Tag: ghosts on an alien wind

I realized I had to do something fairly horror-y, and that might actually get the book in proper shape. Here’s hoping!

“He’s not doing well, is he?” I asked Gina quietly.

She looked back at Syah, who was sitting up in the bed. He had a handheld in his good hand, and was trying not to scowl at it. “He’s healing,” she allowed. “Just not as quickly as he should be. There’s some kind of resistance going on, in his head. I don’t think Syah’s giving himself full permission to get better.”

“Wait. Why wouldn’t he do that, Gina? Everybody knows you can’t let yourself get in the way of your own body.”

Gina quirked one side of her mouth. “Why do you think, Pam? It’s guilt. Heck, even the readouts say so. Poor bastard probably blames himself for [Spoiler].”

I looked at Syah myself. There was a tension there, uncomfortable and unspoken. I sighed. “I want to say that’s ridiculous, but it’s not, is it? Dammit, he stuck his arm down in the middle of live circuitry to sequester the sabotage. What was he supposed to do, use both hands?”

“He probably thinks so. Yes,” she went on before I could interrupt, “that’s stupid of him. You’d be amazed how stupid smart people can be, when it comes to second-guessing themselves.”

“Okay,” I managed, after a minute. “Can I do anything for him?”

“Sure. Tell him to get up, stop feeling sorry for himself, and walk it off.” I blinked at Gina, and she laughed. “What do you think this is, the Dark Ages? You can’t talk a mental block to death. Besides, the crystals don’t lie, Pam. They say he’s just in a funk, and they’re right. I’ve tried to tell him that, but maybe he’ll listen to you. I figure its worth a shot.”

Sabotage!

Nur tossed a small, tangled lump of wires and circuits onto my desk. “Behold!” he said. “The thing that tried to kill you.”

I looked at it — and then I looked away. There was something wrong about the twisted, matted thing, like the wires were spelling out words I didn’t want to read. “Okay, what is it? Where did you find it? And when did it try to kill me?”

“Well, easiest question first. I found it inside the basket you brought along for your picnic, hidden inside a cold-pack.” I realized right then that Nur had the kind of calm you get when you’ve slammed a couple of mood-dampeners in a row. “It was also smeared with a pretty nasty neurotoxin. Good thing I was wearing gloves.”

“Jesus.” That was closer to a prayer than I’d come for a long, long time. I’d been carrying that thing around all day, after all. “Wait, though: this isn’t a bomb, is it?”

“Oh, no, Pam. It’s a sonic transmitter. One that broadcasts at a frequency we can’t hear, but the local lifeforms can. I checked with The Process, and it thinks the signal could have been what got the not-cows rampaging. The only thing is, we’d have to actually check to confirm it. Which is not a good idea…”

“Gotcha. I don’t feel like trying to be cruel to alien animals, either. What if we succeed?” I restrained my first impulse to poke at the transmitter with a stick. I restrained my second one to smash it with a hammer.

Mundane and spiritual!

The Fane had a food court, so we had our picnic there.

It feels so jarring to put it that way, but I don’t want anyone to think that the Fane was some kind of ethereal, pie-in-the-sky fantasy-land. No, we were in a place that people used; and one thing that people do, is eat. So they would need somewhere to eat, and we decided to eat there, too.

We had brought our lunches with us. Sandwiches, bread, and lukewarm tea — and I swear, I’ve never had a better meal. The food court seemed to grow brighter as we ate, and I wondered whether there were automatic systems that activated when people used the room for any length of time.

Oft chuckled when I suggested that. “I suppose that’s one way to describe spirits,” he mused. “Let’s hope they don’t mind.”

“I don’t think I believe in those the same way you do, Oft.” Let the record show that my voice was not slightly muffled, thank you very much. Civilized Jeffersonians don’t talk with their mouths full. “I mean, sure, I believe in souls, and stuff, but they don’t linger when they’re gone.” I looked around, and shuddered a little, in spite of myself. “Not even somewhere like this.”

“Really? I find this planet particularly soul-haunted.” Oft poured himself another cup of tea. “I wonder that you do not.”

Locations!

The Fane was even more wonderful, at ground level. Oft’s confidence aside, I wasn’t sure if Iluvitarians worshiped in the same way as the inhabitants of this planet did; but if they were, they had found a worthy faith to follow. The closer to the Fane we walked, the more welcome I felt. Everything felt soothing, like there were analgesics and mood-levelers in the air — but when I scanned the local atmosphere on my phon, everything came back negative. We were just walking through a place built with love, reverence, and joy — and by a people who understood all three things intimately.

That was why the Fane was also steeped in a melancholy so deep, I found tears welling up, unbidden — but I found myself not being afraid of them, for a change. Everybody knows that you have to try not to cry when you’re in the Tomb Worlds. If you start, when will you stop? How can you stop? Yet, there were times for weeping, and this was one of them.

Because they were all gone, you see. The architects and artists who had conceived of the Fane, the builders who gave the dream of it a physical form, even the custodial workers and retail staff that must have maintained the grounds and seen to the pilgrims — they were now dust, horribly murdered centuries before I was born, and we never even learned their names.

Travels!

Continue reading 01/21/2023 Snippet, GHOSTS ON AN ALIEN WIND.

Temples! What could possibly go wrong?

“You may, of course, say no,” Oft told me a half hour later. In person, because you don’t have these conversations using communications devices that make you throw up if you don’t like the subtext. We were in Dave’s office, instead. We even had coffee. Coffee! I hadn’t bought any before I voluntarily put myself under durance vile, and I had run out two days ago. I could get caffeine added to the survival goop that my apartment produced, but it just wasn’t the same thing.

“I’m not saying no, Oft,” I replied, after another heavenly (ha!) sip. “I just want to know if this has anything to do with any of,” — I waved with my free hand, helplessly — “the stuff we’re dealing with, right now.”

“Honestly? If it was up to me, I would have said ‘No.’ That’s why I didn’t ask to be brought to Yánarta. Sorry, that means ‘Fane of the Exalted,’ in English. We still don’t know what the original worshipers there might have called it.”

I carefully didn’t ask why they were calling it ‘Yánarta,’ then. Iluvitarians are some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet, but they get real weird about the origins of their religion.

Seriously into getting that ready for the alpha and beta readers.

So, let’s talk about cultists.

Technically, we’re not supposed to call them ‘cultists.’ The official term is ‘Ritual Nihilist,’ because I guess calling them that supposed to give them less power, somehow? And don’t ask how naming, or not-naming gives them power. Again, some questions have answers you neither want or need to hear.

We call them cultists anyway. They’re the insidious kind of crazy, worming their way into things for as long as they can before somebody catches them with a knife, a makeshift altar, and a bound sacrificial victim. That’s almost always how they’re caught, too: cultists just can’t resist ritual sacrifices. It’s like they’re following a script that they’re not really supposed to deviate from, and don’t want to, anyway.

They’re different from the space-happy in that they can last a hell of a lot longer before getting caught, and they can work together for a while to get what they want. But what do they want? Mostly sacrifices, although if there’s a nasty way to get power, money, or status, they’ll happily explore it. I guess ritual knives cost money.