The exercise:
Write about: the cut.
Took the day off so that I could go skating with the boys and their school this afternoon. Chaotic, good fun that was. They took the bus there with their classmates and I drove them back afterward.
Greg - I noticed your comments about Blogger being difficult. All of your attempted comments show up in the dashboard, though I think some were marked as spam for some reason (it's not particularly easy to tell what's what in there). Anyway, I've published one that I think covers what's missing, but if there's another one that needs freeing from the spam cage let me know.
2 comments:
Ah, I never thought it put it into spam -- sorry about that! If I'd guessed (or it had told me) I would have just posted an extra comment letting you know what I'd been told and asking you to fix it. I also have no idea what in that block of text could have triggered a spam filter though, and I think it's the first time it's happened to me! Considering Blogger usually lets spam through for me to play with, it's a surprise :) I believe you found all the missing text though :)
The skating sounds fun! I'm glad the school lets you get involved like that!
Cut
"You are ready now?" The creature from the moonpool sounded amused and again I found myself wondering why or how this thing knew enough about humans to mimic them. My best hope, I decided, was that this was actually something that had been designed or built or grown -- or whatevered -- by humans and so had inherited their -- our! -- traits by default.
"Yes," said Kraulik, still not unfolding his arms. He glared at me. "Unless you have more you want to collect?"
"I'm good," I said quickly. I wasn't really sure why I'd grabbed the books. The contract though, well, we might need that wherever we were going. Especially if we were delivered back to the people who put us on this boat in the first place.
There was a noise like a church-bell ringing, hugely and horribly loud in the confined space with resonant, metallic walls, and then the whole ship seemed to lurch. Given how big it was, and how much inertia it had, that seemed like a really bad thing to be happening. We all staggered, and then a purple glow seemed to surround us. It covered us individually at first and then expanded outwards until we were held together in some kind of oblate spheroid. My skin prickled and I shivered, feeling slightly cold.
Then we lifted off the floor, probably held by the purple thing somehow, and the creature sank beneath the water of the moonpool and we followed.
I braced for the shock of cold seawater, and saw Stef and Kraulik doing the same, but it never came. We cut through the water smoothly in our containment, the light dimming as we descended, but the water stayed outside and the air inside remained breathable.
"Holy crap," said Stef, and that was the only sound for another five minutes.
The water streamed past us, as far as I could tell -- there wasn't a lot to look at, but when there was floating weed or the odd fish they seemed to be moving too fast for us not to be cutting through. The creature from the moonpool was nowhere to be seen, and the ship -- even when we looked back for it -- had disappeared pretty quickly.
"Where do you think we're going?" said Stef, stretching. "And how long do you think the air in here will last?"
"No clue and no clue," I said. "I've never heard of any technology like this though, so maybe the air gets replaced?"
"Nearest land," said Kraulik. "Only makes sense. Why take us any further than they need to? They think we are inefficient and unprepared, so they will take us away, eat the ship, and leave us somewhere else. Let us hope is not an island."
I pondered. I knew we'd been parked at the further point from land in the world; the International Space Station was regularly the closest inhabited object near us. If I knew which direction we were going I might have been able to guess if we'd find an island or mainland first but there was no clue from the water outside.
"It does make sense," I said at last, and as I did a sense of dread came over me. I couldn't put my finger on it, but it made a lot of sense if you added one more thing in, and my brain was refusing to tell me what extra thing it had added. I frowned, trying to get my brain to be more helpful. "Like a short-cut I suppose."
"Is that light up ahead?" asked Stef.
Greg - yeah I have no idea what triggered the spam net. Hopefully it doesn't happen again.
That is a pretty wild way to leave the ship. Destination unknown, however, is feeling like a bit of a mistake at this point...
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