty fuel drums out on the strait because the pilot had set them to mark the route that Don had taken to Prince Patrick. They flew over with the full drum slung underneath and the pilot set it down beside the Nodwell. Then he moved away enough to land on the cliff beside it. As Don climbed out the pilot, who had been watching the weather, said, “Better be quick – there’s a white-out building up.”

Don cranked the hand pump as fast as he could but long before the drum was dry, the pilot shouted and gestured. “Better get in, or I leave you here.”

If that seems a bit harsh, you might be interested to know that the Jet Ranger wasn’t licensed to fly on instruments. The pilot needed to have a clear view of the horizon and ground to keep flying straight. If it was eerie walking in a white-out and not being sure where the ground was, it was damned scary in a helicopter.

The pilot took off with his eyes on the approaching cloud of ice fog and dashed off in the direction of camp less than a hundred feet above the ice. They flew fast into the cloud, always picking the thinner fog where they could still peer down at the sculpted sea ice below.

Then, as Don told me later, he looked up out of a higher part of the windshield to see an oil drum floating in the air above them. That was weird. He pointed it out to the pilot. The man shrieked and hauled on the controls. The helicopter swerved and rolled . . . and the oil drum sank back below them where it was supposed to be. They had been flying almost upside down and diving at the ice.

Oh, yes. Those white-outs can kill you.

2007-07-24T19:15:00.000-06:00

Before I get to my latest Oil Gypsy post I must tell you about all my promotions for my novel Deadly Enterprise.

I have blog interviews up at Rachael Byrd’s site www.xanga.com/rachaelbyrd as well as on Novelspot at http://novelspot.net/node/1733 .
Actually my Novelspot interview is on the front page right now. I did have another but I’m going to have to send a note to the blog owner to find out the link to it.

I am on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=668091003 and I’m in the process of getting Gisel a page there. (I will need to get a gadget to connect my old laptop to my cable modem, so I can use a different computer for her. The site doesn’t believe me if I try to log on as her with the same computer I’m on.)

I’ve joined some more Internet sites to meet readers and others in the writing trade.
Both myself http://profile.myspace.com/198285372 and my main protagonist (Gisel http://profile.myspace.com/215889756 ) are on Myspace.

I’m on Book Place http://morganmandelbooks.ning.com/profile/w1r2i3t4e5r6 ;
Alternate Realities http://alreal.ning.com/profile/w1r2i3t4e5r6 ;
Nothing Binding http://www.nothingbinding.com/node/460 ;
Double Dragons’ Yahoo Group
http://ca.groups.yahoo.com/group/DoubleDragonPublishing_MeetTheAuthors/ ;
Zumaya Publications http://zumayapublications.ning.com/profile/w1r2i3t4e5r6 ;
Xanga http://www.xanga.com/private/yourhome.aspx ;
Bebo http://www.bebo.com/Chriskander ; and
Shelfari http://www.shelfari.com/Chriskander .

The last two are giving a few problems as I’m still sorting out how to make my site display Deadly Enterprise. Scratch that last, as I just received another helpful note from Lupita at Bebo’s customer service which has solved the problem. Still waiting to hear from Shelfari.

Mustn’t forget my original blogsite http://www.serial-adventure-fiction.blogspot.com and my website http://www.christopherhoare.ca The website isn’t updated yet, so I’m posting my news and promotions on the blog – as well as the Oil Gypsy excerpts, like the one following.

I can also be found on the Muse Book Reviews http://themusebookreviews.tripod.com/ , where I can be contacted to review your speculative fiction novel.

Whew! You can see I’ve been busy.

********

More from Oil Gypsy:

The PM of the Night Drive to Gialo got me into other troubles as well. The areas we often worked in had been fought over by the British, Germans, and Italians just 25 years before during the Second World War. One of my jobs as the surveyor who laid out the lines for others to follow was to watch out for mines and unexploded ordnance.

Our oil company client had provided a mine clearance crew when we worked farther north, but didn’t consider this area dangerous enough to warrant the expense. We were working in the area where the British Long Range Desert Group used to slip past the fighting formations to spy in the rear, and they sometimes tangled with the Luftwaffe or the Regia Aeronautica on their journeys.

We had found some wreckage from the war on previous jobs, a blown up LRDG truck, a crashed Sparviero, and the back half of a three tonner that we’d turned into a generator trailer. We also found unexploded bombs that the Italian bombers had dropped on fleeing trucks. We could have written a quality control report of the Italian munitions factories, because we generally found three craters to every unexploded bomb – a 25% failure rate. But these bombs were still live and dangerous if you messed with them.

We were lucky enough to have Luigi working on our crew. He had formerly operated his own mine clearance contract company around Tobruk and El Adem – places where several battles had been fought and three armies had buried mines and forgotten where they were. He and I worked out a routine to blow up any unexploded bombs that I found.

The book method was to use an explosive charge and a very long firing line. A quarter of a mile is a bit too close unless you can get under cover. We operated a vibroseis crew and had no explosives, caps, or firing line – so Luigi improvised.

I was designated driver, while he did the bomb end. I just had to park the Land Rover close enough to the bomb and with a clear route to get away when the time came, making sure the motor was idling smoothly and not likely to quit when we most needed it. He would clear a space around the bomb, cover it with charcoal, pour gas over it and make a gasoline trail to the passenger door of the Land Rover. When everything had been put away and the coast seemed clear he would drop a lighted match onto the trail and shout, “Let’s go, God Almighty!”

And I would drive away as fast as the terrain would permit until we reached a vantage point about a mile away where we’d sit and watch for the explosion. When the fire heated the bomb casing enough, the explosive would go off. It might take fifteen minutes or three times that, we just never knew.

And a mile away wasn’t always far enough. One day we both ducked when a piece of shrapnel whistled past, then sat up sheepishly. It’s too late to duck when you hear it – it could have already hit you.

On this particular occasion I discovered a bomb on the line the day Luigi went out on the plane for a week off. PM said, “Not to worry. I’ll come along to help you blow it.”

Firstly, he decided to drive and when we got to the bomb parked us the wrong way around facing a pile of rocks. Then he got out and walked to the bomb. Now wasn’t the time for Introductory Bomb Disposal, lesson one, but that’s what he expected. I think he listened to half of what I told him.

Next he bent down to scoop enough sand away from the bomb that we had enough exposed metal to pile our charcoal over. His hands were shaking so much that I had to do the scooping. I became concerned he might frighten the bomb. I left him with the charcoal and gas can, saying, “Don’t light anything until I’ve moved the Land Rover into the right position and we’re ready to go.”

He might have heard.

I maneuvered the Land Rover into the position we needed for a quick getaway, and then began reversing to get closer. I looked out the back window to see our fire over the bomb blazing merrily and PM hoofing it toward me with the gas can in one hand and a face like the target of a firing squad. I stomped on both pedals – brake and clutch – before running him over. He flung open the back door and tossed the gas can inside. “Let’s get out of here!”

He dived in through the passenger door and I revved and lifted the clutch before he’d finished closing it. We zoomed into motion – backwards toward the bomb. In all the excitement I hadn’t shifted out of reverse.

I stomped both feet on the pedals again. Grabbed the gear shift and muscled it from reverse to first gear. There was a strange limp feeling as the lever came off in my hand. PM stared – his eyes grew as round as saucers. He dived for the door handle to run for it. I revved the motor one more time and tried the clutch.

We lurched forward. Yep – the forks had gone into first gear before the lever broke off. You would never believe how fast a Land Rover can go in first gear – with a bomb behind it, anyway.
We buzzed away over the rocks and loose sand like a frantic chainsaw. I drove away up the hill to a vantage point – and passed another unexploded bomb sticking out of the ground as we went. I asked PM if he’d like to destroy this one as well, but he elected to wait for Luigi to come back.

That wasn’t the end of the story. It flew all around the desert and towns until I’m sure everyone in the country heard about the two idiots and the bomb. I had guys tell the story to me when I was in town. I found the variety of outcomes in these stories astounding. In some versions the bomb blew up under the Land Rover and killed them. In others it only pitched the vehicle onto its roof and they climbed out unhurt. In fact I think I heard every variation except the actual account what had happened.

I even ventured to correct some of these raconteurs with the eye-witness story, but nobody was ever impressed. They much preferred their own versions.

2007-07-18T10:49:00.000-06:00

DEADLY ENTERPRISE IS RELEASED

The link to the novel’s page on Double Dragon Publishing is http://www.double-dragon-ebooks.com/single.php?ISBN=1-55404-466-9

The cover shows the protagonist firing at an enemy off-scene – a striking action that should attract the attention of browsers. I wrote a new blurb for the back cover and the web page and will paste it here.

Gisel Matah is the Iskanders’ top agent, but often her commanders' chief pain in the neck. Sometimes passionate, sometimes tough, sometimes acerbic, she's clever and always ready to twist their intentions to meet circumstances as she sees them.

Escorting young Yohan Felger across a haunt of outlaws to an enemy city was already a daunting task, but when her commanders changed her mission to include sounding out the leaders to switch sides it became a Deadly Enterprise.

On Gaia, an alternate Earth, the crew of the lost starship Iskander find themselves working for and against the inhabitants of a different 17th Century Europe. Building themselves a place in this world by promoting social change and an Industrial Revolution, they become enemies of the Trigons – also marooned star travelers, who now rule the Empire. But an enemy can be defeated with humanity when the person in charge is a rebel at heart.

And now on to the second half of the oilpatch story I posted last week.

Continuation of night drive to Gialo.

The oilfield warehouse was silent and in darkness when we arrived. No idiots here driving around the desert in the dead of night. It consisted of large hangar-like sheds, metal warehouse buildings, and a trailer park of sleeping quarters. We banged on doors until we woke up enough people that one could tell us where our guy was.

"He's not here. The plane landed at the Amoseas strip and they left him there."

Great. The Amoseas strip was closer to our camp, but in the other direction.

Our informant hadn't finished. "We'll divert our plane there in the morning and ferry him over to you."

How fortunate. They couldn't ferry us and the Powerwagon at the same time? Not possible. PM pronounced the verdict. "We'll have to drive back in time for work in the morning. Can't have them wasting any time wondering where we are."

Hell no. Wouldn't want to waste anyone's time.

I made sure I drove, not wanting to tangle with those oases again in the dark. It should be possible to make a wide swing around to the east and north so I could miss them entirely. No tracks to follow. We carried no map, other than the vague one in my head. And since I could only guess where we were in the darkness, I'd need a sixth sense.

Not to worry, the desert between Gicherra and camp had water closer to the surface and was quite distinctive with clumps of bush and the occasional palm trees. The desert I was intending to travel on was nothing but a bare gravel plain. If I could make a wide circle to get into the vegetated area we should be able to see the lights on the top of our camp radio antenna – set there to guide travelers at night.

First I drove northeast along a firm gravel ridge, bowling along at a good 80kph – great going for the desert. After driving for a while we could see the occasional house light from the oasis to our left – our western horizon if it had been morning and we could see one. Fine – exactly on course. Keep going like this for another half an hour.

When PM thought he'd like to take a turn at driving we'd left these lights far behind. We stopped to change places and looked about us. Nothing – pitch black in every direction. PM didn't like it – nothing like the city – but that was exactly what I'd intended. There were a good display of lights above – I pointed out the Pole Star and said we should follow it for half an hour.

We motored away, following the star, shy of a third to make us wise men, while I tried to plot dead reckoning maps in my head. The tricky part was to judge when we were clear of Gicherra and could turn west. We were just getting close to my guess for that point when PM spotted another light to the north of us.

A few rolling hills were next, and from the top of one I saw the new light as well. It wasn't in the sky – it was a camp light on the top of a radio antenna.

PM was jubilant. All his suspicions that I was a jackass who had got us both lost in the trackless wastes of the Libyan Desert evaporated. "There's our camp. You hit it right on the nose!"

It was nice of him to be so kind after all the night's bickering, but the more I saw of the light the more certain I was it couldn't be our camp. Not unless it had come loose of the ground a drifted tens of miles to the east in the night. But there was no way I could shake PM's pursuit of the beckoning light once he had it in his eyes. He wouldn't listen to any more of my navigating.

"Even if it's not our camp," he said after more of my argument. "They'll be able to tell us where we are."

Yeah – in the wrong place.

The terrain changed under our wheels again. We had left the firm gravel behind and this was getting more and more sandy, harder going that meant we had to grind along in third gear. The smooth gravel plain gave way to successions of rolling hills where we swooped up and down from one to the next.

I sat there puzzling where these rolling hills could be. I'd never seen this area before. Every time we swooped down into a valley PM lost sight of his light, and worried about it until he found it from the top of the next crest.

"I don't think we're getting any closer," I said at one of these summits. We could have spotted that camp light from a hundred miles away in the clear desert air.

In one wider valley we lost sight of PM's light for several miles. He speeded up as much as he could in the softer sand – maybe to catch it before it could wink out. Then our headlights – those insignificant glimmers before halogen lights – picked out a huge ghostly wall before us. The slip face of a sand dune about a hundred feet high. PM swung left to try to go around it and we dived off a smaller dune in the darkness. PM was not about to stop – he circled around inside a ring of sand dunes like a bug running in a tin plate. Every time he tried to turn north another dune thwarted him.

This could get dangerous. Flying off the side of a dune in the dark was not my idea of a ride, but the more frustrated PM got, the faster he drove.

"Hold it! Hold it!" I finally shouted loud enough for him to listen. "We don't need to reach that camp to find out where we are. We're in the Sand Sea of Calascano – it stretches all the way to Egypt – and if we have an accident here they'll never find us. We are too far off route."

The last got to him and he stopped. "What should we do?"

"We have to stay put until daylight. No way we can find a way out in the dark."

"Can you find a way out?"

"Sure. When I'm sure I'm not going to pitch off the side of a dune upside down"

So we hunkered down in the cab – tired enough we both slept until first light. In the growing daylight we found we were between two great chains of sand dunes stretching north and south around us. The camp whose light we had chased for miles was most likely outside the Sand Sea to the north. I took over driving and headed back south. After a few miles I found a gap between two dunes to our west that I could drive through and escape.

I continued going west, the countryside becoming flatter and rockier with the occasional palm tree and clump of brush. By dawn I found the road out of Gicherra stretched across in front of us and turned to follow it.

We arrived at camp just after the crew'd finished breakfast. The mechanics had just loaded up their Powerwagon to come and look for us.

It's always a blow to the pride if you get lost, and the natural reaction is to get angrier and go faster. But the rescue party will have a hell of a job if you're off the route they expect you to follow. Best to stop, and stay with your vehicle if you don't know which way to go. It's a lot bigger and easier to spot from the air than you are on foot.

2007-07-11T16:18:00.000-06:00

Deadly Enterprise will be released next week.

Resuming my promotion activity I decided to post some oilpatch stories -- some funny, some thrilling -- from a book of mine called Oil Gipsy, that was never published. I've rewritten some of the stories from the somewhat pedantic style I had twenty years ago, and I intend to post one a week to my various sites on the Internet. Here, on Book Place, on Facebook, MySpace, and a few other sites. This is the first.

As an oilpatch surveyor, one of my jobs was to mark the route to the locations where we were working, which might be out of a remote town, a desert oasis, or an Arctic island. I started learning how to navigate in trackless wastes in the 1960s, in the Libyan Desert – a northern patch of the great Sahara – and I did it by driving in dead-reckoning straight lines. As much as possible.

An aside here – Sa'hara is the Arabic word for desert, so Sahara Desert is actually . . . well, you've guessed it.

One day in Libya our supply plane had been unable to land at camp because of a local sandstorm, and one of the crew members aboard was needed for work the next day. Our Party Manager figured the plane had probably dropped him off at the nearest oilfield strip, about three hours drive away. He also figured I'd like nothing better after work but to drive over – half the night – to go and fetch him. Since I didn't express a great deal of enthusiasm, he said he'd come along with me, for the ride.

He took the first driving shift, the daylight bit, after supper and started off in my survey Powerwagon with a great smile on his face. We headed down a desert trail to Gicherra, an oasis where most of our Libyan employees came from. No town planning in the desert; Gicherra was a maze of date palms, mud brick houses, rock walled fields, and dusty tracks wending between them. Probably still is.

PM drove happily into the oasis and we began following dusty trails all over the place, looking for the road out. Half the tracks he started down ended at a stone wall or a palm tree. The more he failed to find the road he wanted, the faster he drove. The dust cloud from our passage grew higher and higher. Pretty soon every track we started down bore a fog of fine yellow dust. When I recognized seeing the same broken down donkey cart beside a wall we'd seen several times before, I suggested we might be lost.

He decided to stop beside a group of small boys to ask directions.

If you know small towns, you'll soon realize that our Grand Prix de Gicherra was the most excitement to hit the place in months. PM should have realized this when in answer to his question, "Which way to Gialo?" each of the lads pointed in a different direction.

Instead, he said, "Climb on and show me."

Ours was an old style Powerwagon, with real fenders, running boards, and a stake-bed box. Every inch of space was soon filled with more small boys than you could imagine. Looking out the side windows presented a wall to wall image of dirty faces and gap-teeth grins. We could only see straight ahead because none of them had climbed onto the hood – it was probably too hot. Several hands waved in the windshield, pointing in different directions. PM looked at one of them and set off.

Lap two was even more exciting, because these lads knew far more trails than we had found. We bounced away over ruts and gullies, covered with excited, chattering passengers who lurched and clung tighter with every bump. This time we saw more groves of palm trees, more crumbling walls, more forks in the trail, more shuttered houses, than ever before. Every time we came to a split in the trail loud arguments would ensue as every passenger pointed out his own best option.

"Mist'r. Mist'r. Hekk'i – that way."

Mist'r. Mist'r. Henn'a – this way."

Old men would emerge from dimly seen houses, roused by the confusion and noise, to point in yet another direction.

At times we would speed away out into less habitable and more open regions, but each time some urchin would point out a trail that brought us back again. Several of these excursions seemed to me promising starts of a trail that might take us to open desert, but I was only the passenger. Who was listening to me?

Eventually we went past a certain house for the tenth time and even PM realized he'd seen it before. By this time some of our riders were becoming seasick, or perhaps had their eyes sealed tight by all the dust we were kicking up – so when he stopped at least half of them got off and wobbled away. Taking stock of the guides remaining, PM decided which of them had been more consistent – not that any of them had succeeded in showing us the way out – and told them he would follow their directions. Thus blessed with new authority and status these chosen few rode off grandly with us on lap three, with waves, catcalls and rude remarks to those dejectedly watching from the sidelines.

This time, with fewer conflicting directions, we soon found ourselves on tracks that didn't already bear our tire marks. We had only one guide on each running board, none sitting on the fenders, and perhaps no more than half a dozen in the back to pound on the cab roof and slide forward to peer at us upside down through the windshield. We emerged from all the houses and date palms into an open area of scrub brush. We even followed a trail that looked as if it might lead somewhere. With a promise of open desert before us, we stopped to let off our guides, all laughing gaily and waving the bottles of pop we'd rewarded them with. As they turned away to walk back to Gicherra, we set out on our own again.

After a few miles of circuitous wandering our trail set off in the direction of Egypt. Exactly where we didn't want to go. We stopped on a low rise and climbed into the back to take our bearings. PM was all for driving back to Gicherra to find another trail, but night was falling, so after a short, sharp argument we changed places and I set out across country.

As I mentioned earlier, my favoured method was to aim straight at where I judged my destination to be and hold to that line until I got there. I didn't exactly know where we were starting, except some distance east of Gicherra, and the destination was over the horizon somewhere to the southeast – but I was confident I would be able to find my way there. The only problem would be the oasis of El Erg, that lay somewhere unseen between us.

I held my straight line with ever increasing determination until, at nightfall, we drew closer to the last oasis. The straight line had to give way to detours around palm groves, thickets, and groups of houses. This oasis had the added attraction of patches of salt marsh, that were best avoided if we weren't to become bogged down with our smooth sand tires. But I estimated the extent of each detour and recovered my line at the end of them all. To answer PM's grumbling I even followed trails that appeared mysteriously under our wheels – at least until they diverged too far from the mental line I followed.

In the pitch darkness we found ourselves in the middle of a wide open area of incredibly rough terrain. The Powerwagon headlights were not powerful enough to reveal what was on the other side. On the horizon about us fitful lights would show briefly from distant habitation. PM considered these to be lighthouses calling us toward pleasant refuges. I figured they were more likely to be Sirens, luring us to our doom among mazes of oasis tracks. In bottom gear, clinging on tightly as we were flung about by the hummocks, we ground slowly on into the darkness.

Eventually a line of ghostly palm trees showed up in the farthest faintness of our headlights. We lurched and bounced with incredible toil toward them, Powerwagon groaning and stinking with hot oil and all the collected dust shaken out of its grooves and interstices. As we neared the end, the ground became smooth enough for second gear. I peered forward for any glimpse of a break in the trees wide enough for us to squeeze into.

I took the nearest and even shifted up – we were off again. Sort of. The trees proved to be as big an obstacle as the rough terrain because every time I found my chosen direction the trees would bunch together and send me off on another detour. Winding to and fro between the trees to find a passage we finally met a travelled trail – and houses. Judging by all the closely huddled buildings, this must be the middle of the village. PM was all for stopping to ask directions, but I suggested it might not be a good idea to pound on someone's door in the middle of the night calling out in broken Arabic. I'd prefer to take my chances with trails that wended somewhat in the direction I wanted.

After more and more oasis travel the trails became dustier, wider, more rutted and more heavily used. We emerged from the trees into the wide open space around the decrepit buildings that owned to be the Gialo gas station. There was only open desert now between us and our destination, and the crazily leaning gas station sign waved us goodbye. Only another hour of travel – we would arrive at midnight . . .

2007-07-06T19:10:00.000-06:00

A funny thing happened on my way to publication.

Not rib tickling funny, because it has upset my buildup toward the publication date for Deadly Enterprise. Everything seemed ready at the end of June for the novel's release, but the publisher wasn't able to complete the cover work before leaving on a trip. The promise is now for it to be the first work finished around the 15th of July.

I hadn't updated this blog for more than a month in the expectation I would soon be posting a release announcement. So you can take this as a non-release announcement. I really will post a new blog page next time, with the link to the novel as soon as I learn that it's up.

I had a blog interview with Cheryl Maladrinos posted on her site on June 26th at http://aspiringauthor.blogspot.com/2007/06/meet-author-christopher-hoare.html
She asked some good ‘stretching' kind of questions that made me come clean on writing triumphs and disasters of the past. Missing a publication date is by no means the worst experience of my writing history.

On the rest of the writing front . . .
I've added a blog entry to my Zumaya Publications page on Ning. http://zumayapublications.ning.com/profile/w1r2i3t4e5r6 The site is a new one for Zumaya authors and readers to meet, and I'm there because of my fantasy novel "Rast" that is signed for publication next year.

The blog is an exploration into the work needed before our space heroes can zoom about on new planets without getting lost. It's an aspect of reality that most SF authors gloss over, probably because not many of them are surveyors . . . and because all these epic creators would probably be the first people to get lost if they were to join their characters in the plot. It's titled "Space Adventurer crashes on Re-entry". Go and take a look at it.

I completed my horror story for the next Twisted Tales anthology at Double Dragon and sent it off to the editor. No reply yet – I hope it didn't give him a heart attack. Never tried writing horror before, but my local writing group declared it thoroughly nasty – in the way horror is supposed to be – and it gave me the creeps, so I'm hoping it'll make the grade.

Not sure how many more of my blogs and pages I will be able to bring up to date this week. I was asked to dig out my old survey equipment to mark a fence line location for someone (for money, so I can't put it aside.) I spent half of one day out GPS-ing some survey evidence and will be out again tomorrow. Will be fighting off the biting deer flies and sweltering in the hottest days of the year tomorrow. The things I have to do to finance my writing habit.

2007-05-27T17:12:00.001-06:00

My novel will be ready soon.

Waiting for my editor to send proofs of Deadly Enterprise. I have some changes I want to add at the same time, and have copies of them to send back with the proofs. After that it'll seem odd not to be able to tinker with the manuscript any more.

I've heard it said that writers never actually finish editing their works – the pages are just taken out of their hands, and they're slapped if they try to add something. It seems that I can't go back to any finished manuscript without seeing something that irks me. It may only be a word or an attribution that could be cleaned up, but barring printing the thing off and declaiming it to the world from the back deck I think that's as far as I'd go.

At some point I will likely find myself reading some aloud, and I know I will automatically edit and transcribe the whole thing into something that sounds like Lady Macbeth trying to wash the blood off her hands. I made a terrible discovery the other day. I couldn't think of one guaranteed funny passage in the whole novel. What the hell am I going to do for starting the reading off with a laugh? I should have thought of that when I began writing it.

My protagonist is good for the odd terse one-liner, but the audience would need to be in the narrative flow for a few pages to get them. I have picked out some dramatic bits at different times, but I know that I will revisit the whole novel before being satisfied with any excerpts I choose.

I'm told the wolves I mentioned in my last blog post were seen at a farm south of here, with their eyes on the owner's small dog. I'm certain that they had their eyes on my two as they snuffled about gopher holes in the field the other week.

We met a very cheeky coyote yesterday who stood his ground and yipped and yodeled until we were way out of sight. He had quite a deep voice and some of his yips sounded more like laughter. I was able to compare his noise with the wolves' silence – coyotes need to make the noise to keep their spirits up. Wolves are confident enough to watch silently. He was silent as he prowled closer – the dogs went on and I sat on a rock on the hillside to watch him – but when I stood he decided he was close enough for safety and began yipping again.

Looks like a year for wildlife visitors. The whitetail and mule deer are a given, as thick as gophers, but we had a dozen or so elk browsing on the hills where I walk when the grass began to green. Should be bears and cougars next – they turn up at some time most years. As long as they mind their manners . . .

2007-05-16T11:31:00.000-06:00

Twisted Tales II Volume 2 is released.

The anthology with my story "Ticket" in was released last week by Double Dragon Publishing.

The link is http://www.double-dragon-ebooks.com/single.php?ISBN=1-55404-450-2

The first volume is at http://www.double-dragon-ebooks.com/single.php?ISBN=1-55404-434-0

The first volume is subtitled "Time on our Hands" and the second "Out of Time". All the stories revolve about some quirk or paradox involving time, and they all have twists at their endings. Mine involves a "fixer" from another dimension, called Angela, who gets the job of preventing a distraught husband from becoming homicidal after the death of his wife and unborn child.

The dogs and I had an adventure with creatures from another dimension yesterday morning on their run. I took them south across the fields where they could chase gophers and try to dig up their holes. About half a mile from town, while the dogs were showing up well on a hillside, I saw four canines running down the valley from the southwest, intent on investigating us. Since we often see coyotes there, and the two dogs usually chase them, I decided four were a problem and called the daftest one to me to put her on leash.

The four came as close as the remains of a small coal-mine operation (just a black mound and a few small craters in the field) and veered away. They went up a small hill where they waited and watched us walk. My larger and cannier dog, Coco, saw them and ran toward them, but stayed at a safe distance between us when I blew the whistle. I noted that they didn't do the usual coyote yipping and didn't keep going until they were a safe distance away, but didn't then come to any conclusion.

As I turned away to angle off toward the north, and then continued walking over the saddle and away from them, I turned to see the four in a group again, running after us. "Damned cheeky coyotes," I thought. I called Coco back from the gopher holes she was investigating and started a mock aggressive charge at the animals to chase them away. They stood and watched me. Coco angled across the hillside to join the charge, about a hundred yards ahead of me. I had to stop because it looked as if she'd get too close if I went closer, but the animals must have decided discretion was the better part and slunk away up the hill out of sight.

It wasn't until I had walked some distance farther and looked back to see them near the crest, laying down and still watching that it occurred to me that they were awfully aggressive for coyotes. They'd seemed rather larger, too, as I charged them. I'd seen plenty of wolves in my work in the north country and Arctic, but a pack was rarely all this same uniform colour. These were all grey, but the northern ones usually have at least on black or brindley coloured member in the pack. But they sure acted more like wolves than coyotes.

I phoned a rancher I know, closer to the mountains, to ask him if he'd seen any wolves around recently. Not exactly; he'd seen tracks, and a neighbor to the south had reported the wolves had crossed the river a week or so back. They did have a two year old grizzly hanging around but not the wolves. He thought there could be two of them.

"No," I said. "There are four."

2007-05-08T20:16:00.000-06:00

Some things are going quite quickly.

In the past week or so, I was invited to join three new writer sites. With the hope of placing my name and writing before the eyes of more potential readers I not only joined but added some words and accepted all the requests to have myself become a friend of other members. I think my efforts could be rewarded, I’ve already approached two more reviewers about them reviewing Deadly Enterprise.

My editor has returned from Greece and assures me that she is right on track for the first week in June, so that DE’s June release can be met. Not sure how much time that gives me for making my changes, but I can work fast when I have to.

So now I have three more blogs to keep up, on Book Place, Alternate Realities, and a Ning site for Zumaya Publications. I’m getting behind with the two I already have. I did one on BP called Writing Plausible Anachronisms, and one on AR called The Reality around us – must think of one for ZP next. Poor old Trailowner is getting outdated, but I wanted to write something nice about the United States and . . . you thought I was going to say ‘hadn’t thought of anything yet’. Shame on you. There are many good things happening in the US, but the gloss often rubs off when I look closely. Trailowner is a rant site, so something really great needs to happen before I could post about it. Maybe some satire . . . nah – I said something nice.

Maybe something about Canada. I’m allowed to be critical there without raising too much ire. We’re used to being criticized. The most difficult decision these days is whether global warming is a good or a bad thing. Having a heat wave in Winnipeg in January could hardly count as a climate change disaster, and I doubt if the pine beetles can destroy BC’s forests any faster than all the logging companies are currently managing. The tundra is melting, which should make for interesting times in the Arctic, and the polar bears are running out of ice, but I doubt the seals will be too disappointed at that.

But I’m getting a bit peeved – when we started on our energy efficient house we had far more hours of winter sunlight than we’ve had in recent winters. The direct sunlight can keep our indoor daytime temperatures above 20°C even when it’s -20°C outside, but all these cloudy days mean I have to light the fire earlier every day – even run one all day when it’s only -10°C outside. I wind up cutting more firewood every year, and invariably run out before winter does. If climate change means having more Vancouver weather I’d sooner have the old days.

2007-04-28T10:54:00.000-06:00

Things are moving slowly in fiction-writing land.

The second volume of Twisted Tales II (with my story "Ticket") is still on the way from Double Dragon but you can find volume one at http://www.double-dragon-ebooks.com/single.php?ISBN=1-55404-434-0
$5.99 as a download.

I will have an article published in the June issue of the Fiction Flyer (to sign up, see — http://www.tri-studio.com/ezine.html ) accompanying an interview with Piers Anthony. Good company for me, which is sure to attract plenty of readers. Mine is a light and rueful look at the reality of becoming an author, but don't think I'm trying to discourage anyone. There is more opportunity out in the electronic world all the time, and the key to our success is to have the quality and excitement readers want.

Our local writing group is preparing to put out an anthology featuring our region with short stories, poetry, and family histories from the members of our group. I'm seeing a great increase in the focus and quality of our members' writing as they move from writing into an empty void to writing with this concrete objective in view. Anyone out there belonging to a writers' group should definitely look at taking on a publishing project as a spur to the members' efforts.

Our group meets in the Canadian municipality of the Crowsnest Pass, an amalgamation of former mining towns in the Rocky Mountains; now becoming more of a summer home and tourist destination. As the southernmost pass entering the Rockies within Canada, and the only one which is not a National Park, it couples the beautiful mountain scenery with the possibility of buying a home and of finding a livelihood far from the city crowds. We have the Frank Slide, which wiped out part of the town of Frank in 1903; an important wildlife corridor for birds and mammals moving up the Yellowstone to Yukon route (wolves, grizzlies, eagles, etc); the history of the old coal-mines (one has underground tours) and the worst mining disaster in Canadian history; the original locale of the new Canadian opera Filomena (the story of rumrunners and the last woman in Canada hanged for murder); and some of the best outdoor sports (hiking, climbing, caving, skiing, etc) sites in the west.

My home is just outside the pass – I'm kind of a gatekeeper, I could suppose. Geologically my wife and I live within the Rockies because the last of the massive thrust faults which produced the mountain uplift surfaces less that a mile east of the community. Visually, we are at the edge of the foothills with the first of the pine-clad hills half a mile to our west. We sometimes have cougars, bears, and moose coming by and a week ago elk were grazing on the hill behind the hamlet where our water reservoir sits. The coyotes sit up in the hills and yodel at us, and when I take our dogs for their morning run they often have a brief chase after them. The dogs eventually heed my whistle and return while the coyotes sit up on a hill doing coyote "Ya ya – can't catch me" calls.

2007-04-05T21:39:00.000-06:00

With the usual profuse apologies, I’m interrupting the posting of episodes of Iskander’s Wildcat to use this blog as a medium for updating my writing, publishing and promoting activities. If either of you kind people who were following the two chapters posted below want to read more, please e-mail me at kwhyte2@gmail.com

It looks as if my first publication with Double Dragon E-books will be my short story in the second volume of Twisted Tales II – Time on our Hands. The first volume can be accessed at http://www.double-dragon-ebooks.com/single.php?ISBN=1-55404-434-0 the second volume, with my short story “Ticket” included is due out any day now.

My editor assures me that the two novels, “Deadly Enterprise” and “The Wildcat’s Victory” are moving on schedule. The first is due for publication in June. The second draft of “Arrival” – the prequel to both novels – is well under way (interrupted only by a re-edit of my own to the two novels so that changes I want to make are prepared before my editor sends the blue pencil pages to me). I’m hopeful that Arrival will join the other two in 2008.

Even more recently I mailed back the publisher’s copy of a contract for my fantasy novel “Rast”. The editor at Zumaya Publications read and liked it – so now it will be slotted into Zumaya’s list somewhere after the end of this year. We may change the title; I’m leaning toward Rast – Sorcerer’s Bane, but now it’s not only my decision. My website is being updated to include the first chapter of Rast, and the map of that magic land. Descriptions of the plot can be read on my website, www.christopherhoare.ca so I won’t repeat them here.

What else? I’m looking at doing a bit of novel reviewing for online sites. Well – if I want to have someone revue mine I guess I should offer to work on someone else’s promotion. With an election likely in Canada almost any time, my wife and I are offering our copywriting and proofreading experience to the political party of our choice. No names, but it’s not the one than upholds George Bush’s policies and runs on lavish corporate funding from oil companies.

Happy reading to all. Will write at you again soon.

2007-01-27T15:58:00.000-07:00

Iskander's Wildcat; Ch. 2, © C. J. Hoare, January 2007

To start at Chapter One, please scroll down to find Iskander's Wildcat © C . . . on the sidebar

As the enemy horsemen approached at a gallop, the captain of Lord Ricart's escort saluted, his voice pitched in a high quaver. "We must retire onto the infantry, my Lord. We cannot hold off a force that size."

His words made Gisel's pulse race, but seeing Ricart's disdainful glance at the enemy she hid her reaction. A score or more were charging toward them – not too many to take on with their rifled carbines, but she wasn't about to second guess the captain. Neither, it seemed, was Ricart. "Very well," he responded casually. "I've seen all I want to from here."

Gisel hesitated as the rest turned their mounts. "What about the Seventeenth, my Lord?"

Lord Ricart stared at her and shook his head. "What would you have me do – ride down there to warn them?"

"No, but I can."

He regarded her with the expression a parent uses on a wayward child. "You are my aide, or have you resigned?"

She walked her horse to him and handed over her communicator and status screen. "No, my Lord. I will return as soon as I can." This wasn't the time to revive old animosities – she'd wise-assed him at sixteen when they first met. She'd never let herself be impressed by his charm and position, or his libertine reputation, and their coolness was now an ingrained habit.

He took the equipment, staring into her eyes. "You are a fool, young woman. Go if you must, but don't get yourself killed."

Gisel slapped the reins and patted her mount on the neck – he was a strong horse, faster than most. The gelding swung about and started off at a gallop. She bent low over his neck and clung tightly with her knees.

The descent wasn't steep, but the undulations and rises seemed to flow beneath the flying horse. She reached up with her left hand to tighten the chinstrap of her broad brimmed headgear – her cavalier's hat as she called it, complete with a white plume of feathers. The pounding of the animal's hooves urged her own heartbeat to race with excitement, and the wind in her face formed a wall of air she had to gulp in order to breathe.

She rode with her eyes on the rough hillside – anxious to keep her mount from crashing into a ditch or hidden patch of brush. After a couple of minutes she felt confident the animal could guide his own progress and raised herself to look about.

To her right was the dusty road in the valley bottom. She looked for Sir Rafe's cavalry but they had to be out of sight behind a spur or around a bend. To her left were the enemy cavalry, a long carbine shot away and running level with her. Ahead she could glimpse the last ranks of the infantry column as they marched over a swell in the road. Damn! The enemy would reach them first.

She leaned forward again and pulled her carbine from the scabbard attached to her saddle. With one hand she cranked the lever action to chamber a round. She was too far from the enemy cavalry for an accurate shot, but all she needed was to alert the Seventeenth to their peril.

She braced her arm on her saddle bow and fired. No effect on the enemy. She raised the carbine by the lever and used the horse's undulating gait and the weight of the weapon to reload again. She fired another shot at the enemy.

None of them was hit, but a group of the attackers peeled away from the charge to angle toward her. Oh shit, Gisel, that worked better than you expected. Now what?

She kept up a steady fire until she reached the road, about four hundred metres behind the Seventeenth. Her warning shots had worked. The soldiers were fanning out to meet the oncoming cavalry. Well directed rifle fire could drive off even a cavalry charge – she had trained them in the tactic, but would Brandin know enough to order it? It could be too late, the cavalry were almost upon them.

Which way should she ride along the road? The horsemen making for her would catch her before she could reach the infantry. She felt like a coward, but she had no choice – she turned her mount to the right and urged him along the road away from the action. A quick look back told her that the horsemen had also reached the road, and turned to pursue her. She slapped at her mount's flanks to urge him faster – in her imagination the cold steel of the enemies' sabres was already carving into her back.

From the action behind came a thunderous volley of rifle fire. Gisel felt a surge of elation through her fear. More shots followed soon after. The rifles were single shot, but she'd trained the men to reload almost as fast as she could crank a carbine. She wished she could see the effect of her training, but she leaned over her mount's neck and urged him away.

A single shot – much closer. One of her pursuers had fired a pistol at her. She glanced back. The nearest enemy was closing rapidly. She cranked her carbine and twisted in the saddle to fire at him.

She couldn't see any effect. He still came on, now with his sabre upraised. She cranked the carbine's lever once more. That'd be her last round . . .or had she already fired it? She had a pistol – she'd better drop the carbine and grab it.

She could hear the hoofbeats of the enemy's horse even over the thudding of her own. She twisted again, bracing the carbine against her leg to fire from the hip. The head of the enemy's horse was almost level with the weapon's muzzle. Her adversary raised up in the saddle for a downswing with his sabre. As she fired, the animal shied away in fear.

She felt the shock of the sabre hitting the carbine barrel. Pain jolted into her wrist and she dropped the weapon. Glancing back, she saw the unbalanced cavalryman fall from the panicked horse. As he tumbled to the ground in a rolling, flailing heap, the horse dashed away, bucking.

One down, but three more rode just behind, flailing at their mounts' flanks to catch her. Their shouts rang in her ears.

She groped for her automatic pistol and cocked it. Beneath her, the big gelding got his second wind and galloped harder. For several minutes they dashed along the road, the only sound the drumming of the horses' hooves in the hard packed dirt. A slight rise and then the road turned around a spur.

Figures ahead – more horsemen coming toward her. She cried out, but then recognized the Iskander planet and cogwheel standard of Sir Rafe's light squadrons. Her pursuers hauled on their horses' reins as they saw the Iskanders coming, and beat at the animals' flanks and necks to turn them away from the oncoming cavalry. She turned in the saddle and loosed several shots after them.

Gisel raised up on the stirrups and waved her side onward. She let the horse slow to a canter as she tried a couple of aimed shots at the enemies' backs. No effect, but she could hear the shouts of the Iskander cavalry increase as they speeded up to go after them. She pulled her horse off the road and halted to wait for the column.

The first troopers galloped past, sabres in their hands. The main force of the squadrons arrived and kicked up clumps of dust as they slowed. The officer reined in beside her. "Lieutenant Matah, is it not? What are you doing here?"

"I rode to warn the Seventeenth and was cut off. They're under a cavalry attack. We must ride – be quick and we can save them."

The officer reacted immediately. "Forward march. Bugler, sound the gallop."

Gisel wheeled into line beside the officer and the whole formation, about 200 strong, set out along the road she had just covered. Up on the hillside, the men who had pursued her were overtaken and cut down.

She holstered her pistol as they thundered along. She drew her katana from its sheath, shorter than the cavalrymen's sabres but just as deadly. As they rode, they came upon her first assailant sitting up, stunned, in the roadway. The horses swerved aside to miss him of their own volition, reminding her that the animals were as protective of their legs as a carnivore was of its throat and belly. Horses would not deliberately run anything down.

The formation spread out where the valley bottom was flat enough to allow them. They must be close to the fight – Gisel could hear steady firing from ahead. They galloped up a rise and saw the clash before them.

The infantry were still standing. The enemy cavalry had drawn back, obviously disheartened by the steady and accurate shooting, but their officers were riding about, shouting and gesturing – collecting their straggling units to begin another, final attack. Bodies lay scattered across the ground, both cavalry and infantry.

Into the middle of this disorganized force, the Iskander cavalry charged as a dense mass. Gisel slashed at horsemen who appeared in front of her. She parried a sabre stroke from a man who wheeled his horse to fight. A trooper riding beside her swung his sabre to cut off the enemy's head with a single stroke. Then they were through the enemy ranks.

When she managed to slow her mount and turn him back, the fight had turned to a pursuit. The enemy cavalry were in retreat – fleeing horsemen climbing the slopes as fast as they could whip their mounts to gallop. She guided her own horse toward the Seventeenth, hoping to see friends still alive.

She threaded her way between bodies and a terrified horse that attempted to rise on two broken legs. The smell of blood filled the air; cries and groans came from all around. She rode over to a party of the Seventeenth who were picking up their wounded comrades. "Where is Captain Brandin?"

The corporal leading them jumped to attention and saluted. "Ye'll find him by t'wagons, Lieutenant."

She answered the salute and rode on. The bulk of the infantrymen had made a stand around the three light supply carts, using them as a barricade. Another platoon came forward from a clump of small trees where they'd taken cover. She felt relieved – they hadn't forgotten all their training in the heat of battle.

She found Brandin lying on the ground, two of the corpsmen she'd trained working over him. She swung from the saddle to see his wounds.

His face was white and drawn, but he attempted bravado. "As you see, dear girl, I am out of the fight." His right leg was deeply gashed, the bone of his thigh showing. If it weren't for the clotting spray Iskander supplied their troops he would already have bled to death.

She stood to attention and saluted. "If you have no objection, I will reorganize the company for their defense."

He winced in pain as a corpsman tightly bound the open wound. "Do so. I second the command to you."

"If you can ride, I will loan you my horse for you to go to the rear." She unhooked one saddlebag with her most important supplies and ammunition. With a quick exchange of salutes she turned and hurried away. "Sergeants to me! Platoon commanders for orders."

The company consisted of four platoons, each headed by a sergeant. When she had commanded, she had placed Crockley, an experienced soldier she'd known almost since her arrival on Gaia, as the leader of the senior platoon. She swore when she found Brandin had demoted him to corporal. So damned petty to place the best man to babysit the supply carts. One of the new sergeants had been killed in the fight and another wounded – so she made immediate changes.

"Sergeant Major Crockley is reinstated. Take back the first platoon. Sergeant Gretch, your wound will not prevent you from commanding the transport. Leave a day's rations and all the ammunition. Load the wounded on the carts and return to the river. Tonight come to the village of Borhye under cover of darkness with fresh ammunition and supplies. Move out immediately, we're getting off this damned road."

Several of the Iskander cavalry troopers rode back from their pursuit of the enemy. They halted in a cloud of dust and an NCO spoke, "Our officer asks if you need anything, Lieutenant."

"Only for him to tell Lord Ricart that Captain Brandin is seriously wounded and I am assuming command of the company. We will take and hold Borhye."

The NCO saluted and the cavalrymen rode away.

Gisel watched them leave for only a moment. "Where's Corporal Salahn? Oh, there you are. You are now sergeant of the fourth platoon. Sergeants, see to your men, send back the wounded who cannot march. Everyone takes a second bandolier of ammunition from the carts. Grab the material scattered on the ground, and be ready to move off in five minutes. Crockley, take the right flank and Salahn the left. I'll go with the forward platoon and the third will follow fifty paces behind." She turned to point up the steep hillside behind them. "We're going up there through the trees and brush, making every use of cover and supporting one another with fire if attacked. Any questions?"

Crockley saluted. "Only one, Lieutenant. Are we skirmishers or light infantry?"

"We're light infantry, and the best damned force on the battlefield. We'll be the most forward unit of the army at Borhye – and the whole battle could depend on us." She was all too aware that the bulk of the enemy army, perhaps fifty thousand strong, was still marching toward the fight. She was also damned certain that the road they followed would lead them through Borhye. Somebody had to hold them up long enough for the Tarnlanders to get across the river. "It'll be a hard fight, but are you with me?"

The sergeants responded eagerly and the men took up the cry. "To Borhye. The best damned force on the battlefield!"

2006-12-20T11:05:00.000-07:00

Iskander's Wildcat © C. J. Hoare, December 2006

All rights reserved.

Introductory:
Gisel Matah is the protagonist of my Iskander series novels. The story "Arrival" posted on this site starts when the starship Iskander arrives at the alternate world Gaia, an alternate Earth, with its societies approximately at the level of our own world about 1700. Gisel is a sixteen year old starship brat when she arrives, but quickly develops into a valuable member of the security service the Iskanders are obliged to set up.

Having discontinued posting the Arrival material, which I am reworking into a novel, I'm switching the site to "Iskander's Wildcat". This story takes place when Gisel is an eighteen year old newly minted lieutenant. She has been seconded to allied forces fighting to liberate Tarnland from neighboring states that have occupied it for a hundred years. Iskander's modern knowledge and technology has been assisting this fight for two campaign seasons, during which time their friends have come to appreciate their unconventional ideas, and foes who hate their undermining of established order have become more implacable.

Chapter One:

Lieutenant Gisel Matah rode her tall black gelding in the middle of Lord Ricart's entourage, her attention divided between the columns of troops ascending the hillside around them and the opened electronic map display velcroed to her thigh. Her official appointment was aide to his lordship, effectively she served as his staff officer in charge of monitoring intelligence updates for the two Iskander cavalry brigades. The swath of colors on her screen showed the last known positions of the whole Tarnlish army, as well as the most forward units of the enemy. From somewhere near the top of the ridge volleys of musket fire gave notice that the first clashes had already begun. Today looked like a fine day for a battle.

Sir Rafe, commander of the Light Cavalry rode up to her. "When will our artillery be across the river, Gisel?"

She keyed the pointer over the symbol of the engineer bridges a couple of kilometers behind them – half a league in the units Rafe would be used to. "One troop should be over now. The whole battery should be on the road within the hour."

Sir Rafe turned in the saddle. "Then, shouldn't I be able to see that troop from here?"

She turned to follow his gaze down the valley, the dark green line of trees along the river hiding the channel and the bridge itself. All she could see were columns of infantry emerging from the wooded riverbank, instead of the cavalry and its supports they expected. "I'll call Marc."

She entered his code in her communicator and then waited. The early summer day unfolded bright and sunny around them, and the scents of flowers and grasses heading out felt a more suitable background to driving cattle to fresh pasture than the ranks and columns of blue-clad infantry to their deaths. This was the second campaign season for the Iskander allies of the Autarch of Tarnland, and they faced a strongly reinforced army of their enemies – subsidized this year by their implacable foe, the Trigon Emperor. In the Autarch's war councils the sidelong glances and firmly compressed lips told the Iskanders their presence was less welcome since they had brought this increased wealth and power onto the enemy side. Some of the best mercenary troops in the world now opposed them. This campaign had better prove the greater effectiveness of Iskander weapons and tactics, or they would be looking for a new patron.

Gisel raised the communicator. "Marc Chronon . . . artillery HQ . . . are you there, Marc?"

"A minute, Gisel." The transmission cut off.

Lord Ricart drew rein and looked back, the contingent of officers and escorts halting around them. "Is there a problem, Gisel?"

She shrugged and waited for Marc to continue, turning up the volume so Ricart could hear. The screen on her thigh started a slow update.

At last Marc's voice came back. "We're in shit here, Gisel. A whole brigade of the Autarch's own division have taken over the bridge from us."

"What? They're supposed to be using the captured enemy bridges upstream."

"Yeah, I know. But I can't tell a royal duke to get lost and take his regiments with him." Marc was attached to the artillery brigade in the same way she was to Lord Ricart's headquarters.

Lord Ricart urged his white charger back to join her, his face suffusing with anger. "I thought Colonel M'Tov's clever system with these screens was supposed to stop these cockups."

Gisel was about to give him a short answer when a warning shout from their escort made everyone look up at the crest of the ridge. A small party of Tarnlander cavalry spurred into sight. Gisel could see wounded men reeling in their saddles, the horses' breath clouding like breaching whales they were so blown, one man crumpled over his mount's neck and tumbled to the ground. The fleeing horsemen halted as Ricart's party spurred to them.

The officer at the head, his left arm gashed red with gore, spat blood and spoke. "We are in desperate straits at the river crossing, my Lord. A counterattack. Our bridges are burning and the troops that have crossed are cut off."

Gisel caught the sickening whiff of blood as two of Ricart's escort jumped from their saddles to tend the fallen man. Lord Ricart sat straighter in the saddle as he eyed the messenger. "Damn! Where is the Autarch? Who is in command down there?"

"We do not know. We think the Autarch is on the far side of the river. Each brigade commander fights his own battle. We need your troops to come to our aid."

"Impossible." Ricart turned to Gisel. "What does your screen tell you?"

Gisel didn't answer immediately, her screen had completed updating and she busily keyed on a couple of angry red slashes to read the captions. "Oh, God damn! He's right, the captured bridges have been sabotaged – they're on fire. The whole centre of the army has been switched to cross on ours."

"By the Flame!" Ricart's anger boiled over. "Get me the Colonel."

Gisel keyed the request as rapidly as her fingers could move. As she waited for the response, a cold fear ran up and down her spine – the army had planned a surprise lunge to take the bridges and use them to catch the enemy on the march. It now looked like a trap. The enemy was advancing to attack their forward forces while the rest of their army was still held up by the river crossing. The few brigades already on this side could be destroyed before new bridges could be thrown across the river.

"M'Tov here."

"Lord Ricart to speak with you," Gisel said.

"As I expected. Sorry your Lordship, but the Autarch's divisional commanders were slow reporting their loss of the bridges. I've already sent the engineers downriver to erect the crossing to swim your horses over. And I'm collecting pontoons for a new bridge."

Lord Ricart frowned as he took the communicator from Gisel. "Thank you, Colonel, but it will take hours to get the rest of my cavalry over that way."

M'Tov's reply sounded unperturbed. "Your bridge is needed to get the main infantry units of the army into action. I'm sure you see that. How much of the cavalry do you have with you?"

Ricart exchanged glances with Sir Rafe who held up his gloved fingers. "Eight squadrons. Enough to scout, but not sufficient to drive off any enemy cavalry in strength."

"You'll have to make do, I'm afraid. If we can hold until dark with the forces we have, we can return to the attack with reinforcements in the morning."

Gisel stared at Ricart's anguished expression. They were asking him to take losses for nine hours and then be ready for a renewed effort after a confused night on the exposed ground. She knew Ricart was desperate to protect his fighting strength from wastage. "It looks like an infantry fight – your cavalry need only protect their rear."

His expression lightened momentarily. "True, but I must send out a force to locate the enemy's main strength."

"What did you decide?" M'Tov asked.

"I would ask the Autarch to let my dragoons across."

"He's here with me. It's not possible. You must understand that he doesn't ask this of you and your men lightly. He's sending you his vanguard infantry, please organise the defence on the ridge until his own generals can come forward. Still a great deal of confusion turning marching infantry columns away from the destroyed bridges."

"Very well. Clear here." Ricart handed the communicator back to Gisel. "Sir Rafe, go back to the river and organise our new line of march. I don't care how you do it, but get some of our dragoon squadrons over that bridge. Send your light squadrons to me, I'll handle them until you can return with dragoons."

Sir Rafe saluted, turned his horse, and cantered away.

Lord Ricart moved his charger alongside Gisel's so he could see her map display. "What units do we have on this side of the river?"

She quickly interrogated the icons on the screen. "Three regiments of infantry, one is in action ahead of us. The troops climbing the ridge behind us are the Fifth and Seventh Grenadiers. Somewhere behind them, the First Guards Brigade are crossing our bridge – they are supposed to hold the crossroads on the top of the ridge. Their skirmisher company is below us on the road – hey, that's the Seventeenth, the guys I helped train."

Over winter, as the newly minted Lieutenant Matah, Gisel had been training a new formation in Light Infantry tactics and musketry. Musketry was the conventional term, but the unit was armed with Iskander's newest 8mm rifles. She'd put in a request to lead the company into action, but the chauvinists in the Autarch's entourage had denied it. Likely it would put some of the male officer's noses out of joint. Captain Brandin, who had taken over the command, was a hidebound soldier of the old school who didn't accept the validity of light infantry tactics. She could see now that he was marching them along the road among two or three horse-drawn supply carts, like a column of musketeers. The damned fool would handle them as no more than skirmishers.

Ricart held her eyes with his own. "Stay away from Brandin. I don't want any trouble."

"But dammit, Ricart. He's wasting them. We'll need this unit of light infantry before the day's out."

Ricart looked at the screen over her shoulder. "He's heading to the crossroads to take the village before the enemy can get there. The First Guards Brigade will hold it. It seems a sound use of the company to me."

Gisel shook her head but didn't contradict him. Light infantry could be as fast moving as cavalry on a battlefield like this one – all ridges and slopes dotted with woods and thickets. This wasn't ideal cavalry country.

She clicked on another icon. "We won't have any artillery until yours can get across the river. The Autarch's batteries are stalled at the burning bridges."

"I've heard enough." Ricart's expression was grim. "We'll gallop to the top of the ridge and see what forces our infantry are up against." He turned to the messenger and his bloodied party. "Wait here. I will have you take a message back."

When they reached the ridge top they found the infantry regiment formed into extended line, two ranks deep, the officers and sergeants rushing about steadying their troops. A great cloud of powder smoke billowed out as the musketeers fired a volley. The stinging smoke enveloped them in an acrid sulphurous fog that had to drift away before Gisel could see they were exchanging fire with an advancing line of enemy skirmishers. She could see no sign of any supporting troops on either flank of the regiment as she entered new data into the situation screen.

The hillside sloped away in every direction except to the south where the ridge continued climbing gradually to a small group of peasant hovels on the skyline, a few kilometers away. That would be the village of Borhye and the crossroads the Seventeenth was marching for. They'd have a long march if Brandin kept them on the valley road instead of cutting straight up through the wooded hillsides.

Ricart drew rein again and detailed his junior aides to several tasks as he scribbled a note. He tore the page off the pad and held it out to a very young looking captain. "Morkyn, Take those Tarnland cavalrymen with you and head along the ridge to our left. Find out how big a gap between us and our next units. According to Gisel's screen, three brigades of the Autarch's divisions will have crossed the river before those bridges were burned. The message is for the senior officer with them."

The captain and two orderlies turned their mounts and galloped away.

"Vennals, go back down the hill and get the Fifth Grenadiers here at the double. Tell their officers to deploy in line, echeloned to the right of the engaged regiment. Rendle, do the same for the Seventh, but they're to prolong the line to the left."

The officers saluted and galloped away.

It looked as if Ricart planned to make this ridge the new centre of the deployment, but what troops would become the right wing? Gisel looked up from entering her new information into the situation screen. "There must be some larger formation behind those enemy skirmishers. Can you see them?"

"No." Ricart stood in his stirrups a moment. "We'll ride up the ridge a way until we can see."

They were a smaller party of about a dozen as they rode forward along the ridge top. The escorting troopers drew their carbines from the scabbards and held them at the ready – they were advancing out into what amounted to no mans land. Gisel stilled the anxious feeling in her stomach as she followed Ricart's charger.

They rode about a kilometer to a low knoll, where the slopes on either side steepened and they could see farther into both valleys. The one on the enemy side was scarlet and green with the uniforms of advancing columns. The cadence of the marching and beat of the drums came clearly to them up the hillside. The head of one column neared the skirmishers on the ridge. Her training told her they'd use their cover to swing to one side and deploy into line. Good job they weren't French revolutionary troops with a Napoleon behind them, or the columns would continue up the ridge until they smashed through the thin line opposing them. Gisel shrugged, sometimes it helped to know all the Earth military history M'Tov had been cramming into her – at other times it just made her skin crawl with frightening possiblities.

The captain of the escort urged his mount alongside Lord Ricart's. "The enemy cavalry down there have seen us, my Lord." He pointed down the valley.

"Yes," Lord Ricart drawled. "I see them. What about any of ours? I could do with a few squadrons here."

Gisel decided to call Marc, likely Sir Rafe had arrived on the riverbank opposite him by now. As she waited for a reply she looked down to the valley road on their side of the ridge. The Seventeenth were marching along the dusty track that wound its way to the crossroads on the ridge. Jeezus! Brandin didn't know there was nothing but grass between him and the whole enemy army. They should have radios for every formation, but with the difficulty of training and the skepticism of the Autarch's hidebound commanders that wouldn't happen this year. There was nothing she could do to warn them.

Marc answered her call. "We've floated one of the 70mm guns across the river on a raft. When the horses swim across, I'll lead it up the road to Lord Ricart."

"Great, Marc, but two would be better." The 70mm artillery were Iskander's latest version of the light rifled muzzle loaders that had paralyzed the enemy attacks the previous year. With enough of them up here, they stood a chance to hold the enemy. "I'll let Ricart know, but take care not to go far up the road – we can expect enemy cavalry on it before long."

"Two squadrons of Rafe's light cavalry left here a short while ago; they're supposed to sweep the road."

"Good, I'll tell Ricart."

"I'll bring my mapping and comm gear with me," Marc continued. "Looks as if we'll need two command formations there." He'd gone through the same intensive officer training she had, and his lieutenancy was as new as her own. Because of a need for staff officers their training had been skewed to include that knowledge – Iskander could recruit local officers to lead in the field and stand against the cannon shot.

Gisel turned to scan the road below them as she moved forward to update Ricart. She could see the dust cloud of their light cavalry as they galloped away from the river; she noted how far the Seventeenth had marched – it seemed no more than a few yards from up here.

One of their escorts gave a shout and pointed. A large formation of enemy cavalry appeared on the crest a cannon shot distant, moving quickly. A few troops peeled off to head for Ricart's command party but the rest aimed for the infantry marching along the road below them. Gisel could make out the riders plainly as they drew sabres and urged into a gallop.

2006-11-16T19:32:00.000-07:00

Hi Readers:

First the bad news, but it's not all that bad. I did a bit of re-writing of some older material in order to keep my serials coming on this serial blog, and today my local novel writing group heard me read some and voted it easily the worst thing they'd ever heard from me. As I read it I found myself stumbling over clunky sentences, and wincing, so I had no difficulty seeing what they were criticizing. As a consequence I will not be posting any reworked ten-year old material here. That's the good news.

I guess I should be pleased that my writing has improved over the years, but I'm chastened to think that I don't have the skill to tune out the old wording enough to translate it into a more polished piece of work. The story had some merit, but I would need to keep the old draft well out of sight if I wanted to make another stab at completing it.

In it's place I will start a completely new version of an older novel in the same Iskander series, and serialize it here. I will give it the old title of "Iskander's Wildcat" and it will still have Gisel's reckless love affair with Lord Ricart – but this takes place three years after "Arrival" that you've read here – when she's a nineteen year old lieutenant in Iskander's Special Forces.

As to my other writing – the novels – "Deadly Enterprise" and "The Wildcat's Victory" will begin entering Double Dragon's editing system in January, with a target date to publish the first in June 2007. I've already met my editor online and am looking forward to working with her. In fact we will both have short stories published in the Double Dragon anthology "Twisted Tales II" which also comes out in 2007.

We will both be contributing a chapter to a round robin novel that will be serialized by Double Dragon next year. It will start with the first chapter available from J. Richard Jacobs in February. Lea will have her chapter up in April, but mine's not due until this time next year. BTW I believe there is going to be a contest on the Double Dragon website to find a title for the RR novel – there will be a prize for the best suggestion.

The serial that I started with the short story "Arrival"( which can be found posted on this blog), has gone through a full critique with my other, online, writing group and I have received some good ideas on the limitations of the material. I will work on chiseling it into a proper novel during 2007 in the hopes of having the third Iskander novel follow the first two at a reasonably short interval. Especially important since it's a prequel to them.

Still no word about my fantasy "Rast" that's on the editor's desk at a new Canadian publisher. I have avoided setting down any ideas on a sequel to it, but I do have some siren spells buzzing in my head. I did do a title evaluation on the Lulu site and found that Rast had a low rating and the title I'd dropped "Sorcerer's Bane" scored quite high. That'll be the first change to make. Since that publisher puts out print novels – on paper, no less – I intend to sit patiently until they've made up their minds. I have three writing friends with novels accepted by them – one whose novel I championed, and another that I had serious input into.

Enough chattering. I had better get down to writing a episode or two of the new serial that I can post here. Our next local writers' meeting is in a month's time – I'll try it out with them and hopefully be able to post it here around Christmas. Please come by and look for it.

Chris.

2006-10-27T20:43:00.000-06:00

Dear Readers:

If you want to read the 10,000 words of Arrival, posted here in nine episodes, please go down the sidebar until you find Arrival, Episode One, and start from there. In time, you will be able to read a novel called Arrival, but it's WIP (work in progress) right now.

I must announce a switch of material for this ongoing serial. Nothing is wrong, but my publisher has expressed an interest in my turning this material, and the next 75,000 words that I've been writing this summer, into a novel. In consequence, I'm not going to be publishing any more on the blog; certainly not before it's rewritten for its new purpose.

I do have other material that comes from older novels, with scenes that I like too much to set aside, so over the next few weeks I will be revising and polishing some to post to this blog. As you may note, the serial was a new venture for me, and I've learned from it. (Mostly learned about me, perhaps.) I cannot write episodes and send them out as written, they have to be vetted a bit, and some revisions made. I have to write on further into the story to ensure the path they take is actually going the right way. Not that it was ever in doubt, but I'm no Dickens, who could write whole novels that were published in newspapers as weekly serials.

The Internet is a venue that most writers today find important to be represented on, so this blog is just one of my online ventures. I have links to my website and another blog somewhere in the sidebar. Most writers chat about their writing lives, and pass out information about their novels, written as well as in progress. Fine when they have published novels, but the first of my two that has been accepted may not hit the public before June 2007. I don't think I can expect any fan inquiries before readers have read my novels.

I didn't set up this site for any feedback (a mistake perhaps?) but you can get at me through the email address in my profile. If anyone wants to chat about writing, promotion of writing, or almost anything else, you could send me a note. Maybe I can post it on this blog until I'm ready to post a new serial.

Chris.

2006-10-06T21:34:00.000-06:00

Episode 9, Arrival © C. J. Hoare 2006.
All rights reserved.

Scroll down to Previous Posts to select Episode 1 and start from the beginning.

They marched back to the Intruder, alert for any further appearance of the locals, but none came. Her two prisoners shambled along in the middle of the group between the guards, Gisel behind them with the drawn rapier. Before they reached the aircraft they met the rest of M'Tov's investigation team. His guards formed a wider defensive perimeter around all of them with their rifles at the ready.

The prisoners stared wide eyed at the aircraft as they approached. Another stranger, a prisoner she hadn't noticed before in the middle of M'Tov's team, halted – bringing the column to an abrupt stop. He raised a shining mandala on a chain around his neck and murmured some words before continuing on, under the tail.

M'Tov moved beside her. "This is the one we found in the village." The man was bearded and dressed in a long drab brown overgarment like a cassock. "He speaks some kind of Greek, but it's a long time since I was an Orthodox altar boy." M'Tov's eyebrows twitched and the corners of his mouth turned up.

Gisel's eyes widened, it was the closest she'd ever seen him get to a smile. Jeeze, was he trying to be friendly? "I speak some Greek . . . my grandmother . . . my mother's mother taught me."

"I know you do – it's in your file. Try some on him. I've reached the limit of mine."

She moved closer to the strange figure. His head was shaven except for a thick lock which hung down over one shoulder – maybe some kind of monk. His age was hard to guess – maybe forty or fifty. His eyes were a steel gray, but not cold, they regarded her with curiosity as well as caution.

She tried the colloquial speech she and her grandmother had chattered in. "Do you understand me? My name is Gisel, what's yours?"

He regarded her soberly. "Poh erkezte na milizeta ta elliniki to melleyi. Den ezte ekpedefmani i prozotto te piztie?"

Henrik leaned to her. "What does he say?"

Gisel shrugged. "It's not the Greek Grandma taught me, but I think he's asking how I come to speak his language."

M'Tov actually smiled. He rubbed his hands. "Good girl! If you understand that much, you'll do as an interrogator. It's essential we learn to speak with these people as quickly as possible. Try the others."

Gisel looked at the fellow she'd taken the rapier from; he was regarding his companion's wounded arm worriedly, but turned to stare at her as she tried her Greek. "I'm sorry I wounded your friend. We'll make it up to him."

He shook his head.

The monk fellow smiled and spoke in his weird Greek. Everyone looked toward her.

"I think he says the others don't speak the same language."

Henrik scowled. "Oh great. We have to learn a new language for every person? We'll never find out what we need to know."

"Give Gisel time," M'Tov said. "I believe we shouldn't rush this stage. We're going to build everything we do here on what she can learn for us, and on first reactions. Theirs and ours."

Gisel stared at him. Horseshit! She'd jumped from starship nuisance to key investigator in one afternoon. If anything became screwed, it'd be her fault. Maybe it was better when they all overlooked her.

******

Three days later, Gisel sat with Elethsis, actually a low ranked priest called an Adelphos, in the starship's observation room. As always, his eyes strayed frequently to the sight of the planet unrolling beneath them. She had explained where they were, but had to wonder what he made of the information.

"What is the name of the country we met you in?" She asked in Greek.

His reply sounded stilted to her ears, but she was becoming more comfortable with its idioms. "It is named for city which rules over all. Lingdon."

Right . . . that sounded very Greek, kind of a city-state – it showed some similarity with her Earth. Gisel checked the record level on the memory stick in her lap. She'd have to play all this back to check the translation in the report for the others. "Rules? Then there is a ruler? Who is that?"

"King Heri ruleth. By the grace of the Immortal Flame." Elethsis lifted up his mandala and kissed it.

"So if we wanted to extend our investigations . . . beyond the village where we found you . . . we should ask his permission?"

Elethsis's eyelids lowered, his voice sounding almost oracular. "He is King – giver of all indulgence. Easier it is to speak with the wind. Go you first through the Earl."

"Earl?" Gisel sighed. She'd had almost a dozen discussions with Elethsis and although they progressed in understanding one another, every answer of his brought forward a host of new questions. "Who is the Earl?"

"He own castle you see. Instarn and Gavril are his knights."

Gisel nodded. They were the fellow she'd wounded and his companion. So they were knights? She swallowed and blushed – she'd have freaked out if she'd known that before tackling them – but maybe knights here weren't so tough.

"So he sent them to attack us?"

He tilted his head at the reddening of her cheeks. "Not attack. They were keeping Earl's good order, as they pledged to do. And Earl not send – he at sea."

"Oh. So we'd need to wait until he returns before we could ask?" This was getting them nowhere unless they learned how to leap over all this protocol. "When is he coming back?"

Elethsis laughed briefly before cutting off his amusement. "Apology – you not know. He took the water path of the cold, dark Ocean . . . only the Flame knows when or if he will return."

Gisel sighed again. Maybe they should go to find him. "Where did he go?"

Elethsis' face clouded. "Perhaps not say." He muttered, and all she understood was, "Some . . . Political . . . Trouble."

Wow. She had to know what that entailed. Could be valuable leverage. "We don't want to start trouble for anybody, but we're also in trouble as strangers. Maybe we can help."

"You don't understand."

"Obviously not, if you won't tell me."

He frowned at her before leaning forward to stare at the globe of the planet below. She had to remember not to be an Earthling brat – these people were pretty strong on dignity. She could see expressions flicker across his face as he considered her sharp retort. She turned her eyes from his face; he'd speak again when he was ready. Below, daylight was just reaching the east coast of the Americas as Iskander approached from across the Atlantic. What would Elethsis call all these places?

"Do you recognise what is below?"

He shook his head, but said nothing.

"That's the ocean below us. It stretches far westward from the coast where we met you."

"So you say. How can a man see a whole ocean in one glance?"

"If he were on a high enough point. We are about three hundred stadia above the ground – that's high enough."

He narrowed his eyes as he turned to regard her. "And what pinnacle do we stand upon?"

"We stand upon the speed of our motion . . . as does the moon."

She saw excitement glint in his eyes. He stood and scanned the full extent of the view through the observation port, and then raised his head to the star filled firmament surrounding them. "This then is the night dark Ocean he sailed upon. Far to the west. How can any mortal tell where he is? Could be drowned from shipwreck . . . killed or captured by Trigon warships."

"Trigon . . .? Who are they?"

Elethsis smiled guiltily. He stared at her, his eyes scanning her face as if evaluating his course. "I was not going to tell you. You are very sharp to dazzle me with magical knowledge. Learning such secrets is a weakness of mine."

"Then I'll tell you all the secrets I can find. If you'll tell us everything we need to know about dangers and politics on this world."

"Everything, you need to learn?"

"We're strangers. Our world is very like the one beneath us now, but we're lost from it. We have to make ourselves a home here. If secrets are our only valuable possession – then that's what we'll have to use to get what we need."

"But you are not . . . here. You soar above it."

"When we know enough to decide on a location, we're going down again. Except . . . all this talk about enemies . . . seems to me, we'd be in danger. Tell me enough so our people can decide on the safest course."

"Safest?" he smiled faintly. "All men would wish for that. You have come to the wrong world if you seek safety. Old stories tell of a time when one people ruled over most of the world – in justice and in peace. But the Trigons rule the largest empire today, and they are suspicious and cruel. They watch even in lands they do not rule – and destroy anyone who they think might be a threat to them."

Gisel felt a chill run down her spine. "And no one tries to prevent them?"

"Only one nation has the power to do so – but they might prove even worse a master."

"Then we must make ourselves a home where they won't notice us."

"Ah." Elethsis smiled. "For myself, I wish we could go back to Castle Kenstar. Instarn and Gavril fret. They have charge to care over it, but what dangers befall while they are prisoners here?"

"But you'll help us learn more – if we go down to the castle?'

"Upon my word. The Earl's Lady can send word for nobles, scholars, and men of affairs to attend upon you. You would be as safe within Castle Kenstar as anywhere – if the knights make their pledge. I know they would be eager to make you welcome there – if only they may return to their duty."

Gisel nodded slowly. "I'll tell M'Tov that. Maybe he'll agree."

2006-09-19T20:14:00.000-06:00

Episode 8, Arrival © C. J. Hoare 2006.
All rights reserved.

Scroll down to Previous Posts to select Episode 1 and start from the beginning.

Gisel glanced up from sealing the stranger's wound to see him staring at her. He spoke, his a words meaningless grumble.

She grinned and pulled up her own sleeve to show the red blaze of her own sword cut. "I'm good at cutting arms. I did it to myself."

His eyes narrowed, not suspicious now, not angry. Curiosity? He put out his left hand to her, patting her on the arm. M'Tov leaned down abruptly, an automatic pistol in his hand. "Don't get antsy, buster. I'll blow your head off if you try to hurt her."

Gisel shook her head. "I don't think he meant me any harm. He recognises help and concern when he sees it. I'd say we're well on the way to making progress with this guy."

M'Tov straightened up. "You could be right. I mean to take these two with us."

Gisel pulled the guy's torn sleeve down and stood. "Then he'll do until Dr. Hather can stitch him. By the way, we were expecting these guys to speak something like English, but I can't understand a word these guys say."

"I know. I've already found that out."

"What does it mean?"

M'Tov shrugged. "We'll discuss that later, let's get moving."

"Are we taking off right away?"

M'Tov glanced toward her father, sitting on the ground with one of the guards spraying the bloody graze on his head with antiseptic. "We've accomplished most of what we set out to do."

Henrik looked up. "I think so. Give me a hand up and I'll be ready to walk back to the Intruder."

Gisel stepped over and put out her hand. He glanced from the hand to her eyes. "I won't question whether you're strong enough to help me up. You're a tougher little devil than I've given you credit for. A damn sight better with a rapier than I am with a pistol."

M'Tov came to her side and took Henrik's other hand. "She's very good. If swordplay is important in this world, I can see she's going to have to give us all lessons."

They pulled Henrik to his feet. He wavered a moment before standing stiffly upright. "I'm good. Ready to march when you are."

"What about the horses?" Mort asked, gesturing behind them.

"Better leave them," M'Tov said. "None of us knows how to handle them. They'll likely find their own way home."

The three guards slung their assault rifles from their shoulders. They motioned the captives to step in front of them. Alan and Mort set out in front, carrying the captured rapiers, but Alan abruptly turned to walk over to Gisel. "You'd better carry this one. You know what to do with it."

She accepted the rapier with a grin. "Then you lead the way back. I don't want to lose everybody."

She walked at the rear, beside her father as they followed the track out to the edge of the woodland. "What do you make of this place?"

Henrik shrugged. "Even more different than we expected. Not modern, that's for certain. These people could learn a lot from us – I'm thinking that should be our next approach to them."

"We'll be coming back? To the castle, maybe?"

"Depends on what we learn from these two – if anything."

"If we find out how to speak to them."

"Yes, that's a surprise. In our world this was part of England, but they don't speak English. The history in this world must have veered away from ours, or else these two are foreigners."

Gisel glanced at them. "They seem to be what passes for soldiers around here. Think there could be more?"

Henrik glanced around the hillsides as they emerged into the grassy meadow. "I hope there are none nearby, but if these two were just scouts – "

"They'd be waiting for them to report back."

"Good thought. Let's hope they are."

She raised the rapier to examine it. "What could they learn from us?'

Her leaned to peer at the steel. "Better metalworking. I'll want to do an analysis on these swords when we get back to the Iskander. I'd lay odds that we could teach them a thing or two about steelmaking. We have all the facilities and people on Iskander to set up an industrial infrastructure – I'm going to suggest to M'Tov and Dirk Scopes that we should be looking for a place to establish ourselves for such a program."

"But, here?"

He smiled at her. "You're set on that castle aren't you? I must admit I'm curious, but this isn't a likely location. We'd need to be near iron ore and coal deposits."

"But Iskander has steelmaking equipment, you just said so."

"An arc furnace – enough to refine iron that's already smelted." His eyes began to shine, a sign of enthusiasm she knew bubbled near the surface of this mercurial man. "I'm thinking we could be steelmakers for the whole world. We'd need to build blast furnaces, a complete steelworks. If we're stuck here, we can make ourselves a very good life among the locals that way."

"Who do you mean – you, Robbie and me?"

"No, all of us. The Iskanders. We're going to need to be an even closer team on this world. We are a hundred Earth people among maybe millions of these backward locals. We'll get nowhere unless we stick together."

"So, they are backward? That's how everything seemed to me."

Henrik shook his head. "Maybe not backward. That's not fair. It may be that this is as far as their development has reached. These two with their cuirasses and rapiers could be the leading edge of society."

"Mort and Alan told be those woods were a cultivated oak plantation. Maybe to build wooden ships."

He smiled. "That's interesting, if it's true. I could teach them a lot there as well. You know, maybe I'm going to like this world a whole lot more than I first thought. Just think – a chance to replay the Industrial Revolution – without creating all the mistakes and pollution of the first one back home."

2006-09-02T21:02:00.000-06:00

Episode 7, Arrival © C. J. Hoare 2006.
All rights reserved.

Scroll down to Previous Posts to select Episode 1 and start from the beginning.

The man let Gisel's father fall to the ground as he turned to face her. He sprang into a swordfighting stance – knees bent, rapier outthrust to the front and his left arm stretched out behind for balance. Gisel had to grin. Just like the old pictures. Bet he didn't know any of the 22nd century competition tricks.

She darted forward in a 2150 Olympic's leading parry. He gave ground, thrashing his rapier about to ward off her attack. If he'd been a competition opponent she could have scored a telling hit – but he wore that cuirass.

His expression turned from surprise to anger, eyes blazing and teeth bared. His turn to attack. He lunged forward, a good three inches on her for reach. She drew back as she parried – his point met empty air.

"Hah!" he shouted.

He stormed forward again, trying to grab her as well as lunge.

"Too clumsy, buddy." Gisel darted away from his attack, leaving him floundering.

She flicked out her swordpoint like a striking snake, slashing open the sleeve of his shirt. If it had been a contest, he'd likely have smiled and given her the point. This was no contest. He narrowed his eyes and took aim at her again. He meant to run her through.

She caught a movement out of the corner of her eyes. Mort was on his feet and looking to go around them, his gaze fixed on Henrik Matah's pistol on the ground. "Keep clear," she said. "He can stick you before you'd straighten up."

"Try to maneuver him away."

The antagonist stormed forward again, sword quivering in the air before her. She flexed her wrist, her rapier sending his wide to the right. If he'd not been wearing that cuirass she could have plunged her blade into his chest. She began to sweat. How was she going to finish this?

"Easy for you to say, Mort. All I can do is back up and hope he follows."

The antagonist laughed and charged her. She parried and dodged behind a tree trunk. He took three steps after Mort, who ran for his life.

Gisel sprang out at the stranger. She tried for his thigh, half turned toward her. He slashed downwards with his sword, almost knocking hers from her grasp. She sprang clear. No more bullshit, Gisel. Keep to the training you know.

She invited him to attack again. He performed his usual lunge that she easily brushed aside. He didn't have any finesse. Guess he relied on strength, and his opponent's fear.

Was she afraid? Too busy – concentrating on the movement of her blade. The Aikido training took control and she became no more than the rapier's servant. She attacked his face but he ducked beneath her point. She darted back and he followed. One more of those and he'd be too far away to guard her father's pistol. Mort was looking around a tree, gauging his chance. She could see Alan, sitting on the fallen man's chest and watching the fight warily.

The antagonist lunged at her again. This was getting monotonous, she parried with a textbook move. She backed up but he didn't follow. He glanced around. Oh shit! Her father was stirring, beginning to regain consciousness.

Mort darted to a closer tree.

The antagonist looked from Mort, to her, and then to Henrik Matah, sitting up and shaking his head. He flicked his rapier point in the air and took two long strides toward Henrik. He'd guessed what Mort was after.

Gisel dashed forward, getting between the man and her father. She leveled her rapier and advanced at the attack. He smashed her blade aside and lunged.

Gisel changed stance to parry and then moved straight into a riposte. She had no room to break ground without leaving her father vulnerable. She avoided her opponent's parry and followed his sword with her point. Another inch, maybe two . . . she leaned forward. Right off balance now, she was dead if this didn't succeed.

Her point slid past his quillions and guard, disappearing into his shirt sleeve. She felt it hit and put her weight behind it.

He screamed. His sword fell from his hand. Scarlet blood spurted, turning the sleeve red. She jumped forward, placing a foot on his rapier. "Yield!"

He didn't have to understand her language. His sword hand fell to his side, the other grasping it. His face turned ashen white.

Mort sprang forward to Henrik Matah, who still stared dazed at the fight in front of him. He grabbed the fallen pistol just as M'Tov and one of his guards rushed forward to grab the man by his arms.

"Nice work, Gisel. You distracted him nicely."

"Distracted, my ass! He's mine – I beat him square."

M'Tov stared at her a moment before his glare softened. "Yes. I guess you did." He tossed a combat lifesaver pack to her. "How about patching him up before he bleeds to death?"

2006-09-02T20:59:00.000-06:00

Episode 6, Arrival © C. J. Hoare 2006.
All rights reserved.

Scroll down to Previous Posts to select Episode 1 and start from the beginning.

Gisel kept her eyes on the direction the horsemen had gone. Stay where she was – that was a damned silly idea. Nobody knew where that was – not even her. Maybe the road the horsemen were on led somewhere.

She set out carefully, listening to the sounds of their movement. About the time she reached the distinct trail between the trees the noise stopped. She dodged behind a tree and held her breath. Had they seen her?

She had to look. Leaning forward she peered around the tree. She ducked back! Jeeze, they weren't far away.

Cautiously she leaned out for another look.

The track was rutted and about three metres wide. It wound between the trees but never enough to completely block her view along it. The two men sat their horses in the middle, about a hundred metres away. They looked about them and cocked their heads. What could they hear?

The only direction they didn't look was along the path behind them they'd already traveled. Gisel studied them carefully, ready to spring back behind the tree in an instant. They wore grey conical hats – metal, she guessed, and waistcoats the same colour. What were they called? Ah, yes. Cuirasses – a kind of armour. Their legs were encased in coloured breeches – the red and blue she'd glimpsed. They ended just below their knees, where tall riding boots joined them. What caught most of her attention hung from their waists. Swords – rapiers by the shape of them.

Were these fellows the local constabulary? Maybe worse, bandits or cutthroats.

The horses stamped their hooves impatiently; one skittered backwards. The man with the blue breeches said something to the other – a harsh, gutteral sounding speech. They urged their horses forward and resumed cantering down the track.

Gisel came out from the trees to stand looking after them. They'd heard something – maybe Alan and Mort. If so, the guys were in trouble. She considered the idea more carefully. If the horsemen had heard them, it meant the trail led the way she needed to go. Holding the sampling tool in two hands, she set out to follow.

She should let M'Tov and her father know, but she'd been told to stay put. Dammit – they'd find out she hadn't soon enough. "Colonel. Father. The two horsemen are armed, and I think they're headed your way."

Her father's voice came first. "They haven't seen you?"

M'Tov still sounded winded. "What are they armed with?"

"I see rapiers at their waists. They've got iron helmets and cuirasses."

"Roger," M'Tov answered. "We can handle that."

"Be careful, Gisel. Can you still see them?"

"Not now. They're about a hundred metres in front of me . . . riding down a track between the trees."

"How can you tell all this? Are you on the track? I told you –"

"Dammit, Father. You wouldn't have the warning if I wasn't. I'm worried they'll find Alan and Mort."

"Keep well back until we call you by radio."

"Sure." She continued walking. These were her horsemen, she'd seen them first. She was entitled to see what happened.

She'd only gone a couple of hundred metres when she heard shouts from ahead.

"Colonel! Do you see them? I hear shouts."

"No, I haven't reached your father yet."

"Then they must have found our tree guys."

She began to run. The trail began winding more than before, wide sweeping turns around boggy patches and clumps of bushes. More shouts, and Alan's voice, "Look out, Mort! Run for it . . . Yahhg!" Oh Christ – they were being killed!

The only remaining voices spoke back and forth in the gutteral speech. She could hear the horsemen's breath rasp deeply between the words. She ran harder.

She squelched across a wet patch in the trail. More small bushes here. She rounded them at a run and almost bumped into a pair of tall brown legs, tail swishing and hooves stomping. Horse. The other animal swung it's head and whinneyed at her. God dammit – don't give me away! She dived into the bushes.

She threw herself flat on the ground and crawled under the branches. The men's voices again – sounded kinda like German; so much for M'Tov's idea of landing in what should be the equivalent of southern Britain where people should speak recognisable English. She couldn't understand a word.

A rustling as feet kicked through the fallen leaves. One coming back to check the horses. Gisel lay quiet while she heard the man moving about, his voice now quieter as he soothed the animals. As he walked away, she crawled forward to peer out. She shifted position several times before she could see properly.

The two men stood together, looking down at something on the ground. She couldn't quite make out what was there from her low vantage point. Bodies? Yuk. One bent down to lift something. Mort's head and shoulders came into view. His eyes were open. Maybe he was still alive. The man in the red breeches yanked a rag out of Mort's mouth and spoke to him.

Mort shook his head. "Don't understand you."

The two strangers spoke more loudly.

Mort glared up at them. "Let us go! You'll be in deep shit when the others get here."

"If they get here."

Alan's voice. That meant they weren't dead.

The strangers began to argue, and then one bent down to lift Alan to his feet. Blue breeches drew his rapier and prodded him toward the horses. Shit. She couldn't let them be taken away.

She lay silently as Mort was pulled to his feet and goaded forward. Then she heard running feet approaching. The strangers and Mort swung around.

"Over here!" Mort shouted. "Look out, they . . ."

The horseman swung a terrific punch that knocked him off his feet.

Gisel raised herself up. Between the trees, a man approached at a run. Her father. Where the hell were M'Tov and the rest?

The man in the blue breeches raised his rapier. He spoke briefly to his companion. As the other man threw Alan to the ground, the man in the blue advanced toward Gisel's father, rapier at the ready. Gisel stood and pushed through the branches. "Look out, Father. He's got a sword."

At her voice, Henrik Matah stopped running. The man with the red breeches swung around. He stood very close, his rapier point reached out toward her.

She swung the sampling tool as hard as she could. As it swung she released the handle to let the sampling end extend. It caught the horseman on the side of the head. His helmet went flying.

He collapsed in a heap, his rapier falling to the ground.

A shot rang out.

Gisel looked up. The man with the blue breeches had dodged behind a tree – obviously as her father fired. Henrik raised the pistol into the air as he stepped forward to look for him.

The man leaped out and grabbed for the pistol.

"Look out!" Gisel shouted. "Shoot him! Shoot!"

Henrik hesitated. Bad mistake. The man in blue was close enough to swing his rapier and clout him in the head. Henrik crumpled, the pistol flying from his hand.

Gisel scooped up the fallen man's rapier. She ran at her father's assailant. "Leave him alone, you bastard!"

2006-07-31T14:18:00.000-06:00

Episode 5, Arrival © C. J. Hoare 2006.

All rights reserved.

Scroll down to Previous Posts to select Episode 1 and start from the beginning.

The wood smelled neat; musty, brown leaves on the ground and fresh green ones higher up. The tree trunks stretched to the branches about twenty metres above her, like a whole forest of pillars, an unobstructed view because the few lower bushes were small and widely scattered. Some trees had clumps of what must be blossoms or seed pods that gave gusts of sweetish aroma on the breeze. Gisel found it cooler under the shade of the trees and leaned her back against the trunk of one that must have been a couple of metres around. The only sounds were the leaves rustling above.

She could just see Mort and Alan inspecting a fallen tree between the rows of grey-green trunks. In the other direction she'd lost all sight of her father and the biologists – she'd given him a call to tell him so. "Keep calling in by radio," he'd snapped.

A bug landed on her cheek. She raised a hand to swat it, but gently brushed it away instead. Maybe M'Tov had a point – she'd better get used to bugs. It looked as if she'd spend the rest of her life here. What the hell would she do with herself? One thing was certain – she wasn't going to partner up with one of these self-opinionated guys and keep springing his babies. She was going to find some job that would let her make her own life.

She glanced toward the fallen tree – Mort and Alan nowhere in sight. They must have moved on. "Hey you guys," she called. "I can't see you."

No answer.

"Hey! Where are you," she shouted this time.

Mort's face appeared in the distance, framed between two tree trunks. "Over here, Gisel. You'd better follow."

She thought about reminding him they were supposed to stay in sight but didn't want to sound like a baby. She picked up the sampling tool and shouldered it – couldn't see anything to worry about in this wood. Should she call Father? No, wait for him to call first.

She ploughed through the rustling leaves to the fallen tree and then cast about for signs of their further progress. Easy to see, the turned over leaves showed their darker, damp sides. They hadn't walked in a straight line but from tree to tree as if they had to touch each one. Maybe they had – must have been months since they last did whatever arborists were supposed to do.

"Hurry up Gisel. We need our sampling tool."

She heard the voice but didn't see the men until one moved out from a nearby bush. She stopped and placed a hand on her hip. "If you'd carried it . . ."

"Quit complaining. Worse than an old woman."

Mort came around the bush. "Yeah. I don't believe you're sixteen. More like sixty, sometimes."

She swung the tool off her shoulder fast enough that he had to step back. "Careful with that thing. You could hurt somebody."

"What did you find so far?"

"You'd never believe it. Most of these trees are cultivated, a whole plantation of oak trees – all the same age."

She squinted at him. Yeah, so? "Why wouldn't I believe it?"

Mort frowned at her. "Don't you get it?"

"Get what?"

"These people aren't so dumb. They're cultivating trees for construction material. That shows forethought and planning, these take two hundred years to mature."

"Constructing what?" Gisel looked up into the tree beside her.

"My guess would be ships. Somebody around here builds wooden ships."

Gisel smiled faintly. Whatever turns your crank, Mort. But she didn't say anything – these guys were as excited as if they'd found a goldmine. She followed him back to where Alan stared up at an unusually low branch. They took the tool between them and extended it to snip off some small twigs and bring them down.

Mort looked up at her from examining them. "See these furry things. They're the male flowers. These are the female."

"Uhuh." That's what she'd been able to smell. "Is that it?"

They put their specimen in a container and handed her the sampling tool. "Fold that back up, Gisel. We're going to head further that way. Looks like some have been cut."

Wow, would that ever be exciting. She sqeezed the handle to contract the sampling head and took her time to catch up to them.

When she reached them they were bent over a tree stump, like it was a screen or something. Alan traced a finger across it. "At least two hundred years. More if each of these indistinct rings is two years and not exceptionally wet ones."

Gisel looked down on the pattern on the stump. "Kinda pretty. What makes it like that?"

Alan stared at her before turning his back. Mort grinned. "Each one of these rings is a year's growth. We can count how old the trees are."

"And you think they're all the same?"

"That's what we're going to check."

She glanced around the small clearing, must be twenty stumps in sight. They were going to be here a while. "I'll head back to where we came in and call the others."

Alan and Mort were on their way to the next stump. Alan glanced back. "Don't get lost."

Get lost – what did they think she was? She set out confidently, following the trail of mussed up leaves. She stepped over the fallen tree they'd already inspected. As she walked, the idea niggled at her that she hadn't needed to go to the edge of the wood – she could radio her father from anywhere. But she enjoyed the exercise – never been in anything like this before. Only trouble was – she should have been back at the edge of the trees by now, and she couldn't see any brightening to indicate she was getting close.

She stopped to look about. Had she been here before? No telling, all these trees looked the same. She stared at the ground behind her – at least the marks of her passage were clear in the disturbed leaves. Maybe she'd better follow them back.

No. That was stupid – she needed to go further in the direction she was heading.

She shifted the sampling tool from one shoulder to the other. It was beginning to feel heavy. Probably would get a bruise where it bumped up and down with her motion. She walked for ten more minutes, more or less. The woods looked exactly the same. No trace of the brightening at the edge of the trees.

She went on some more. Still nothing. Maybe she'd better follow her trail back. Like hell! That would mean she was lost. She set the sampling tool against a tree trunk and sat down. Getting mad, and she could feel the anger growing – damned trees – stupid wood – wasn't going to help. The first thing to do was calm down. Meditation – she needed to calm herself and get in the moment.

She sat quietly for some time before her breathing really steadied. She was only dimly aware of the woods about her through her almost closed eyes. Then she heard thumping sounds coming through the trees. Her eyes snapped open.

She held her breath to listen. How far away? All depended on how big the . . . thing . . . was, that made the sounds. Like heavy footfalls. Was it coming closer?

It definitely sounded to be getting louder. An intermittent jingling merged with it. She stood up slowly and grabbed for the sampling tool. Not a weapon but it'd pack a mean swing.

She listened carefully. The thumps gave an irregular rhythm, like it was several footfalls, and moving quite fast. An animal, or animals, running. She stared in the direction the sounds came from.

Nothing caught her eye for the longest time, while she breathed as softly as she could. Then a quick movement as something moved through the trees – going across her line of vision. Colours, red and blue. Surely not an animal, but her glimpse hadn't been clear enough to tell for sure.

She held the sampling tool in both hands, out in front of her, and slipped from one tree to the next. She peered around the trunk and then ran to the next tree. The strange sounds still came from quite close. She'd be able to see clearly if there weren't so many trees in the way.

The sounds grew louder. She ran across a wider space between the trees. A movement out of the corner of her eye. She darted behind the nearest tree. What had she seen? She fixed the image in her memory but it was vague. Nothing she'd seen before. A man's face – above an animal's head. Jeeze! Not a centaur!

She peered around the tree. This time she got a better look. Two men, riding horses – something she'd only seen in videos. They were just level, about thirty metres off, and now heading away from her.

She slid around the tree to keep them in view. What if they looked back? Better stay out of sight. What to do?

She set down the sampling tool and remembered the radio on her belt. She should call, but didn't want to tell her father she was lost. She should call anyway, maybe he wouldn't realize that.

"Colonel M'Tov, Father. I see two horesmen coming through the wood."

"What, Gisel? Where?" her Father's voice.

Colonel M'Tov answered. "Do you have their location and direction of travel?"

Oh shit. That's screwed her idea.

M'Tov repeated his question. "Answer, Gisel. We need to know quickly."

"No I don't. I'm not sure where I am."

"Are you lost, Gisel?" Father's voice. "How could you be so stupid?"

M'Tov answered him. "Don't worry about that, Matah. We need the girl's information."

"Yes, I see that. Answer as best you can, Gisel. How far have you gone from the edge of the woods?"

Shit. How do I know? " I think I may have walked the wrong way. I could be as much as a kilometre inside the woods. The horsemen are riding across the direction I was going – if that means anything."

M'Tov's voice came on, sounding jerky, as if he was running. "Are Mort and Alan with you?'

"No. I'm afraid I've lost them."

Her father answered, impatience positively dripping out of the receiver. "Well stay where you are, and keep out of sight. We'll take care of this."

2006-07-17T15:52:00.000-06:00

Scroll down to Previous Posts to select Episode 1 and start from the beginning.

Episode 4, Arrival © C. J. Hoare 2006.
All rights reserved.

Gisel set down her pack and the portable analyzer on some long grass while the biologists waded out into the swamp. Helen Svambini, one of the field techs, wielded a measuring rod and a sample tool, measuring water depth and turbidity. Looked like a messy job, Gisel grinned at her sympathetically as she lifted a leg covered with black mud and bits of plants. Helen shrugged. The two tree specialists, both young field techs, paced about impatiently and stared at the woodlands in the distance. "All deciduous," Mort said, shielding his eyes.

"How many species? Can't tell from here," Alan, who Gisel didn't like, answered with a nod. "I hope to hell we get over there soon."

"Soon enough," Henrik Matah said, turning to them abruptly. "When these people are nearly finished we'll walk on."

Gisel stayed out of it. But it'd be good to get into the trees; the air around this place stank and small insects kept trying to fly into her eyes. She'd forgotten how much she hated bugs after six months in space.

The radios crackled. "M'Tov to Matah. Routine check."

"Good here, Elias. We're at our first ground truthing site."

Gisel keyed her transmit. "Did we bring any bug spray, Colonel? I'm being eaten alive here."

A minute passed before M'Tov answered. "I don't think Iskander carries any. Either you get used to them or you stay aboard, young lady."

She hated that tone of his. "What if they're carrying something?"

His answer snapped back a lot quicker. "I'll check with medical and chemical engineering when we get back."

Alan came up behind her and swatted around her head. "Look out, Gisel. This one is big enough to carry you off."

She pushed him away, with more force than he expected by the way he screwed up his face. "Better you stick to your trees – they're more your speed."

"Wicked one!" Mort said with a grin. "I don't think she wants to make friends, Alan."

Being the youngest woman on the Iskander made her the object of all the young men's attentions – and they were all ages too old for her.

She walked part way around the swamp while the team worked, she could have done the video recording for her father while she was waiting. Maybe she should take that chore from him, she could see he was already regretting bringing her. A movement under a grove of trees in the middle distance caught her eye. Greyish white animals started out into the meadow, lowering their heads to munch grass as they walked. What the heck were they? She'd seen pictures of them somewhere.

It wasn't until a boy and a dog followed them into the open that she remembered. The pole he carried – it was called a crook. That made him a . . . shepherd. Yes, that was it. He ambled on into the meadow, obviously without noticing them.

The dog looked up and barked.

The shepherd boy stopped and she could see his mouth fall open. The Iskander team probably looked outlandish to him, dressed in shiny, repellant coveralls, while he wore a dull brown smock over knee length breeches and hose. Gisel waved; maybe he wouldn't feel threatened by her.

He started to back away, the dog running forward growling. The animals . . . sheep . . . took alarm from the reactions. They began to scatter.

Gisel waved again. "Hey. Come on over. We mean no harm."

The boy turned and ran. The sheep ran off in several directions while the dog ran to and fro, barking.

"Gisel! Come away. Get back over here." Her father's voice.

She turned to them, all pausing in their tasks to watch the commotion. "He's only a boy. Can't do any harm."

"Dammit! Come back over here. You don't know that – he could be contagious."

She shook her head, but turned to trudge back around the swamp. She managed one look over her shoulder as the shepherd boy vanished into the trees. Most of the sheep had ceased running and grazed this way and that. Contagious? How the hell were they going to meet anyone then?

She was just about to rejoin the team when she heard her father call M'Tov to report the sighting. The radio on her belt blipped in and out as M'Tov answered so she unclipped it and held it up in the air.

"We could have a problem here, Henrik," she heard M'Tov say. "Heard a sound like a trumpet coming from the direction of that castle."

"What do you think it meant?"

"If that castle is the local authority, it likely means they're aware of our landing and are calling their men together. You may need to carry out your tasks much faster than we'd planned. Until we know what these folks are capable of, we had best err on the side of caution."

"Do you want me to return to the Intruder?"

Gisel couldn't stay silent any longer. "Gee, Father. One shepherd boy and we're gonna run and hide? He's already done that."

"Be quiet, Gisel."

"I don't think we want to abort the mission," M'Tov said, "but I'm going to cut ours short. We've found one fellow in the village, and we're taking him with us."

"Very well," Henrik said. "I'll send my arborists on ahead. Send me your guards when you get back to Intruder."

"I'll come myself. I'll leave my team working near the Intruder."

Gisel itched to tell him to go up to the castle and knock on the door, but she knew it wasn't worth pissing him off. What had M'Tov expected? The Intruder landing had alarmed everyone within miles.

Her father spoke with her two tree buddies when she rejoined the group. "You carry on ahead and start your work. Don't get out of sight. Gisel, I want you to go with them as far as the trees and stay where you can see us as well as Mort and Alan."

Good, the alarm had speeded things nicely. "Right."

"When the biologists have finished here we will come and join you. Leave the portable analyzer here for them."

Alan hoisted a long tool from his shoulder. "You can carry this instead."

She grabbed it before it hit her in the face; it had a large snipper end and its weight momentarily pulled her off balance. "What is it?"

"Extending clippers and grab, for collecting samples off high branches."

"Geez. Leave it with me. I'll go shear some sheep while I wait for you."

Her father stared at her a moment before shaking his head and turning away.

The two men set out at once, so by the time Gisel had reclaimed her pack from where she'd left it she had to run to catch up to them. Only then did she remember about offering to do the video recording. Too late now, she wasn't going to run back.

The next trees were some distance from those the shepherd boy had vanished into, although as she walked it seemed as if all the clumps of trees she'd seen from further off were part of a single large wood. The terrain was more rolling than she'd first thought. She might have to climb a tree if she was going to be able to see her father from the edge. Bet that would be wrong, too.

"What is this tree identification going to tell us?" she asked as she caught up to them.

"Culture identity will give us usage," Mort said. "Cutting areas will indicate how much, from which we can estimate the size of the population that uses them."

"Oh. Why not find somebody to ask?"

"How can we do that?" Alan snapped, "if they all run away."

"I bet they haven't all run away. I bet the trumpet call means they're getting ready to come and investigate us."

The two men exchanged glances and shook their heads. "Children can make everything sound so simple."

"They should have put you in charge, Gisel," Mort said with a grin.

Gisel stopped. "M'Tov as much as said that – it's not my idea."

"Whatever." Alan took longer strides "Hurry up. We'll get nothing done if we don't step out. M'Tov is already spooked."

"Hey," Mort wheezed. "Not so fast. I haven't lived in one G for a year."

"Told you to come to the gym," Gisel said, running to catch up again. "I could have got you into shape."

Alan glanced back over his shoulder. "Gisel. Just carry your goddamned load and shut up. If we need your advice, I'll ask for it."

2006-07-11T19:22:00.000-06:00

Scroll down to Previous Posts to select Episode 1 and start from the beginning.

Episode 3 – Arrival © C. J. Hoare June 2006.

All rights reserved.

Gisel craned forward for a glimpse out the small passenger door beside the cargo ramp as the Iskander crewman opened it. Her father reached out a hand to pull her against the seat back. "Be careful Gisel. We don't know what might be out there."

It had taken her a great deal of fast talking to secure a place in this first ground investigation mission. Her father relented and included her in his team – in large part because she'd made him worry for her mental state. Had she really intended suicide a week ago? All she knew was that she'd frightened herself as well as him. It felt as if some alien Gisel had taken over her emotions. She'd keep tighter control from now on.

She leaned forward again as M'Tov and his crewman stepped out onto the head of the unfolded flight ramp, assault rifles at the ready. She could probably see as well as anyone inside while they scanned the area around the landing zone. She glimpsed a grassy meadow and a small creek, with woods beyond. No sign of human inhabitants, but then they'd picked a landing site over a mile from the nearest village – and Intruder was loud enough to scare them away.

M'Tov turned to them. "It looks clear. Team leaders, prepare your people to disembark."

Henrik Matah unfastened his seat belt and stood, staggering slightly after a month of weightlessness. "Ground truthing team collect your packs and join me at the cargo ramp." He looked down at her. "How do you feel?"

She tossed the ends of her seat belt aside and sprang to her feet. She strove to ignore a surge of dizziness. "Fine, Father. You know I'm the fittest one here. I can carry twice the load you've given me."

She stepped confidently across the floor of the cargo hold toward Marc Chronon, the youngest member of Iskander's flight crew, as he pressed the buttons to lower the Intruder's cargo ramp. Only five years older than her, he was an electronics and communications specialist. She'd charmed an extra radio receiver out of him for the mission, but only because he wanted it tested after some repairs.

He put out a hand to keep her back when she stepped onto the descending ramp. "Let M'Tov go first, Gisel. This is his show."

She stuck out her tongue before dodging around his arm and running down the moving ramp. She jumped off into the grass, still bent over from the blast of the Intruder's landing. Like most of their larger systems, the aircraft was powered by a fusion reactor, and its turbine engines used electric arcs to turn air and recycled water into a superheated steam reaction mass. At less than combustion temperature, the vegetation below the aircraft had not been charred. She kneeled to lift up handfuls of bowed stalks to hold against her face. "Come on down, it smells just like home."

Colonel M'Tov glared down at her. "Please come back at once, Miss Matah. I want to place my guards before any of you civilians disembark."

She grinned up at him and winked as he said ‘civilians'. M'Tov was one of her fencing class, and she was sure she knew how to get around him. But she stood and hurried back up the ramp. "Sorry, Colonel, but remember we're not civilians any more. We're all in this together."

He frowned and turned away.

"Gisel." Her father's voice. "Come back here and pick up your load."

She waited just long enough to stand at salute while M'Tov and his six men picked as guards filed past her, and then scampered across the cargo bay to her father and his team.

"Hurry up, Gisel. We're the second team off. Remember this is a speed mission. We don't want to be on the ground long enough for the local authorities to react."

"Yessir!" She threw another salute. She could have pointed out that ‘local authorities' was just a supposition. Everyone's comments, as they'd flown over the countryside, suggested they'd meet no modern organization here. From a thousand feet up, the buildings in the villages looked a lot like thatched sheds – the people living there could even be serfs. They'd marveled at the castle beside the river, over three miles away – was there a knight in armor living there? Wow, wouldn't that be neat?

She'd never expected to see a real castle, with battlements and even a banner flying from its highest tower. She wished her father's team was going that way instead of up the valley to ground truth various types of trees and crops that Iskander had recorded in remote sensing imagery from space. Everyone had agreed that they must eventually establish themselves on the surface, but needed to evaluate the whole world before deciding where. This ground investigation would verify their remote sensing data, so they could use it to pick the best location. Why waste time? Already, she loved this place and wanted it to be here.

M'Tov led the first investigation team, heading to the village beside the river estuary, much closer to the castle. She could see him standing under Intruder's tail, detailing three men to guard the aircraft and placing the last three among the file of specialists in his investigation team. She picked up her pack to swing onto her back and looped the carry strap of the portable analyzer over her left shoulder. Her cut arm twinged a bit, but she pushed the discomfort away. The katana's warning cut was scabbed over and no longer inflamed.

Father led them to the ramp, a video camera in one hand. They had no escort with their team but he carried an automatic pistol in a belt holster. She doubted he could hit a barn from the inside. Pity they hadn't given it to her. Back on Earth, she'd sweet talked herself into a few shots at the pistol range adjoining her fencing gym.

"We're to keep together," Henrik said. "Are you listening Gisel? I don't want any straggling. Now check our communications." He unclipped the receiver from his belt. "Intruder, this is team north, do you read?"

"Loud and clear, Mr Matah."

Gisel pulled out the spare receiver. "North team second radio. Gisel Matah, over."

Commander Johansen at the Intruder's controls answered. "Seems to be working right now, Gisel. Drop it a few times and call us from a distance."

"Ha ha, smartass. We may need this extra one. The Colonel's guards have most of the rest."

"You may need it," Johansen's voice came back. "Keep sassing me and I'm going to leave you down here."

She turned toward the cockpit door where she could see both pilots silhouetted against the windshield, and gave him the finger. The rest of the team descended the ramp, and she had to sprint to catch them up.

Henrik glanced down at a compass in his hand. "This way, everyone. About half a mile to the swamp where we do our first checks."

Gisel held her speed down almost to a stroll to keep from overtaking the rest of the team. Some were already wheezing – but on the journey they'd never listened when she tried to tell them to exercise more. She had ample time to look about her as they walked. The Intruder had landed in a small valley where a creek, if you could call it that – it was only a metre wide – meandered slowly to the wider river estuary almost a mile in the opposite direction. They left the area where the grass was long and uncut and crossed several areas where it had been clipped down to ground level. Animal droppings suggested that livestock had been staked out to graze. She looked at the droppings – wonder what the hell made those piles. Animals – domestic or wild – were a rarity on the Earth they'd come from.

The meadow on the hill to her right extended to a tree covered ridge. The name forest came to her but this seemed too small. Perhaps it was proper to call this a wood. She'd have liked to leave the team and run up to experience the trees – she hadn't seen real trees since she was a kid – but knew it wasn't worth getting into trouble. They were to check out trees further up the valley.

Only a few isolated trees graced the hill on her other side, and the ground between was cut in strips of bare red-brown earth. Cultivated fields, she guessed. A faint hint of green showed where plants were beginning to sprout – just like the seeds in that biology project back at the school she'd attended while the Iskander was prepared for this mission. Before the divorce, before Father went to Titan. Forget that – look at the scenery. This place was . . . what was the word? Primitive. Yes, that was it. Like hundreds of years in the past.

She looked back at the Intruder from the crest of a rise in the valley. Two guards stood under the wingtips in the shade, and the flight crew was talking to the third at the base of the ramp. M'Tov had said the aircraft was to take off if any threat to its safety appeared. It was their only link between Iskander and the surface, and they couldn't risk any damage. He'd briefed everyone on alternative pickup points if that happened. What he didn't say was how they were expected to get there if some . . . army, or something big enough to damage the aircraft showed up. Amateurs at this kind of thing – shit – didn't M'Tov ever read SciFi thrillers?

Sure, Intruder made enough noise to scare the dead, but she didn't believe all the locals had run away. Someone could be watching them from those trees.

2006-07-11T19:19:00.000-06:00

Episode 2 – Arrival © C. J. Hoare 2006.
All rights reserved.

Gisel left the observation room, glancing around before launching herself out of the door. She cruised down the centre of the corridor and reached out with her left hand to stop herself by the handrail at the intersection leading to the gym. The headband she'd wrapped around her cut arm slipped but no globules of blood came spurting out. Not even a major vein – the blood must be coagulating already. Just as goddamn well, the headband was soaked scarlet.

She checked the cross corridor in both directions. Still no one about. That seemed strange for a work afternoon. As long as she didn't bump into anyone inquisitive – what she did to her own arm was her business. She clamped her right elbow tighter to hold the katana against her side. The corridor to the gym was empty and dark. The overhead lights came on as she kicked off gently down it.

She stretched out a foot to stop herself at the door. Clear so far. She could wash up and put an invisible tape on the cut. Just wear long sleeves for a few days. She reached for the door control. It started to slide open even before she touched it.

Someone inside. A man. Goddammit! Her father.

"Oh, at last, Gisel. Where have you been? There's a general meeting. Hurry, you're late–"

His black hair and hypnotically dark eyes – that she'd inherited – made him a stooping bird of prey in the doorway. The image was enhanced by his dark skin and large hooked nose – thankfully a gene she'd escaped. He moved awkwardly under weightlessness – a sign of too much time spent at a terminal. She squeezed past him, keeping her left arm behind her. "I'll clean up. Where is it being held?"

"I've looked everywhere for you." He frowned at her. "What's that on your arm?"

"Nothing." She kicked off from the wall. "I'll be there ASAP, Dad. Where?"

"That's blood."

"Just a graze. I'll disinfect it."

He turned to follow. "That rag is soaked. Let me look."

Goddamn. Of all the luck. "It's nothing I tell you. I can look after it."

"You've got that damned katana. I told you to let me keep it under lock and key."

She changed direction and scooted faster toward the female changing room. He followed.

"You can't come in here."

"I'm in. What did you do?"

"You gotta leave . . . I need . . .. You know –" She took hold of a cubicle door with her left hand, pressing herself tight to conceal her arm.

He stopped, beside her and somewhat higher off the floor. A hawk hovering. "Gisel, quit trying to put me off. I know when you're trying to evade."

She placed a hand over the makeshift bandage. "Leave me alone! I'm not a little kid any more. Go and sniff around Badry. She seems to like your fussing."

His eyes widened. "You saw . . . you were . . .?"

"Damn right I did. You two couldn't wait to get into the sleeping niche? Just animals out in public view. You were too hot – "

His face suffused with red. "That'll do. Just keep a respectful tongue in your head."

"Respectful, shit! Like naked savages on the floor! You and that slut –"

His hand darted like a diving hawk, catching her on the side of the head. "I said, enough!"

She shook her head to clear it. This was the Indian half of his Anglo-Indian again. Goddamn ancestry – his genes didn't know they weren't fighting for the Raj any more. She let go of the bloodstained headband and released the sword from under her elbow. "One of these days, I swear –"

"Don't you threaten me. Give me that katana."

"No!"

He grabbed her arm. "Give it here!"

She shifted her fist to take it by the handgrip. "You just try to take it."

"By God, I will." His own fist closed over hers.

She tried to anchor herself as he jerked at the sword. No such luck, his effort pulled her away from the cubicle door.

"You little –" He tried to wrench the sword free. "I've spoiled you too much. That's going to change, young lady –. Jesus H Christ! Where did all that blood come from?"

She followed his glance to the door; a great scarlet smear where she'd pressed the headband against it. "Studialo!" A pity her grandmother hadn't taught her more Greek swear words – she felt like ripping off a long streak.

Her father let go of the sword and reached for her left arm. "Let me look."

"No. I'm fine. I can look after it – just get to your meeting. You're late too."

He didn't take any notice. Just wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her over to the washbubbles. "How did it happen? I knew I shouldn't have let you keep that sword." He stared into her eyes and then unwrapped the bloodstained bandage.

"I was doing an exercise and it slipped."

"Bullshit, Gisel. You never slip when you're exercising – too good for that."

She felt a grin pull at her lips. "I'm not as perfect as you."

He bent over her arm. "It's not too deep."

"I know. It's just about quit bleeding."

He left her with her arm inside the washbubble to sail to the far wall and collect the first aid kit. "How did it really happen?" he said as he glided back.

"I told you – an exercise."

He stared into her eyes, as if a lie was written on her pupils. "One more evasion and I ground you."

She grinned widely this time. "Up here?"

He glared a moment, before his eyes met hers and he smiled. "That's what the meeting is about. The whole crew are considering our options. We'd better hurry. I give you until it's over to prepare an honest answer."

He worked quickly, cleaning the long cut and pressing the edges together while she sprayed the disinfectant and wound sealant on it. "Give it a good coat. Make sure it doesn't work open or you'll have a scar."

"I was doing the meditation exercise," she said. "In the Observation Room. I guess I should clean up any blood still floating there."

"God Dammit. You were told never to do that alone – and in weightlessness! What the hell were you –"

"It won't happen again. I just needed to . . . that's all."

He stared at her without speaking.

"I was angry . . ."

He reached out and laced his fingers into her hair. Either about to shake the shit out of her or hold her head while he slapped her with his other hand. She tensed.

He shook his head. "Do you have a jacket here? Don't want anyone else seeing that cut."

***

They hurried to the Intruder hangar, where the meeting was taking place. The aircraft was outside in space, ready to drop out of orbit to check the surface. Voices echoed in the empty metal hangar and Gisel's nose twitched from the reek of lubricants and that universal aircraft smell of sour sweat.

Every one of the Iskander's one hundred passengers and crew were ranged about the vacated space – the only one large enough to hold everybody. All eyes turned to them as Gisel and her father entered. The Iskander's captain, who liked to be addressed by his military rank, Colonel M'Tov, paused in his address as they found places. Henrik swooped across the hangar to settle beside Dr Badry while Gisel tucked herself in beside her brother Robert.

He grinned at her momentarily and then faced forward again.

M'Tov, thumbs hooked under the ample belt of his Space Service uniform, his greying hair freshly clipped short, watched them a moment before continuing to speak. "So, to recap for the late arrivals –. We do not know how Iskander arrived at this world – it's obviously not Colony N-3 we were bound for. It's also plain that we may never learn enough to find our way back. If we wanted to refuel Iskander for any further voyage, we must set our deuterium separator working at a safe seashore location down there for ten years to refill the tanks." He paused to survey the glum faces. "We have learned everything possible about the planet from space. The next step is to take an investigation team down to question people on the surface."

"Is that wise? What if they take us for enemies?" Gisel looked toward the speaker, Dr Maria Hather, a heavy, round faced woman who was their senior medical practitioner.

"Better than sitting up here, waiting for them to shoot us out of the sky!" said a younger voice from the centre of the group.

"What makes you think they can?" Commander Johansen, the Intruder's chief pilot, said. "They don't even have radio. No microwave radiation at all. Whoever's down there doesn't even know we're here."

"I think that's an unlikely assumption," Hannan Badry said, her dark Levantine coloring matching Henrik's as she leaned toward him. "With a satellite as large as the Iskander arriving in their sky – they could be pretty tense down there."

M'Tov nodded. "If they're primitive. Yes. We need to go armed. The problem is – we have no idea what we might find."

"Do we have any armaments?"

M'Tov stared toward the speaker as if reluctant to answer. "We have some automatic rifles in the security locker," he said eventually. "There was a plan to form a police team when we arrived on N-3."

Dr Hather's chin jutted forward. "Policing who, M'Tov?"

He shook his head. "Just a precaution – in the planning."

"How many rifles." Commander Johansen demanded.

M'Tov shrugged. "Six."

Richard Norris, an active leader of Oceanographic expeditions, looked around at the group. "Not many to start a war against a whole planet."

"Good God! Who says we need to start a war?" came a loud voice.

M'Tov pinpointed the speaker with his cold grey eyes. "We don't, but without going down to interview someone, we'll never know."

"If someone wants to be interviewed," Johansen said.

Norris gave him a twisted smile. "Who says we're going to ask permission?"

"Damned cowboys," Maria Hather snapped. "We need to behave like civilised people."

M'Tov nodded. "I agree, but our very existence could be at stake."

Loud murmurs and low voiced comments rang against the metal walls.

"It's plainly necessary for us to send down a team," Henrik Matah said after the hum of concern died. "What this meeting needs to settle is how we go about it, what it's objectives are, and who comprises it. I'm ready to go, for one."

2006-06-14T10:15:00.000-06:00

Episode 1 – Arrival © C. J. Hoare 2006.
All rights reserved.

Gisel slid open the observation room door and slipped inside. It was unoccupied, a row of empty seats facing a huge viewport that bulged out into space, several devices clipped to the rail in front of them, and a console screen to the side, showing the current remote sensing being recorded. She held the katana in its sheath in front of her as she drifted to the seats and strapped herself into the end one.

Damn him! Hadn't he hurt her enough? First the divorce from Mother – her world had come apart. Then this assignment – ten years setting up the infrastructure for a new world. Like hell. Where was the world? "I'll train you to be the best damned planetary engineer in the service, Gisel. Promise." How much were Henrik Matah's promises worth? He'd broken them to their mother, to both her and Robbie, and now he was screwing that Dr. Badry in their own quarters. Disgusting, mortifying.

She lifted the katana by its hilt and sheath and drew out the razor-sharp sword – shining like a mirror even in the heavily shielded sunlight. He didn't care how much he hurt or humiliated her. She'd show him.

Her eyes drifted from the edge of the blade, mere centimetres from her face, to the brilliant planet beneath. Blues and greens in many shades marked out continents she had seen in every atlas file her whole life. It was Earth, but not the one she'd been born on, or spent most of the first sixteen years of her life. This Earth seemed to be in a different universe – where or when it was, a total mystery. They had taken a wormhole jump that was to carry them across the galaxy – and it had brought them here.

She placed a finger gently on the steel edge. In ancient times defeated and disgraced warriors had used this edge to slice their bellies, signifying to a trusted companion that they wished to be beheaded. Disgraced women needed no help to sever their carotid arteries with the smaller kaiken. She hadn't brought hers with them; a weight restriction for this journey. She'd had to plead with her father for the two foils and the katana – if he hadn't pulled rank to sign her onto the crew as a personal trainer she'd have lost them too.

Her attention drifted to the planet again. What had happened to this Earth? They'd found signs of cultivation and small towns – but the radio spectrum was empty. No Houston Control, nothing but the random crackle of electrical storms, and the background hiss of the Big Bang. The starship's top people were about to start a conference to decide when and where to take the shuttle down to investigate. Her father would be in the meeting, of course, he rated number three in the Iskander's hierarchy.

How should she go about her intention? Was it really her intention? The mythology said seppuku was called Hara-kiri – that the blade was used to disembowel oneself. Her teachers had told her that wasn't true, but she had no trusted companion to slash off her head. How could she use this long sword to sever a carotid artery?

If he'd been with anyone but Dr. Hannan Badry . . .. She thought the woman was her friend. Had befriended her because of her own qualities – her intelligence, her personality – and all the while it was no more than a ruse to worm closer to her father. The oceanographer was a fascinating companion, had even asked to learn more about Zen meditation and the art of the katana. Fraud! Lies!

Two naked bodies writhing on the cabin floor . . . like . . . like a pair of gophers. Disgusting. So engrossed in their sensuality they hadn't heard her enter the cabin. Well, she hadn't completely entered. Just stood dumbstruck in the doorway for several seconds – an eternity of seconds – until she'd swung around and slid the door closed.

She'd gone to the gym. At least she supposed she had propelled herself down the corridor to her locker. She hadn't paid attention to her surroundings until she'd taken out her sweats. She had no session scheduled – the next of her personal training clients was booked for foils in the morning. She'd started to believe she'd become a valued member of the crew – lord knew that keeping fit in a weightless environment was important. And Iskander hadn't been under 1G acceleration for a month. Deceleration, the last times. She'd thought to work out on the ropes and bars until the sweat ran and she'd have nothing left but to flake out in her bunk. When she hung her off-duty clothes inside she'd noticed the katana.

She held out the sword at arms length, the blade pointed at the turquoise planet below. What forces could she sense in the conjunction? The mystery of life . . . of death. And the mystery of the planet. She breathed deeply – in . . . and out. One. Breathe again . . .. Two. In meditation she felt closer to the forces of the Universe – to the unifying factor her learning said was called "That". Not a name – how could something so all pervading be limited by a name? One instructor had taught her a katana exercise of oneness, but made her promise never to practise it alone.

She was alone. She was also in zero gravity, and it was a certainty that the creators of its deadly meditation had never envisaged its practice under weightlessness.

She unfastened the restraint holding her into the seat and pushed herself off gently – to stop herself above the rail. Poised like a tightrope walker. She curled the toes of one foot under and pressed the other above the rail to hold herself in place. She held the breathing rhythm of the meditation and began to swing the katana from hand to hand.

As she swung the sword she spun it about its axis. Slowly at first – then faster. Her mind locked onto the spinning blade. The mind training called Kime – its later refinement Aikido – that held the devotee's attention in the present. She flicked the katana as she threw it, so now it spun end over end as well. Her other hand darted out at exactly the right instant to take the sharkskin handgrip as it spun past.

The deadly point skimmed past her throat. Millimetres away. Her mind stilled its worry and its hurt. The meditation would answer her destiny. Death or the planet below.

Reflected light flashed from the spinning sword. Her eyelids flickered but did not close. The blade became a blur. Something sharp stung her left arm. Globules of blood drifted across her vision. The keen edge had stroked her bare forearm. She spun the sword faster.

The sun's reflection from the steel traced out a circle in the air before her. Her hands darted forward at exactly the correct instants to sieze the tsuka and impell its next rotation. The circle traced by point and kashira merged with the curve of the planet below. The meditation gave her the answer. Her hands ceased speeding the katana's deadly path. She leaned forward to hold her balance near the spinning steel. Three more turns, then two, then . . .

She clutched the tsuka of the weapon in her right fist and let it whirl about her head. Then she held it motionless, pointing again at the planet below. They must meet. They held her destiny.