Because my two boys got a bonus day off school yesterday (drat those non-pupil days!) I'm sharing another excerpt for today as I'll only just have got back to work. This week it's the opening of my free scifi short and my first publication, The Bones of the Sea. Enjoy!
The place gave her the creeps. Myasi could
admit that to herself now, as she made her third and final survey of the site.
The morbid name given to the strange construction by early explorers couldn’t
have seemed more apt as she sat in the flattened base and gazed up into the
lurid green glow of the water. Above her head, the metallic legs of the
structure curved up, round, and then slightly inward, like a twelve-legged
spider hunched in on itself. Or a clawed hand clutching at nothing in its
final, fatal spasm.
She shivered and checked her wrist display.
She’d only been under a few moments, but it felt longer. The water chilled her
despite the figure-hugging, bespoke thermal suit that encased her generous
curves. Even if corporation regulations had permitted buying one off the peg,
no standard suit would’ve fit her. Thanks to her height—above average even for
a human male and with the bulk to match—all her equipment had to be made
specially to order. A soft collar molded around her neck, its ugly protuberances
housing the artificial gills that moved in machine-regular beats and fed
modified air to the mask over her mouth and nose.
A visor covered her eyes, and in it, a
bright schematic outlined the murk-dimmed pillars of the Bones of the Sea so
that she could see her way, despite the gloom. The discoid base of the
structure measured a modest ten meters in diameter, matched by the height of
the twelve arched legs. Beneath the visible structure, buried in the soft silt
of the seabed, the Bones formed a huge teardrop thirty meters long. The overall
shape vaguely resembled an old Terran cephalopod—a squid. The klingeln framework, impenetrable to
scans, had become encrusted with the native corals and small, static shellfish
that summarized the typical level of life on Ulto Marinos—nothing more complex
or dangerous than jellyfish and crustaceans. No one knew where it had come from
or what it had been intended for…and no one cared. It was an obstruction to the
seagrafters, and the corporation wanted it removed. Destroyed. Out of their
way.
And so, they had recruited her. |
| A Scifi Short Story Goodreads | Webpage Available from... Amazon Kobo | Omnilit | iTunes Smashwords | B&N |
Hopefully next week I'll have something more than an excerpt for you *pokes brain* :) In the meantime, the first two Portals volumes are also available to download for FREE.
Well, I went and downloaded the story. Interesting stuff.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteI think this was the very first story you authored that I ever read. I'm intrigued all over again by the excerpt.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Laurie, and it was! And my first ever post here was as a guest talking about it. ^_^
DeleteThat is so cool!
Delete