Great Hites # 53

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Congratulations to Norval Joe who won this week's voting.

Ashley Redden
Norval Joe
Mick Bordet
And Jeff Hite



Troll
By: Ashley Redden
1. Interview

Sheriff Davis recognized them right off, FBI agents. The dark off-the-rack suits, sunglasses and everyday all American hero type looks nailed them to a tee. But, hell, anyone could have guessed who these two were. They looked as if someone had dropped two young men into a couple of FBI molds and out stepped two iconic special agents, it was almost comical.
He watched as they stopped the first deputy they met, that would be Strauss, a good man if a bit slow on the uptake sometimes. The sheriff watched as both agents flashed their IDs, and asked a question of the deputy. He saw both agents dark glasses follow Strauss’ outstretched finger as it pointed unerringly at Sheriff Davis.
Sheriff Davis sighed and slightly shook his head as he watched both agents stride purposefully across the room leaving Deputy Strauss with his mouth open, finger still at point. He very seriously doubted that any good whatsoever would come of these two getting involved, but his people had hit a dead end. At this point in the investigation, he really had no choice.
The two agents stopped directly in front of the sheriff and went to pull out their brass. Sheriff Davis waved an age spotted hand and said, “Don’t bother.”
Both agents stopped, frozen with their respective right hands half inside their suit top, like something off a bad TV drama. The sheriff’s lip twitched but he held himself in check. Laughing, whether meaning well or not, would certainly not be appreciated by these two. Not that he cared much what they thought, but a little innocent giggle here might cause him problems he didn’t need later. He squinted his eyes instead and wondered where the hell the agent’s task force was. Two more guys weren’t going to help much in finding those lost scientists. Out loud he said, “I’m sheriff Hank Davis, but I guess my deputy already told you that much, you here for the missing scientists?” Both agents nodded and Davis continued saying simply, “How can I help you?”
The agents removed their hands and the lead agent said,” We’re from the FBI. I’m special agent Briggs and this is special agent Stratton.”
This time the sheriff did laugh, but Briggs and Stratton didn’t miss a beat.
“We need to have a word with the survivor of the attack. We would also appreciate access the crime scene as well. Please make available any evidence that you might have acquired during the investigation so far. Also, we expect any evidence gathered from now on, no matter how small, to be made available to our organization at the quickest convenience.”
The sheriff noticed that they didn’t say that any evidence they obtained would be made available to his people, but hell, these guys were the pros. Davis said, “You two mind if I have a look at those ID badges?” He waited a beat and added, “because of the names and all.”
Both agents withdrew their IDs and held them out for inspection. As the sheriff peered at one, then the other, Stratton said, “due to the sensitive nature of our work and the personnel with which we sometimes meet, the given names of our branch operatives are confidential.”
“Well, we did call you guys, but I was expecting a little better turn out. No offense, but just two agents to help find these guys seems a bit thin to me,” answered Davis leaning back after inspecting the proffered identification. Sure enough they read special agent Briggs and special agent Stratton. Sheriff Davis shook his head and wondered to himself, you’d think they could think up something better than a lawnmower engine for names. Out loud he said, “Branch of the FBI? What branch would that be?”
“Classified,” said the agent called Briggs wearing a thin smile. “We’re here to aid in the investigation not run a search party. If and when more help to look for the PhD’s is needed, we’ll call them in on our discretion.”
“Okay,” said Davis and sighed anew. He continued, “We called Jake back this morning; he’s over in the waiting room on the right.” All three law enforcement officers began walking to a closed nondescript wooden door.
When they stopped at the door, agent Briggs said, “We would like to speak with the witness, Mr. Martin or rather Jake you say, if that would be acceptable?”
“Sure,” answered the sheriff. “But let me introduce you so he knows what’s going on. Jake’s been through a lot these past couple of days.” The sheriff turned to the agents and said, “I would appreciate it if you guys weren’t too hard on him, Jake’s a mess. He hasn’t been the same since the accident. I think his mind keeps going back to that pit in the tunnel, but I’ll be surprised if he ever sets foot down there again.”
The sheriff looked from one to the other, “do you two need to be briefed or have you read the report?”
“We’re up to speed,” said Stratton. “One question though.”
“Shoot.”
Stratton glanced at his partner then looked hard at the sheriff. He said, “do you believe the story that’s in the report? Suffice it to say that the details border on the fantastic.”
When the sheriff didn’t answer immediately but stood looking uncomfortably between the two agents, Briggs prompted, “off the record.”
Sheriff Davis nodded slowly and added, “yeah, I’m not saying that I buy everything or that I understand any of it, but I’m sure that Jake believes what he’s saying without a doubt.” The two agents exchanged a furtive glance, the demeanors of both remaining poker faced and unreadable behind the matching sunglasses.
“Okay,” said the sheriff opening the door and standing aside for the two agents to enter. After both had crossed the doorway, Davis followed and shut the door behind him.
The room was small, stodgy, and not overly lit, decorated simply with a solitary long table running almost the entire length of the room. The sheriff opened a hand indicating for the agents to have a seat across from Jake.
On the other side sat Jake, a small disheveled man that looked as though he hadn’t slept in a week. An overfilled ashtray sat in front of the man, stuffed with ashes and butts. Davis wondered if another cigarette would even fit.
Jake sat with his head down, both hands on the table, one over the other. He looked up and acknowledged their presence with a hesitant nod. Jake had been rubbing the back of his right hand with the index finger from his left when they entered. He did not stop. Looking at the nervous fidget and the overall demeanor of the man gave Sheriff Davis a sick feeling in his stomach for the poor guy. He really did look like warmed over crap.
Sheriff Davis introduced the agents and explained their agenda. Jake again answered with a silent nod. Agent’s Briggs and Stratton took turns drilling Jake with a battery of questions while Davis sat by silently, worrying about his friend. The agents tried again and again to lead Jake and get him talking about the incident. The most they were able to get out of him was essentially affirmation to the questioning, which strictly followed the report.
Finally, both agents seemed to have had enough. It had become pretty obvious to even Sheriff Davis from Podunk America that they were getting nowhere fast. Davis cleared his throat. Both agents looked his way. One of them, Briggs he thought, nodded to go ahead.
Davis said, “Jake?” After waiting for Jake to look up, he continued, “can I ask you just one question more?”
Jake nodded hesitantly still rubbing his hand. He had not stopped since the three had entered the room. “Jake, just what was this thing that you said you saw down in the pit?”
“Well, um, see,” said Jake actively rolling his hands now looking directly at the Sheriff. “I think, well, you see, I really think that maybe it was a troll.” The last of the sentence he finished with a wilt, barely mumbling.
“I’m sorry Jake, but what was that last part?” asked Sheriff Davis.
Jake looked the sheriff directly in the eyes, took a deep breath and said, “I think maybe it was a troll.”
Davis sat back and blew slightly ruffling the hair cropped just above his eyes. Jake said gaining force as he spoke, “yeah, if it wasn’t a troll, it had to be something else I’ve never seen before except maybe in some crazy movie or something.”
“You sure Jake, I mean…a troll?”
“Yeah, a troll, I mean dammit sheriff I got a really, really good look at that thing, whatever it was. We heard this swooshing sound, like somebody opened a big trash bag, you know, with air. Then I saw something moving underneath the ledge on the other side of that hole from where those two science guys were trying to climb out. First a clawed arm came out from under the ledge and got a hold of the rock. Then, this long neck poked out, just like that.” Jake shot his arm out rigid, hand in a closed fist. “The end turns up see,” and he rotated his fist up towards the ceiling without moving his arm. “Then this face just pops out of the end, with two big wet eyes looking right at me. Two more arms came out and one flipped something up towards me, caught my leg. I looked down and saw some kind of claw or hook. It was stuck through my pants. That’s when the thing gave a yank and snatched me off my feet. I would’ve gone on over, quick as a wink, but my other leg got caught on some of the crap sticking up from when the hole collapsed trapping those science guys.”
Jake swallowed hard, looking now from the agents to Davis and back again as he continued, “that thing gave another couple of snatches and nearly pulled my leg outta the socket, hurt like hell. Finally the claw tore through my pants and the thing began hissing and pulling the claw back to it, I guess it was on a line or something.”
Jake stopped and tried to light another cigarette. He managed to get the cig in his hand and after some difficulty to light a match, but had begun shaking so bad that he couldn’t make the business end of the two meet. Finally, he put both the unlighted cigarette and spent match back down on the table. Davis noticed that there were several more blackened matches in a pile behind the ashtray in front of Jake. Boy, Jake sure was a mess.
One of the agents asked, “What happened then?”
Jake looked up, in his eyes beyond the fatigue was sadness and shock. He said, “I ran for my damned life that’s what. The whole way out of the main dig tunnel I could hear those science guys just screaming and screaming. I’m not sure when they stopped. When I got outside, I realized that I was screaming too. Had maybe screamed the whole time I was running, maybe, I don’t know. I was almost drug down in that damn hole with the science guys.” He paused and added with a shudder, “and that thing.”
No one spoke. After several moments of awkward silence, Jake stood and said aloud, “One things for damn sure. There is no power on Earth that could drag me back into one of those tunnels. No way, “he shook his head hard. Looking at the sheriff he asked, “Can I go now?”
The sheriff nodded and rose opening the door. Jake made his way around the table and out the door. As he walked out, he paused, turned partially back and said, “You three had best not go back down into those dig tunnels. They should be sealed tight, keep whatever’s down there from getting out.”
One of the agents responded, “Sir, we can’t do that. We have to find the two missing PhD’s.”
“Well, you three just be careful. I suspect that if and when you do find those two guys, you’re not going to like what you find very much.” And with that Jake was gone.
The two agents rose, gathered their paperwork and left with a nod to the sheriff. Davis lingered by the door, gathered his hat with a sigh and said to no one in particular, “no, I suspect they won’t.” The sheriff left the way he had entered, hit the light switch and pulled the nondescript wooden door closed behind him leaving the stark waiting room dark and foreboding. Just like a cave.


The Traveler
By: Norval Joe

　
The walls of his cubicle were a tribute to his travels. Post cards of Big Ben, The Pyramids, Taj Mahal, and Mt. Fuji shared space with hotel stationary in French, German, Malaysian, and Chinese. Exotic memories on the plain grey back ground of a mundane life.
"Jerry", he heard from over the partition, "Are you there?" That was Mark on the other side. "Yeah, man. I'm here, just deep in thought."
What a joke, he mused 'No thought involved in this mindless job, deep or otherwise.
"The weather was cooperating and they would be ready for their final ascent the next day. The sherpa had spread all their gear on a nylon sheet, outside the tent. They inspected each piece for damage or excessive wear. They checked the gates of the carabiners, that they opened and closed freely, and looked for frayed areas of their harnesses. They flaked the climbing rope out onto the tarp, and then inspected every inch, running it between their fingers while examining it with their eyes. They felt the continuous core of nylon fibers through the woven mantle that sheathed them. Like blind men reading brail, they felt for inconsistencies in the dynamic, semi-elastic fibers that might cause the rope to fail, in the event of a hard fall.
"Jerry," Mark said again, "I don't think I can take this job anymore. Day after day, the same thing. How do you stand it?" There was no reply from Jerry's side of the temporary wall. "Jerry, are you over there?"
"Yeah Mark, What do you need?" Jerry asked as he resurfaced.
"I was just wondering how you do it. You've been here longer than anyone else, how can you stand it, day after day?"
"I don't know, Mark. I just try to stay focused."
Focus. He should be relaxing his mind and getting some rest, not focussing on the climb tomorrow. The route was well known and the Sherpa well trained, there would be no worries. What he needed was his strength, and for that, he needed sleep. They would be starting their ascent at 2 am to be able to summit by mid-day. He rolled over in his sleeping bag and squeezed his eyes shut; he could never sleep when it was light outside.
They had returned to Camp 4 the day before and spent the day resting, to improve their chances of summiting. They had set up the camp previously on one of their preparatory climbs. He didn't feel well rested; just moving around at this elevation was fatiguing.
Camp 4 was just above 26,000 feet at the edge of Everest 'Death Zone'; from here to the top the temperature could drop so low as to cause frost bite to any body part exposed to the air. The snow above would be so well frozen in some places that death could be caused by simply slipping from the trail. And worse, the oxygen level is so low that climbing, even breathing becomes extremely difficult and the mind dull; and thus, reactions fatally slow.
　
Hours still before dawn, they roped up as they prepared to leave the campsite for their final approach. He pulled the gators over his boots and up to his knees, to keep snow out of his pants and boots, and stepped into his bindings. He stamped each foot into the snow several times at different angles, ensuring that they had properly attached to his boots, and would remain in place, under any circumstance. He clipped onto the rope and spun the lock on the carabiner, binding his harness to the life line. He checked to make sure that he had his glacier glasses in the most accessible pocket of his goretex jacket; he would need them when the sun came up. He adjusted his halogen head lamp and swung its beam back and forth across the snow in front of him. Each climber inspected one another's harness before picking up their ices axes and headed toward the summit.
"Jerry, I'm quitting, just as soon as I can find something to pay my rent. I don't care if its less than what I'm making now. Heck, I don't care if it's flipping burgers. I just need a change; some time away from this grind. I need some time to be creative again; maybe write that novel I've been thinking about. Time to extend myself; to climb to my potential. The potential that has been stifled by this job.
He watched the Sherpa climbing the trail in front of him, the rope between them pulling taught as he slowed and stumbled. The native climber stopped and turned to look back at his charge. Swaying slightly, he leaned on his ice axe, resting against the against the glacier where it rose to his right. On his left, only eighteen inches from his foot, the mountain dropped away, one thousand feet to a junkyard of broken rock and ice. There were the bodies of climbers down there as well. One was added just last week, as a climber lost his focus, lost his step, and lost his life. They say that for every four climber that makes the top of Everest, one dies coming back down.
'The Traveler'
　
He could see the summit. The glacier distorted his perspective and though it looked close, he knew that he still had another 1000 feet to climb.
"Jerry? Have you really gone all those places you have the post cards from. I mean, that would be tons of traveling. China, Japan, and Malaysia? A trip like that would take weeks. Jerry? Are you there?" "Yeah, Mark, now what?" All those places you've been, when do you go? In my five years here, you have never taken any vacation." There was a long silence, " Jerry? Are you ok?" "Yeah, Mark, I'm just feeling a little dizzy."
He concentrated on the sound of his crampons as the sharp spikes bit into the ice. Each crunch told him he had taken another step forward. Each step was more difficult, the time between each step increasing. He began to verbally command his body, to keep himself moving forward, "Lift the leg. Thrust the foot forward. Plant the foot. Now the next leg."
He was weary. The next leg wouldn't move, though he strained to drag it forward. He opened his eyes and found that he was leaning on his ice axe, that he hadn't moved again for some time. The Sherpa was standing in front of him. "Mr. Caldwell," he was pleading. "You must go back, you won't make it now. If you don't turn back, you will die!"
'How pathetic,' he thought, 'the man wants to cheat me out of my payment.' "I can make it," he argued with the Sherpa, "With or without you."
He fumbled at the lock on the carabeener, eventually opening it. He unhooked his harness from the rope and pushed past the Sherpa, his indignation giving him renewed strength. He heard the Nepalese man shouting warnings but, then, eventually following behind him.
"I'm calling it a day, Jerry. Hope you have a good night. I'll probably call in sick tomorrow; give me a chance to check out some job leads that I have been looking up over the last couple hours. Come on, Jerry, walk down with me."
Mark walked around the partition. The partition crowded with postcards collected from garage sales and torn from travel magazines. Hotel stationary written in exotic languages, not by Jerry, but, to Jerry in reply to his requests for hotel information.
Jerry stared blankly at his computer terminal. His bloodshot eyes, and a small trickle of blood coming from one nostril, was the only color on his otherwise, pale and lifeless face.

Don't Mind Me
By: Mick Bordet

I blame it on the theremin. I started playing it about a year ago, after finally getting fed up asking myself "what is that weird sound?" in the Beach Boys' song 'Good Vibrations'. It didn't matter that the sound they used wasn't actually produced by a theremin, because, by the time I had found that out, I was already hooked. This strange, otherworldly sound, played without even touching the instrument, but by careful manipulation of the body's own capacitance, had mesmerised me. Once I had one in my grasp, I practiced at every opportunity until the swoops and wails of the beginner were replaced by recognisable tunes. About three months ago I was told that I had picked up "thereminist's stare"; that distant, slightly glazed espression that comes with trying to keep one's body as still as possible to avoid affecting the tuning, whilst concentrating on finding the correct pitch and playing with true feeling.

A short time after that I was on the regular bus to work and it broke down at the side of the motorway. The passengers, myself included, were transferring onto another bus that ran the same route half an hour later, but as we walked from one to the other past the open engine compartment, something caught my attention. I bent down, stuck my hand into the hatch and twisted a pipe which led into the main engine block.

"Try that now," I said to the driver, "your fuel pipe was twisted and blocked. That should be it sorted."

He gave me a rather sceptical look, but returned to the driver's seat and tried the ignition. It started straight away. He nodded and gave me the thumbs-up sign, surprised and impressed. Not as surprised as me, though. My knowledge of motor maintenance extends as far as filling my car up with petrol and topping up the windscreen washers once in a while. How did I know to fiddle with that particular pipe? Why was it such an instinctive reaction? It puzzled me at the time, but I forgot about it until one night, some weeks later, when my wife and I sat down to watch a film.

By the time we had reached an hour into the film, I had to switch it off, so annoyed was I with inaccuracy of several of the theories being put forth. I hadn't even heard of Dan Brown until the week before and thought I knew next to nothing of Da Vinci's greatest works, yet here I was, picking apart the film with comments about the Priory of Sion and the Knights Templar as though I was an expert in grail-lore. That happened the day after a long session of theremin practice and it was only the beginning. My memory is starting to fill with some of the greatest works of literature, I know the princples of aeronautics and thermodynamics, I can recite many of Shakespeare's sonnets and have found myself watching French films without reading the subtitles.

It seems my mind has rebelled against my sedantary twenty-first century lifestyle and has taken to going to the library without me. Why that should have happened is beyond me; I can only guess that it thinks I'm holding it back. Perhaps some day my mind will read up on psychological phenomena and I will be able to explain it all, but until then I'm enjoying kicking back and letting the knowledge flow in like the tide.

I must go now; the big match is on in half an hour and I need to dig out the beers. By the time the final whistle blows I should be familiar with everything Dostoyevsky
wrote.

Rob and The Apple
By Jeff Hite

Rob opened his eyes to the new smell, and realized that he didn't know where he was. There was a great meadow in front of him, that he knew he had never seen before. And he was standing waste deep in wild flowers. Scattered around the meadow were a number of fruit trees, all covered it ripe fruit. He was hungry, so he walked slowly through the grass toward the nearest of them. It was an apple and they were all beautiful looking. But as he reached up to pick one, he hesitated. There was another person in history that picked the wrong apple, and paid the price for it. So, he decided not to. He walked slowly to the next tree. This was a peach, it was also laden with fruit, but he noticed something else odd about it. Not only was it covered in ripe fruit, but it also was covered in blossoms.
"What a great idea," he thought out loud. "I wonder how many times a year it will produce fruit."
"Nearly continuously." Said a voice from behind the tree.
"What?"
"I said it produces fruit nearly continusly." a small boy stepped from behind the tree then with a big grin on his face. "That is how we keep Zuse happy."
"I see." He stood in amazement waiting for the other shoe to drop. "This has to be a dream."
"Oh this is no dream, this is real. We have to tend the this orchard to all year round."
"It doesn't look that much like an orchard, more like a meadow with a few trees."
"Well since they produce year round they need extra nutrients, so they are spread pretty far apart."
"Well that makes sense, as much sense as the rest of this I guess. Where are we."
"Foolish man, I told you we are in the orchard of Zues."
"Alright, but where is that?" The young boy looked at him quizzically, and suddenly looked much older to him.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean where is the the orchard located?"
"You are strange to me. The Orchard is on the western slope, it boarders the mortals realm That is why we ocationaly loose tress as the two realms bump into each other. I have told Zues this before. You are a spy for him aren't you? You are down here to make sure that we are not stealing any of the fruit. Who are you?" His face contored into an angry mask."
"I don't know what you are talking about, I just wanted to know where I was. I don't know anything about Zeus or any other god for that matter."
"I don't believe you. You go and tell your master that we are producing the fruit, and that we have never stolen from the trees."
"I believe you," He said stammering as the little man pulled a wicked looking pruning knife from his belt.
"Be gone, get out of the orcard before I change my mind." Rob truned and ran. He was not sure which way he should run, but he ran.
"Rob!"
"Huh?"
"Rob, did you not hear your phone ringing? I have been trying to call you for the last fifteen minutes." Monica's voice as a pleasant relief even if she was annoyed with him.
"No, I'm sorry I got distracted, my mind wandered. What did you need?"

Great Hites # 47

This Week we have Stories by

This weeks winner was Norval Joe!

Scott Roche
Norval Joe
And
Jeff Hite

Hear Feed back and learn about submitting your own prompt.





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Magic Quadrant Part 3
By
Scott Roche

The mysterious figure hunched over and crawled into the Jefferies tube, pulling the access door shut, behind him. He was certain that he hadn’t been followed. This deck level was largely empty during even a normal duty cycle. In addition, thanks to the Red Alert status which relegated everyone not on duty to their quarters, it was even less likely that he would be discovered. Still if someone in security did catch him there would be hard questions.



Once he was securely in place, he slid the small device out from its hiding place and slapped it on a conduit. Unless you knew exactly where to look there was no way anyone would spot it. Satisfied with that he spoke into the micro-recorder he had in his bag of tricks. “Log number forty-seven, Agent Alpha Three dash Zero Zero Seven recording. We have arrived at the agreed upon coordinates. I have necessary access to all of the ship’s subsystems as required by my mission. If I run into any problems I will avail myself of whatever options I can find, though I want to state for the record that I find none of the potential answers is very savory."



Stating it for the record would do little good if the recorder never made it back into his overseer’s hands, but it made him feel better. “I will initiate self destruct or make the necessary adjustments to the power structure to assume command only if I am forced to do so. Otherwise I shall let things proceed as planned.”



Working for Section 31 often meant that he had to do things that most people would find not only unsavory but perhaps even outright treasonous. If it meant keeping the Federation safe though, no agent worth his salt counted the personal cost. The only problem was, this particular agent had let his guard down and started to get to know this crew. He was friends with some of them.



That didn’t mean he would shirk his sacred duty. Friendship meant little if they were thrust into a disaster, the proportions of which made their involvement necessary. It still made the whole matter stickier than he liked. “The science officer has yet to detect the modifications that were made to the sensor package. I await the transmission from our operatives on the other side. Agent Alpha Three dash Zero Zero Seven out.” He replaced the micro-recorder into the slit pocket in his red tunic’s sleeve. Only the most advanced sensors would detect it and even then it would have to be turned on.



He turned in the cramped space and opened the hatch. Satisfied that the coast was clear, he crawled out and dogged the hatch behind him again. He had three minutes to return to his quarters before he was missed. That was plenty of time.

Family Matters
By: Norval Joe


The king stood in the passage just outside the open door to his daughters ante chamber, and watched the ladies-in-waiting hover and fuss like a swarm of helpful bees attending to a single flower. "She is beautiful', he thought as the ladies primped and preened her in preparation for the betrothal feast, just a few hours away.
A son-in-law that would be the most beneficial alliance for the kingdom was not the foremost factor in the kings mind as he negotiated with the eligible men of the surrounding kingdoms, but it was high on the list. He wanted his only daughter to be happy, that was foremost. Ten kingdoms touched the boundaries of his own, or were within a days ride of it. All had varying degrees of hostility or cooperation with his land. Should he choose the son of his most trusted alliance and cement a relationship that was already strong, or pursue the son of his most heated rival and build a bridge to cooperation that had been difficult to achieve in the past? Would allying with this rival, then, offend his trusted friend, and thus shake a fundamental and valued relationship? Should he choose the dim witted, but handsome, youth of one king over the intelligent, but middle aged brother of another? None of the choices had been simple; all had potential repercussions that might prove to be undesirable.
He had made his decision and forged an alliance with one of the more distant kingdoms that produced much of the grain that his kingdom used; It had seaports and was strong in trade with distant, exotic countries. In addition to fields of grain and sailing ships, the kingdom had a prince, the heir to the thrown, a few years older than his daughter. The princess had accompanied the king and her older brother each autumn, since she was eight years old, as the king traveled to the foreign land to secure treaties and trade agreements. It would seem that the princess had been concealing an interest in the young prince for many years; when he presented the idea to the princess of marriage to this young man, she reacted with indifference, and replied, "My desire is to serve the kingdom. If this is what is expected of me, I can do nothing but comply with your wish."
'She will be a beautiful queen,' the king thought, proudly, as he heard her reply, her shining eyes putting the lie to her affected indifference.
The king turned from the door and walked toward the banquet room, where his trusted advisors and ministers were preparing to receive the prince and his envoy, in preparation for the official betrothal.
A scribe, red faced and perspiring sped down the passage and threw himself at the kings feet. "My Lord, I bring the gravest of news. The princes envoy was attacked as it passed through the eastern forests, and the prince was taken hostage. The rest of the entire party were killed, save a single squire. He reached our gates only this very hour. He said that there is a large contingent moving this way. He brought this emblem from a dead solder of the attacking party."
Mechanically, the king took the emblem form the messengers outstretched hand. He recognized it immediately and wanted to cast it down in disgust. The kings face paled then reddened in turns, as the implications of the attack clarified in his mind. "Rise, good servant." The king said gruffly. "Send word that all are to gather in the banquet hall within the hour. I must, now, speak to my daughter."
His son stood and all discussion ceased in the hall when the king entered. He was composed, but it was evident from his demeanor that the news was not easily received by his daughter. Emotionally drained and feeling all of his five and a half decades, he dropped into the large cushioned seat in the middle of the long banquet table; with a wave of his hand, he indicated that all who stood in attendance, should sit. "Father, will she be alright", the prince leaned in and whispered? He nodded an abbreviated half-nod to reassure his son.
All the choices were before the king, and he knew that a decision would need to be made quickly.
He looked, first, down the table to his left. There sat his minister of finance, the deep sense of unease clearly readable in her eyes. She saw his contemplative stare and quickly glanced down to the sheets of parchment on the table before her. She shuffled them about and acted as if she was reading them, hoping that this would divert the Kings attention elsewhere. Her lead accountant sat to her right, careful not to look up from his own notes. To her left sat her chief economist, blissfully unaware of the tension.
He then looked down the table to his right. His minister of trade sat between two of his long time friends, the guild masters of the bakeries and the blacksmiths.
Between these two groups were arrayed the various other ministers and advisors.
The king signalled to his steward who rang the dinner chime and the room was suddenly filled with servants rushing about to get the various platters and tureens onto the long banquet table within three of the kings deep, steadied breaths; they knew that he was counting, and were too familiar with the results, if the count was too long. The food on the table, the servants disappeared as quickly as they had come.
"Eat", the king declared when the last of the servants had left the banquet hall, "This was to be a celebration banquet, after all." He looked at the steaming entrées, a look of dismay growing on his face; sweet and sour soups, candied yams, and chocolate fondues. He looked at his ever expanding waist and at the dinner service again. 'All sweets', he thought, ' not a savory choice on the table. No wonder I'm getting so fat!'
He looked up from his evaluation of the table to see his dinner guests; The entire entourage sat, motionless, waiting for the king to be the first to eat; someone's stomach groaned loud enough for half the table to hear.
The noise startled the king from his contemplative stasis. With a heat he hadn't expected, he growled at his advisors, "Make your selections and eat. With an invading army approaching our lands, we've many decisions to make this evening, and none of them are savory." He slammed the table for emphasis and picked up a honey coated date ball to throw, sullenly, into his mouth. The dates were crunchy and sweet, yet difficult to swallow.
They all began to eat cautiously pondering the steps that must be taken to prepare for war.


Merideth Introduction
By Jeff Hite


The Sound of his phone Ringing was like a nail being driven into his skull. The headache was back, and the high trill of his phone was almost more than he could handle this morning. He thought about ignoring it but, both ignoring it and answering it had consequences that he didn't really want to face that this point. It rang one more time before he made his decision and picked it up.
"Rob, this is Mary." Rob did the best not to roll his eyes. Mary was the best receptionists the company had, but her voice had a quality that could strip paint of walls in any direction she choose to point it.
"Yes, Mary."
"Rob, you have a guest up here, and your conference call with marketing is in five minutes." It was completely odd for a guest to be visiting him. Mary was very good about not letting any sales people in, and he didn't have any planned guests from the other departments.
"Who is it Mary?"
"I don't know Rob, he would not give me his name, and when I tried to get rid of him, he said he was an old friend and that you would make time for him."
"An old friend huh?" If this job had one cost it was his social life. He had not been home before nine thirty in over a month, and had mostly spend his weekends just trying to recover from the weeks. That was of course the weekends that he didn't end up working. "Alright Mary, I will be but shortly. When the conference call comes in, can you stall them for a few minutes?"
"Alright Rob, but they won't buy it for long."
"Thanks Mary." He hung up the phone and took a quick look at the train wreck that was his schedule today, then he made his way to the front lobby. There was a man sitting in the chair facing away from him, and a woman in the chair opposite him that he could not take his eyes off of. When she meet his eyes he felt like the room had just lit up.
"Rob, look at you," the voice was unmistakable, and it was probably the one thing that forced him to take his eyes off the woman, now standing up in front of him.
"Larry, what? but where have you."
"Larry?" Mary's voice removed the last spot of stubble he'd missed this morning.
"Surprised to see me again?"
"That is an under statement." Rob said when he finally was able to speak again.
"Yea well things happen in funny ways."
"The last time I saw you was on the top."
"Lets not talk about that now," he said holding up his hands. "Rob, I would you like you to meet my friend Meredith." The woman at Larry's side held out her, hand and for the first time in his life, Rob felt like maybe he should kiss it and not shake it.
"It is nice to meet you Meredith. Did you meet Larry in Greece?"
"You could say that," She said with a smile and voice that made him feel warm. "It is very nice to meet you, Larry has spoken a lot about you."
"Rob, your meeting is waiting."
"Thanks Mary. Listen Larry," Rob started.
"It is alright Rob, I understand I just wanted to let you know that we were back in town. Can you meet us for a late dinner. We can celebrate your promotion. Mary told me you got Dave's job."
"Alright, but."
"No buts tonight at the steakhouse on the west side of Broadway at nine-ish alright?" Rob nodded dumbly. "Great, we will see you there. Get to that marketing call."
Rob watched the two of them go and could almost feel the room getting colder as they stepped from the lobby to the streets beyond. Larry had been one of his only friends for years. Mostly because they both worked for Unitide, but Larry had been gone for years since they had lost sight of each other while looking for what Larry thought was the was entrance into the home of the gods. And what about the woman with him. Larry had never, as far as Rob knew, been very good with women, and Meredith was certainly the most beautiful woman that Rob had ever seen him with. He didn't have time to think about this now. He needed to have his thoughts together for this call, or the marketing team would walk all over his department again.

Great Hites # 44

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I was there the night the wall fell
By Ashley Redden


Deep into the night of November 9, 1989, he once again found himself amid political and social upheaval. He stood high upon the wall that divided East and West Berlin amongst throngs of Germans, East and West alike, celebrating and rekindling long lost family ties. The situation he found himself in was most unusual. Apparently earlier that day the East German minister of propaganda announced that the gates of the wall would be open for pedestrian travel for the first time since 1961. The massive surges of people thereafter overwhelmed the unprepared East German guards. The people then began to clamber over the wall en masse thus producing the situation that currently existed. Apparently the East German government had not realized that a small loosening of control would snowball so.
He was not surprised. He had seen it so many times before across a sundry of seas in a myriad of cultures and lands.
The current situation had been building for some time. The dark man remembered the American president Ronald Reagan’s speech delivered several years earlier challenging Gorbachev to tear down the very wall upon which he now stood. Many were the people who thought the American president was crazy, but the dark man knew guile when he saw it and quietly appreciated the speech more for that reason.
No, it was not the current political upheaval that he found strange. It was the simple fact that he was standing, comfortably so among a huge number of people. Such a thing happened so rarely that he had simply stood most of the night, stock still upon the wall lost in the balm of memory.
Lost were the days when his kind could travel as they wished and feed on a whim. Gone was the time when occupants of whole villages could simply disappear and few would ever know or even care. As humanity became more connected, especially with the internet and nearly instant global communication, his kind had to be more thoughtful in their nightly forays. This was neither unexpected nor unwelcome. For beings that are timeless, challenges are a necessity for continued interest in survival. So many times, he mused, he had slipped over the great wall into East Berlin to hunt. He was always very careful and the communist government installed there kept information for the masses at a strictly controlled minimum.
Though humanity knew of his kind, thanks to very subtle assistance from his brethren, as well as, himself, they had passed into the misty realm of legend. Long had humanity associated them with the wolf, driven by an unconscious and deep abiding fear. The comparison with which he felt more appropriate was that of the great striped cat, the tiger. As with the feline predator, his kind wore the night as a cloak. Quietly stalking the victim to suddenly take and rend with such viciousness to be unknown to humanity. Then stealthily disappear back into the shade of night.
As his senses returned to the present, he realized that his hunger was becoming aroused. The dark man looked down at his hands and smiled. Again, as with the great tiger, his claws had unsheathed. Still smiling, he retracted all ten and quietly looked about him. The revelry was still going strong.
Though people were jostling for position on the wall, none were within an arms length of the dark man. He noticed none of the humans near him appeared to be entirely comfortable, scrupulously avoiding looks in his direction. The people standing near were also not the same as when he arrived. He smiled as he casually wondered how often individuals had abandoned their hard won spot upon the wall just to be away from this strange man who stood emotionless and still gazing out at the horizon.
Again he felt his hunger rise, but squelched it. He would not feed tonight or probably on this continent again for perhaps ages. The time of change was past. Next would follow transition. The dark man had never liked transitionary periods. People tended to look at details during transitions. Details were one thing that he avoided with great impunity. It was time to go. New haunts must be found, time to see the sights and taste new local flavors if you will.
The dark man looked to the east and sensed more than saw a ghost of aura there. Though the sun had not yet begun to rise, he could sense it’s coming much like the intuition of animals before a deadly storm arrives.
Utilizing the inhuman quickness that was the trait of his kind, he hopped from the wall and in seconds disappeared into the West Berlin crowd below. Those on the wall blinked in apparent unknowing relief and surged to fill the now vacant spot. All over East and West Berlin people cried for joy. The following year, the wall was systematically demolished.


Ganymede, Part II
By Norval Joe

Julie was angry. Her father was away, off moon, on another business trip, her mother had gone off to do her community service, and Julie was left at home to watch her new slave do chores. The allure of having a personal servant had worn off in just a few days, and became a shackle around her own leg. This girl couldn't understand her language, so any instruction to her required complex pantomime that nearly wore her out; she might as well do the work herself.
Besides, the little thing was ugly; virtually hairless with light blue eyes and skin to match; skin that was soft and squishy, like over ripe fruit. She wasn't beautiful and dark with a tough, thick, hide, like Julie was. She rubbed at the thick carpet of short hair that covered the top and back of her head, down her neck and over most of her back. Julie badly wanted to go down to the ground level to explore, but her slave couldn't endure the radiation like her own people; had these creatures lived underground on their moon?
She went to her desk and spinning the top half of the smooth orb, she turned on her music player. Static. The magnetic waves between the planet and its moons sometimes interrupted the broadcasting device. She got her anti static cloth and began to buff the player, hoping to reduce any magnetic charge. The cloth snapped and popped as she lifted if from the device, but didn't hear the music that she expected. After a loud burst of static came a clear voice, ["Mr. Gorbachev....."] Encouraged, she rubbed harder and more vigorously with the clothe, more static, then, ["I have a dream....."]
Frustrated by the incomprehensible babble, she turned the music player off, and sat down with a huff.
Magnetic waves that resonated between the planet and its moons, held the recorded broadcasts from Julies ancestors, 500 million years in the past. Her people, originally earth colonists, had survived countless near extinctions, population booms, dark ages and enlightenments, and thereby, evolved to live in the high radiation environment of Jupiter's moon, Ganymede. In the recent past they had discovered the physics that allowed them to travel through space, to the planet and its other moons. They had the all the luxuries and benefits of an advanced civilization.
Julie was angry. Her slave was performing again, her puffy lips turning down at the sides and water coming from her eyes. Julie was so angry and frustrated that she just wanted to hit the slave; but she felt, somehow, doing that wouldn't be right.


Scientists
By: Norval Joe

Her long silver hair was held behind her head with a golden clip in the shape of a dragon fly; the craftsmanship so intricate and detailed that a person would want to approach slowly to get a close look at the golden creature before it startled and flew away.
She sat as still as a pearl white marble statue, bent over the microscope on the antique golden oak desk; her gossamer lab coat, an iridescent waterfall, cascading from her shoulders.
Her lab assistant stepped into the room; he was older than her, though not grey at all; his hair and eyebrows, jet black, in contrast to his milk white skin. "Jenesse," he interrupted, "I have the spectography reports." But she silenced him, slowly raising a single long index finger into the air and holding it immobile next to her petite, pointed, right ear.
She sat up from the microscope and took the report from her lab assistant, Farland. Glancing over it briefly, recognition and understanding clear on her beautiful and youthful face.
"You have identified the substance," it was a statement, not a question.
"Yes," Jenesse replied, "It's lint. Belly button lint. The human scientists believe that they have found the reason that it accumulates there; there are fine, task specific, hairs that direct the lint to the belly button."
Farland smile wryly, and said," Can you imagine having that much body hair?"
Jenesse nodded and replied, "Can you imagine having a belly button?"
They both turned to look at the bell jar on the desktop next to the microscope; the toxic wad of fuzz, inconspicuous and inert in the vacuum.
They shuddered.


The Forced March
By Jeff Hite

Phillip felt the pain flow through him with every step he took . Two days ago all he had wanted was to see the end of this journey and be able to see his family again, but right now all he could think about an was ending to the pain. The pain had build so gradually that he had not even noticed it until they stopped last night for dinner. When he tried to get up his whole body throbbed with pain. It was not the kind of dully achy feeling you get when your sick, or the more harsh ache from the day after a hard work out. Not this was red hot burning that lay right near his pain threshold. It started somewhere behind his eyes and and ended some place about three feet under the soles of his boots.
Try as he might he could not ignore it. He tried to push through it. He had tried the relaxation exercises they had taught his wife to help her with labor, he had taken the pills that were in his rations and emptied his canteen, and there for his bladder, three times. None of it was helping. He knew the march was coming to an end but he was not sure he was going to make it, as beads of sweat from just staying on his feet popped up all over his body.
Finally the march did end, and they stood in the dusty little village, that would serve as their home until the airlift unit could come get them. Phillip dropped to his knees and nearly cried out as the waves of pain washed over him.
"Captain, I think Phillip needs to see the medic." Alex, his constant companion on this journey, said. The Captain rushed over, his gasp was audible even though he had tried to stifle it.
"Get two people over here with a litter right away," He barked. "Everything is going to be alright Phillip, we will get you to the medic right away."
The pain caused by them moving his body from the ground to the litter was beyond anything he could have imagined, and he felt the world getting fuzzy around the edges as they finally walked through the door to the medic's office.
"He was complaining about pain right after dinner, said it hurt to move any part of him." Alex's voice came to his ears as if from far away.
"Alright. I will see what I can do for him but it does not look good." The doctors voice was deep and warm even though his predictions were dire.
For a little while the doctor examined him without moving him and the pain lessened slightly as he lay there perfectly still.
"I know this is going to cause you pain, but I need you to undress so I can take a closer look at you. I think it will be less painful for you to do it then to have me help you and touch you."
Phillip nodded his head slowly in agreement. He sat up and started to take off his coat as new waves of pain shot through him.
"Stop. Hold everything." the doctor said as soon as his coat was off. "What are you wearing?"
"Huh?"
"That shirt what is it made of?"
"I don't know." even the movement of his jaw caused him pain.
The doctor, came over to him at that point and lifted the front of his shirt. "Yup, just as I thought." He reached down and touched his stomach, and the pain was gone as if it had never been there. "Medical science has come a long way in the last few years, but when they finally found that this little bit of belly button lint, can cause the body some incredible pain that was a miracle. I am surprised that you made it this far on your own two feet."

Great Hite 37

Great Hites 37
	COUNTING THE DAYS By: Anima Zabaleta
	The Prison By: Norval Joe
	Prometheus By: Jeff Hite
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COUNTING THE DAYS
By: Anima Zabaleta

One more day, dear Lord. Let me get thru this just one more day.

The well-worn office chair creaks under me, and the computer starts to whirr to life.
Lights flicker as the various programs install themselves. Everyday is Monday anymore… I try not to ponder on how many days I have sat at this desk in the past 15 years. If only I could take a vacation… but everything seems to depend on me… the silos, my children, the families of the people I employ…

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I moved to Cedar Grove in the 90s, fresh from getting my MBA at night school. All I was looking for was a low stress job in the middle of nowhereville, where the cost of living was cheap, and I could decompress from taking classes for the previous 6 years. I didn’t like living in Chicago, but that was the best place to go to school. The plan was to work for a couple of years, learn agribusiness and make some headway on my student loans. Being the assistant manager of a grain silo/farming mercantile sounded perfect to me.

When I got hired, I had no intention of forming any connections in this podunk village. I threw darts at the local tavern, and was ok with the few guys who would invite me to go fishing and hunting with them. I liked my confirmed bachelor lifestyle, Then Sheila showed up, to work as daddy’s admin assistant for the summer. I fell for her in a big way. She was leggy and had a great tan, something that wasn’t commonly seen in Midwestern farming environs. Sheila brought a fresh breath of cosmopolitan flair with her, talking about the latest books on the NY Times best sellers list, and how much she liked Thai food. I realized I missed a few things about Chicago.

To make a short story long, I married the boss’s daughter, with promises of taking Sheila away on a “real” honeymoon as soon as the wheat harvest was done in October. Old Man McGuillicutty had a heart attack and died that September; and Sheila inherited the family business.

Together, Sheila and I picked up the pieces of her fathers endeavors, and managed to grow it some. Farming, though, is never a sure concern, and neither are the businesses that support farmers. Sheila stayed with me for 9 years, but she had escaped the small town doldrums once, and had had no intentions of returning to stay. We never did take that honeymoon, which she always brought up when we argued. Once her mother passed, there was no one left she felt she had to impress. I have never understood how she could walk out on the children and me. It was all part of the small town persona she found so odious, she said.

So, here I sit, waiting for the computer to finish its routine. I no longer read the Chicago Daily Herald, finding news of the bigger world to be too depressing. I turn off the television when the advertisements to visit Mexico come on. Sometimes I can’t even bring myself to make French toast on Sundays, because it conjures up images of foreign places I promised to Sheila… Maybe, some day… Who am I fooling? Today is Monday and I need to concentrate on corn futures and the soybean market. There are people who are relying on me.


************

The Prison
By: Norval Joe

The walls of the prison cell were exactly as you would expect them; slime and black moss grew in the water percolating through the walls and oozing down to pool on the floor. The air in the cell was humid and smelled of rot, but it wasn't cold. Not this deep in the cellars of the prison, with in the very foundation of the mountain, upon which the tyrants castle was built.
The prisoner sat naked on the floor of the cell. His clothes had rotted away years ago. His grey hair matted with filth reached nearly to the floor where he sat leaning against the locked wooden door.
He waited for the sound of approaching boots on the stone floor, outside the door. When had he last heard them, and the sound of the metal plate as it was shoved through the gap under the door?
He couldn't know, in the perpetual dark, during this one eternal night. But he had eaten, he thought, he must have, because he was still alive, having lived long enough for his clothes to rot away and his hair and beard to grow almost to his waist.
He tested the shackle around his ankle. The iron cuff bit into and wanted to tear the thin skin as he pulled on it to test the strength of the chain. The chain, long enough to allow him to reach the door, but not go through. Go through? But it wouldn't open. The metal plate would just scape the floor as it was pushed under the door.
The door was locked, or at least he assumed that it was. He knew it was, didn't he? He must have tried the door in the countless years that he had spent in the cell, with his clothes rotting off and his hair growing down his back.
He stood on weak and trembling legs, his knees threatening to buckle under his meager weight. He leaned against the door, supporting himself as search for a knob or handle. But the door, at the prisoners touch, creaked on rusted hinges as it opened into the dimly lit passage.
Unbelieving, he stepped forward and the chain fell away from his ankle. He ventured tentatively, into the passage, outside the cell. The hallway stretched off into darkness on both sides, the torch near the open door casting only a small pool of light on the floor where he bent trying to catch his breath, panting in anticipation. He stretched his arms and legs to loosen joints stiff from inactivity and felt a sharp pinch at the bend of his arm, like the bite of a spider. His head started to spin and his sight, even in the darkness, filled with a brilliant blinding white. He fell to the floor and rolled onto his back, breathing hard, trying to ease the sudden nausea.
He lay still for a moment, then slowly opened his eyes. His head was resting on something soft. He turned his head to the side luxuriating in the suppleness of the linen and the fragrance of its' cleanness. Beside him sat a woman. She looked familiar, but she was much older than a woman he had known. How long ago had he known her? She looked so kind, with lines of concern at the corners of her eyes and across her brow.
She saw him looking at her and she smiled. She reached out to run her hand through his long greying hair. "Dale, honey, you're awake," she quietly exclaimed! "They didn't think it would happen so quickly." She stood and kissed his forehead. Turning to the phone, she said, "I have to call the kids, there are grandchildren now, too. They will want to say hello. It has been so long." She paused with the phone held halfway to her ear, "The doctors don't know how long the drug will last, they have never tried it on humans before."
She was punching numbers on the phone as the blackness crept in from the edges of his vision, to steal his wife away and plunge him back into the cell, under the castle in the foundation of the mountain, with the slime and moss growing on the walls where the water percolated through and oozed down to pool on the floor.


*********

Prometheus
By Jeff Hite

It had been so long since she called him, that she wondered if he had actually heard her over the howling wind. She thought about calling again, but he had looked up at her when she had said his name the first time. Meridith had been around the old gods long enough to know that they would speak when they were good and ready. Calling him again would just annoy him, and possibly make him take longer to answer. But, she did wish he would hurry up , because the wind here on the cliff edge was freezing.
"What is it that you want girl?" He said finally
"Prometheus."
"Go away."
"Wait, Prometheus."
"Go away, if I don't rest my liver will not grow back. If my liver does not grow back."
Prometheus, I need to know how you did it," she interrupted him.
"If it does not grow back, the eagle will scratch, and bite at me."
"I need your help, I need to know how you got away from Olympus."
"It cannot kill me, but it can torture me, and make me bleed from a thousand places. When it returns the next day it will be hungrier than normal, and even my fully formed liver will not sate it's hunger, and again it will attack me and torture me." He paused for the first time and shuttered. "Do you know how long it will take me to heal from those injuries?" She didn't answer. This was not what she had come to talk to him about. Maybe if she didn't answer him, she could guide him down the path she came for.
"Prometheus," she said when he did not continue to talk. "I need to know how you got away from Olympus."
"What do you mean girl. I have been here forever."
"Not forever Prometheus. A long time, but not forever."
"Stop! I will not hear of the time before."
"You must, you are the only one."
"There was nothing before this."
"Prometheus, you know that is not true," Meredith begged.
"There was nothing before this."
There was a long silence that followed. Meredith, thought about leaving. She thought about giving up, but in her nearly two thousand years of captivity on Olympus, the one thing that she had was time to wait. But the time to wait had ended Everything here was about waiting. Waiting until your power had so diminished that you simply disappeared. Even Hades had been losing his grip. He had been letting the humans recover people that had been dead, by means of so called science. No, she would not give up. This was the only way that she could turn things around. She was Meredith, the final child of mighty Zeus and his lovely wife Hera. The last of the gods born since Olympus had been relegated to a place of the past, by the humans.
Finally Prometheus did move. He tilted his head up so that he could see her. She tried to push her long hair out of her face so that he might see who she was.
"You have more patience than most."
"Yes, a blessing and a curse."
"Why have you come?"
"I need to talk to you. I need to know..."
"Come down here," he said cutting her off.
"What?"
"You heard me, don't waste my time. I have enough pain, come down here so that at least I might see you when I talk to you."
With more than a little hesitation she stood and lowered herself over the cliffs edge. She found well warn foot and hand holds, that led down to where he hung on the side of the cliff.
"That is better. Now I can see you. Who are you?"
"I am Meredeth."
"Meredeth." He rolled the word out and even with his broken voice it sounded nice. "I have not heard of you."
"I am Hercules' younger sister." She hope the memory of the great hero would give her some credence with the long imprisoned god.
"Ah then a Daughter of Zeus. What can I do for you? My powers are limited, and I am kind of shackled to my job here." He laughed a roughly in a way that seemed almost to be a last breath.
"All I seek is information."
"Ah the power of knowledge. If you wanted to know things why not go to an oracle? They can tell the future you know. The only thing I know is the open sky. The sky with the eagle coming toward me, and the sky with the eagle going away from me. Oh, and pain I know a lot about pain."
"I Seek knowledge of things that only you know."
"As I told you I don't know much."
"You know something that no one else knows. You know of the time before."
"There was no time before this." He said grinding his teeth and spitting the words out.
She waited until the fire in his eyes was gone before she continued.
"Once long ago you escaped to the human world and gave them a gift. You are the only one who has ever done this." She rushed it out so the he would not have time to cut her off. But he did not answer. He didn't even look at her. "You gave the humans the gift of fire, ten thousand years ago. Now the humans have turned their backs on us, and we are fading away. Many of the spirits have simply disappeared." Still he did not respond. "Even most of the nymphs had gone silent." He looked at her then, a tear in his eye.
"There was no time before this." He whispered.
"There was, and you remember it."
"No, I don't. I won't." He insisted but his words came weakly.
"Prometheus, please. I beg you. I need to know how you did it. I need to know."
"Why? So that you can spend the rest of your life like me. You want this? Look at me. Look at my wrists. Look at my face. Look at the scars, and the places that will not heal."
For the first time she looked closely at him, and not for the first time wondered what would happen to her if she failed. Where the chains met his wrists, the shackels were not there. Instead, the chains connected right to the bones in his arm, or were those odd bumps in this writs the shackles that had simply been there so long that they had become a part of him. His body was covered in scars that she could only assume were from where the great raptor had attacked him because it was not sated by it's daily meal of his regrowing liver. His Ankels looked much the same as his wrists, but his toes had been torn off. She could only assume by the great bird.
"Is this what you want for the rest of forever?" He whispered softly.
"No." She admitted.
"Then just go," he turned his head away from her.
"But I am willing to face it, to help our people." He turned around in surprise and stared at her. She could not read what was behind those eyes, but there was great pain on his face.
"No." he said finally. "No I will not condem you to my fate."
"But I am willing to."
"No, you are young you do not know what you are saying."
"Prometheus, we are dieing. And I would rather die here on the side of the cliff knowing I had tried then to just fade away knowing I had not." He was silent along time after that. So long that her arms began to burn from the strain of hanging there on the side of the cliff. She would not die if she fell, but there would be pain, and many many years of healing. She had just about decided to climb back up when he spoke again.
"I didn't do it."
"What?"
"I didn't escape to deliever fire to the humans," the tears were streaming down his face now.
"Of course you,"
"No!" he cut her off again. "No, I didn't," he shifted his weight so that she could see the hole in his side where the great bird tore at him every day. "I didn't take fire to them. I could not, just as you cannot now."
"But, then you have hung here for eons for something you didn't do."
"Please," he said sardonically, "I gave them fire. Of course I did. But I didn't leave the mountain, just like you cannot. Like all the gifts from the gods they have to either appear to the humans in such a way that they can see us in the gift, or..." He trialed off again.
"Or?"
"Or they have to be let in to get it."
"Let in? But humans cannot come to mount Olypus any more than we can go to them."
"They did once. I let them in." The releization dawned on her then. Although fire was an incredible gift, the idea of humans being on the moutain was probably more than the gods cound stand.
"You let them in." She repeated.
"Yes, not very far, but I let them in far enough to come to my campsite. I left a fire burning and let them steal from it. It took years for me to coax a human up that far, and at great risk. If Zeus found out that I had made a way in for them. Well in the end he did find out, and you know the rest of the story," he guestured as his prison. His face twisted then, and he cried openly.
She tried to move her body closer to him but he pulled away.
"No!" He screamed. "No, I will not be reminded of what comfort is. It has taken me ten thousand years to forget." She waited until he stopped crying.
"Will you tell me how?" He didn't answer for a long time and then he just let his head fall forward, in a movement that could have simplly been resignation, but she took it as a yes. "How?"
"Come back tomorrow?"
"What?"
"Will you come back tomorrow if I you tell you?"
"If you like."
"I have been so lonely. The Nymph in the tree above stopped coming a thousand years ago. Will you talk to her for me?" That explained the hand and foot holds. "I had almost forgotten about her too, until I heard you tonight."
"Yes, I wil come back." And the pain returned to his face.
"It might be better if you didn't. I might not have a thousand years to forget you too."

Great Hites # 34

Great Hites # 34
	Slow Food by: Anima Zabaleta
	Low Master High Master By: Guy David
	Turtles all the way Down By: Jeff Hite
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SLOW FOOD
By: Anima Zabaleta
Performed by: Anima Zabaleta and Arri Gaffer

Mmmm, smells good! What's the occasion? Did I forget some important date? Should I have picked up a cake?

Thanks, hon. Dinner's in an hour.

That long? but I'm starving!

Oh, you'll live. I was listening to the radio today, and there was an interesting program about the Slow Food movement. I had an epiphany! We are always so hurry-scurry with our lives, eating on the run, dashing from this place to that, multi-tasking our lives away…

So I sat down and listened to the whole show. Really listened and took it to heart. I'm not saying we need to live of the land or anything, but we can be more conscious about what we eat. I went through the freezer and cabinets, tossing out the convenience foods, the pop tarts and pizza pockets, that sort of stuff. I can bake pies and turnovers; I've already flagged recipes in the cook book…

Why are you looking at me like that? You know I can cook; I just haven't in a while. We'll spend time together on the weekend, putting in a garden… and in the summer, we'll have strawberry ice cream made from milk from the local dairy. If this is going to work, I'm going to need your help...

If you insist, honey. And, yes, I know you can cook. Are you sure you really want to go through with this? Tell me you don't like a greasy order of onion rings and a milkshake on a Saturday night, from the burger-rama…

Well, sure I do, but not for the tenth time in a week. I'm exaggerating a little… but not by much. Look at these receipts… We ordered take-out for dinner, when we sat down for dinner at all, and I bought lunch every day last week. These are just the slips in my coat pocket. How many more are in the car from my daily Joe-To-Go? Did you take a bag lunch to work even once?

Sure I did…

Oh yeah, like what?

Left over pizza from poker night.

Um hmmm…

Alright already! We'll try it your way for a while… What did you say was for dinner?

Soup… It's an old fashioned recipe from my granny… Listen to this: Start with 5 pounds of turtle meat… There were 14 in her family; I cut it down for us…

Turtle soup!?!

But of course! I figure, if you are what you eat, then our first slow food meal should be the slowest meat I could find.

Oh brother…

*****

Low Master, High Master
By: Guy David

Justin was a low master, one of the 3rd class mages. The high masters didn't expect much of him. He wasn't the one they would summon to fight demons or battle the dark lords of mischief. Those mischievous dark magic practitioners where a real problem, an annoyance they would have to deal with, but Justin wouldn't be the one helping them with that.

Justin was their magical chef, and was pretty good at it. He could conjure up Italian dishes like no-one else could. His cannelloni was exemplary and his lasagña a wonder to behold. He started young and quickly became very popular amongst the mages. His name went before him and word reached even the dark lords of mischief themselves, who decided they needed to taste his dishes for themselves, so they did what dark lords of mischief do – they kidnaped him.

Justin wasn't one to fall victim to his own fear. Instead, he viewed this as an opportunity to prove his worth to the high masters. He had ambitions. He watched, and he listened, looking for a hint of weakness in his captors. After testing and tasting his skill they made him their chef. He knew he had to be perfect at it since they where known to be merciless and they wouldn't hesitate in torturing and executing him if they decided he was useless to them, so he created the most magical culinary masterpieces he had ever conjured up and listened. At last he found it. It was perfect since food was his speciality. All he needed was to magically slip 5 pounds of turtle meat into their dish of the day, timed perfectly, and they would vanish into nothingness.

As dinner began, Justin started dazzling the dark lords of mischief with ravioli and appetizers. He served one culinary wonder after another, seemingly almost invisible to them. They rarely noticed their servants. When the time came the magic ingredients appeared in their dishes. They didn't notice. They continued eating, talking and laughing cheerfully. Justin was so masterful with his magical dishes that neither the color nor the taste of the food changed. Eventually it began. They started shrinking one by one. In the end all that was left of them where little green paddles. Justin easily found his way out and escaped.

After he returned victories to the high tower of mages, he was granted a star of honor which is one of the mages highest of decorations, and he was promoted to middle mage. He knew as a 2nd class mage he would get all the training he needed to become a 1st class mage. One day he would fulfill his dream of becoming a high master.

*****

Turtles all the way Down
By Jeffrey Hite

In his 1988 book Steven Hawking repeated this well known story:
A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"[1]

"What is surprising about this story is not that it happened or didn't happen, it is that is is true. Not the part about the scientist or the old woman, the part about the tortoise."
"What are you talking about old man?"
"Wait I am not crazy, I know that you think I am crazy, but you don't understand. I have been there."
"What, where?"
"Under the plate."
"Under the plate?"
"Haven't you been listening to anything that I have been telling you? Last year, I took a team with me and we travel under the plate that the world sit upon. I had spend my life searching for a way to get to the edge of the plate, but it was not until a few years ago, I figure out a way. We didn't go over the edge, but found a hole in the plate near the ring of fire in the South Pacific."
"So you went under the plate the Earth is resting on and saw the tortoise?"
"Oh yes, we saw it all right. And it saw us to. And as soon as it did it reached that monstrous head around and tried to eat us. At first we were too fast for it. But it has a very long neck. You the hole in the plate must have been from it sticking it stout up into the world, because we were right in it's reach, so you see we had no choice."
"What do you mean? You had no choice about what?"
"We had to kill it. See." He said pulling a bag of meat from the freezer.
"What is that?"
"I told you we had to kill it. This is five pounds of world supporting turtle meat. Soup?"


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Great Hites # 29

Great Hites 29
	I Am Sitting in a Room By: Guy David
	Alex By: Robert Jahns
	Oh Happy Day BY Jeff Hite
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This week hear the Promo for Murder At Avedon Hill By P.G. Holyfield Click here to find out more

A Promo for Guy David at http://nightguy.guydavid.com it is to unreal to describe you will just have to see it for yourself

Also this week we are also very excited about next week. Week 30 of Great Hites. Let Everyone know that it is a special week and that we are trying to get an many people as possible to come out and write next week. Maybe I will even get a guest voice or two. Anyone!?! Anyone!?!



I Am Sitting in a Room
By Guy David:

Alvin positioned the speakers to face the first recorder, then faced the second recorder opposite the first one. He hooked up the mike, then positioned the single chair in front of it. The room was empty otherwise. Alvin proceeded with the recording:

“I am sitting in a room different from the one you are in now. I am recording the sound of my speaking voice...”

The door opened and Joan Minskey walked in. “I'm having a problem with the recording equipment. Can you please help me?” “Sure, no problem.” Alvin stopped the recorder, rewinded the tape and went over to the faculty's state of the art recording studio. This new equipment was supposed to be the best in the field, but the students kept complaining and for some reason, they always came to him for help, not that he minded though, he loved helping out, but sometimes it was an inconvenience. He locked the room and went over to help her. By the time he finished, he had a class to deliver, so he didn't get back to the room until much later. He repositioned the two recorders and the speaker and started the recording again:

“I am sitting in a room different from the one you are in now. I am recording...”

The door opened and Ian Tablenkov walked in. “Can you help me? I'm having some problems with this composition. Something about the meaning of those harmonies is not quite right.” Alvin sighed. It looked like he wasn't going to finished this recording now, so he locked the room and went over to help his students. He decided to come back later, after everyone left and record this in peace. Being the head of the faculty meant that he had a few privileges, including the possession of the keys to the faculty.

When he returned later, it was already getting dark. He opened the doors to the faculty, went over to the room and unlocked it. He positioned the recorders and the speakers once again, set down on the single chair and pressed the recording button:

“I am sitting in a room different from the one you are in now. I am recording the sound of my speaking voice and I am going to play it back into the room again and again until the resonant frequencies...”

A security guard stormed in, gun drawn in hand. “Oh, it's you” he said, “Sorry, mister Lucier, I thought it was a burglar.”

Alvin did make the recording that evening. Scholars all around the world pondered about the slight stutter in his voice on the final recording, and how it deliberately affects the resonant frequencies of the room, but only Alvin Lucier and the room itself, know the truth.

Find out more about Alvin Lucier
His home page - http://alucier.web.wesleyan.edu
The original recording of "I Am Sitting in a Room" as well as some of his other works - http://www.ubu.com/sound/lucier.html
Alvin Lucier on Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Lucier
"I Am Sitting in a Room" on Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_am_sitting_in_a_room


*******

He Stormed Into The Room
By Robert Jahns

Alex was a bright man, more than his years would indicate. In his early twenties, his business acumen allowed him to acquire several prime pieces of real estate. He started with less that $25 in his checking account. The art of negotiation was not lost to Alex.

A fortune had been acquired. He lost this thrill when his business goals were reached. Family was of upmost importance to him.

His older brothers, James and Joel, were hard workers. They were more conservative in their ambitions. All three of Stanley’s sons earned high honors at University.

Their father Stanley said, “All three are good boys. Each has different strengths. James is the oldest and an honored teacher of science. Joel was the wild one, and we worried a bit about his future. He fell in love with aircraft and now is a design engineer for Lockheed-Martin. And Alex…” Stanley lowered his gaze as his voice began a slight tremble, “Alex is. Was the proverbial tempest in a tea pot. You never quite know what he would do next.”

All now gathered to say goodbye.

Alex exercised his whims of thrill seeking. Sports car racing, marathons, snowmobiles in the winter, and speedboats in the summer - all brought laughter to his life. Early into his thirtieth year, just two days after New Year’s Day, a snowmobile accident took his life.

The minister stood at the front of the church, amazed at the hundreds that came to the services. At least a dozen of Alex’s friends rose to speak of his life. His life-long friend, confidant, and intimate brother-confessor rose for his turn to speak. Bob had a smile on his face.

“I cannot be sad today. Alex packed all of his living into his few years on earth. I expected to give this speech as best man on his wedding day.” Bob paused for a moment.

A strong gust of wind blew the church’s doors open. For a January day in this Canadian town, the wind smelled of spring and carried a warm greeting as it circled the church. Bob said, “Just like Alex! He storms into this room and takes over center stage. This is one great celebration, one party that he did not want to miss.”

*******


Beat at His Own Game
By: Jeff Hite

Captain Roderick stormed onto the bridge. As much as he could storm in low gravity. It was not as if he had to float around. They were accelerating at a substantial rate so there was some gravity on the ship which meant that at least he was standing upright, but not enough to go stomping unless he wanted to go flying into the ceiling. The worst thing that he could think of was being angry and having to take it laying down, as you floated around a ship in micro gravity.
So today the best he could do was wait for the pressure door to slam shut as he pushed off it toward his command chair. He waited until the ringing of the slamming door stopped and everyone's attention was on him.
"Alright I want to know who is responsible for this."
Most of his senior staff, with the exception of his first officer, was on this shift so he was pretty sure that the culprit had to be there. But as he looked around the room there were a few sheepish grins but no one was coming forward. That was fine, if that was the way they wanted to play it, he could play it cool as well.
He moved himself carefully into his command chair and waited. The first one to speak would catch his wrath, and then, if they were not the guilty party then maybe a little guilt would get them to come forward, when they saw their comrade French fried.
"Captain?" The navigator youngest member of the bridge crew said.
Of course they would choose the youngest as their scape goat. They all knew he had a soft spot for new members on the space corp. Well not today.
"Yes, ensign?" He kept his voice level so as not to betray the anger just below the surface. He would wait for the right moment.
"Sir, it may not be my place."
You know you have been put up to this, of course it is not your place.
"But, what are you talking about sir?"
"Ensign," this was it he was going to let it all come out. He did almost feel sorry for the fresh faced ensign, "I want to know why you posted my birthday in the galley, the posting of..." He never finished the sentence.
"Your Birthday? Why Captain, we didn't know." It was his first officer.
He must have sneaked in while he was preparing his venting, and now it was all over.
"Now we all know how much the Captain loves a good time," he continued. "I think we all ought to to sing him a little song."
The strains of happy birthday could be heard throughout the ship, both crews were awake now and joining in the fun. He had been beaten as his own game.

Download Great Hites # 29

Great Hites # 28

Great Hites # 28
	Guy David
	Robert Jahns
	Chris Hite
	Jeff Hite
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Due to a Technical Problem I have removed the Audio for this week. I will re-post it as soon as that problem has been resolved. Sorry for any inconvenience, this may cause you.

The Alarm Sounded
By: Guy David

It didn't sound right. Sam brushed his long hair with his hands and adjusted his Lennon style glasses. He knew The Galactic Union relied on the sounds he could create, but it just didn't sound right. It had to make a statement, give people a specific message. Someone hearing the sound had to instantly know it's time for action. Someone hearing the sound had to know he will have to put down what he's doing and get moving. Sam sighed. It was one thing to get hired for creating action adventure sound effects for virtual worlds, but that was different.

When the man from The Union approached him a week ago, he thought he was pulling his leg. Sam was just an average guy from the industry, one small fish in a huge pond, which was full of people with strange job titles such as “virtual lighting expert” and “cinematographic camera movement planner”. His expertise on the Machinima scene was in the field of getting the right sound at the right place. He was no one special. He was surprised The Union actually heard about him.

The Union was founded in 2025 as a result of the rising fear in the public about the possibility of hostile alien encounter. The Human race has just settled a first colony on Mars and it was already looking beyond his own solar system. Now, five years later, they where still working on ways of recognizing those alien threats and setting up an inter-planetary alarm system that could warn them of an approaching alien threat. Sam was put in charge of the actual sound of the alarm, and he was not sure why. The pay was good though, so he wasn't complaining.

They already rejected three of his suggestions, so he had to be extra careful about how he approached this. He didn't want to lose the contract and the prestige that came with it. After he finishes this, his name would be known in the industry and he would be able to get any job he wanted. He gobbled another piece of pizza and got to work, mixing the sound of a wolf from the archive with that of a wounded hound, then speeding them up a little, just for the effect. He was just playing around for now, between trying this and that, but something in that sound got to him. There was something there, something desperate, crying out. It was something he could work with. He got to work, using various filters to change the sound without destroying the feel. When he finished with it, the origin of the sound was not recognizable anymore, but the feel was there. He knew that was it. He picked out the phone and called the man from The Union.

23 years passed, and much have changed. It was 2053 now and Sam was very different. Everyone was different. The human race had enhanced itself and changed, became much more intelligent and faster thinking. They have developed an interstellar means of traveling and started venturing into the stars. Science had advanced and the speed of light was no longer seen as the limit of space travel, so it became a viable possibility. As Sam traveled with the new expedition, his thoughts wondered, and he was lost in them for a while, but then he was startled by a familiar sound. He didn't recognize it at first, then he realized what it was. It was the sound of a wolf and a wounded hound, mixed together and masked by some filters. A chill went down his spine as he realized what the sound meant.


The Alarm Sounded
By: Robert Jahns

Paul awoke, sat up and then slowly started his daily routine. He swept the night from his eyes and glanced at the alarm clock. Six o’clock on the dot – time to begin the day.

Gail had the pancakes on the griddle. “Good morning, Paul,” she said. “The paper hasn’t come yet. Maybe you can relax a bit this morning.”

“No time for relaxing today. The guys have to get the trucks loaded and on the road by ten,” mumbled Paul. “If they don’t get their loads to the mill before noon, they will be waiting in line for hours to unload.” Mary plopped a half dozen flapjacks on his plate. “Where’s my sausage?”

Gail smiled and reached for her coffee. “You know what the doctor said, Paul. He wants to keep you on your diet. I do, too. We need you around here,” she said. All Paul could do was grumble and put the “fake butter” on his breakfast.

There was cold in the air, a sign that winter was on the way. Paul liked winter. Half of his drivers headed to the Florida sunshine. He got to do what he liked best, driving his trucks. He didn’t drive too far. Mostly, he rearranged the trucks in the yard as he plowed snow and tinkered in the shop with the behemoth diesel trucks. That’s how he started here, working for old Charlie Davis. When Charlie retired, Paul put everything he had in hock to buy this outfit. He hadn’t missed a day’s work in nearly thirty years. Finally, he had paid off all the debt and he no longer was beholding to any bank.

By 9:30, his drivers were on the road carrying their “40 bushels” (40 ton) of logs to the paper mill. They would return by dark when more men would appear to drive into the hills to pick up yet another load for tomorrow’s delivery. This was the same routine that old Charlie had developed and had worked well for nearly fifty years now.

“Get that old Cat Diesel into the shop,” Paul asked his mechanic, Greg. “I want to go over that one and see if I can find why the power is down. It’s not ready for a rebuild yet.”

The last thing Paul heard was, “Look out! The door is coming down!”

He felt the strong blow to his shoulders before things went black. Then the alarm sounded.

Paul awoke, sat up and then slowly started his daily routine. He swept the night from his eyes and glanced at the alarm clock. Six o’clock on the dot – time to begin the day. If he didn’t show up on time, that old Charlie Davis was sure to dock his wages.

Morning
By Chris Hite

Chris didn't get his text to me so you will have to listen to hear his story.

Frozen
By: Jeff Hite

The cold was intense and made him wince at every move. Alex tried to move, but the pain in his joints was nearly enough to make him blackout but, he knew that if he did not move soon that he would freeze to death. He opened his eyes but there was little difference. The flight deck was black, and the little star light that filtered in through the two small view ports was feeble at best. When they had lost power to the rest of the ship two days ago, they had been forced to feel their way through the ship. After he had put his sister in a stasis tube he had sealed off all but the bridge and pumped what was left of the air up here.
Alex pushed himself up from the seat and nearly blacked out from the effort. He steadied himself on the back of the command chair until the room stopped spinning.
“Oxygen level, 20%.” The computers emergency alarms rang out.
“I know, I know.” He waited until his head cleared and then spoke again, “Computer, how long did the burn last?”
“Emergency engine burn lasted approximately 45 seconds.”
“Calculate time to Mars.”
“Mars is not along current trajectory.”
“Calculate time to nearest human outpost,” There was no response for several seconds.
“There are no current human settlements along current trajectory.”
“Damn.” Alex felt sleep beginning to overwhelm him, but he wanted to know if there was a chance. “Calculate time to nearest trade route.”
“Three years 25 days.”
“How long can the power cells run two stasis tubes and the distress beacon?”
“Three years six months.” He sagged against the seat. Just long enough he thought.
“Which trade route?”
“Mars, Ganamead.”
“That is only run about twice a year.” He needed to think but his mind would not function clearly. After some difficulty, “Is there enough fuel in the thrusters to stop the ship?”
“Not at current velocity”
“If we used the thrusters to attempt to stop the ship how fast would it be going when the fuel runs out?”
“Eight meters per second.”
He let out a long breath. Too fast. At that rate they could be thirty or forty thousand kilometers away from the trade route when a ship passed by. Way too far for their feeble distress signal. “Are there any ships in the area?” He knew the answer. He had already asked it at least a hundred times.”
“There are five ships within two days travel at current velocity.”
“Identify.”
“One Mars battle cruiser , and four Mars attack class vessels.” The ships that had attacked them. No chance of getting help from them. He had waited this long to attempt the burn, while their fuel leaked into space, and their chances dwindled, so that the attack group would not see them.
“expand search to oxygen limit.”
“Search is already three hours beyond the oxygen limit at current consumption averages.” He didn't respond. There was no point. He had done all the searches before. Alex slowly went over the whole thing in his head again. The Mars battle group were the only ships even close. Those bastards had made sure of that. After the convoy had been attacked they had run. Run as far as they could, trying to get away from anyone. They had needed time to regroup. He had thought that it would be best.
The Mars battle group had followed them, just outside of the Pegasus' sensor range, it was the second wave of the Mars group that had attacked them and destroyed the rest of the convoy. The Mars group had learned their lesson the first time, they waited until the Pegasus was so far out that there would be no one to come to their aid, and then mercilessly ripped her to shreds. The attackers disabled the main engines before he had even known they were there. Then with high powered lasers they had cut holes in all the major sections of the ship, letting her bleed to death.
Only three of them had survived the first wave of the attack. Most of the rest of the crew was either killed by massive decompression or blown out into space as the air rushed out the gaping holes cut into the ship's skin. Only the engineer, Alex and Angel had survived.
The three of them had waited for hours, with only leaky emergency patches in place. Then, when they thought the battle group would have thought the ship devoid of life, Alex and the Engineer suited up and prepared to put more permanent patches on the ship and see what damage had been done to the engines.
The Captain of the battleship was cruel. The laser had cut the engineer in half with no warning, after they had gotten patches on only three spots on the ship. Then he nicked Alex's suit.
“Now you will slowly run out of air like your ship and sister are doing right now, boy.” he had said over the suit's communications link. “That will teach you damn rovers that no one ever gets the best of a Mars battle group.”
Alex had barely made it back to the airlock when the rip in the suit opened up exposing his whole left side to the cold of space, and he had completely blacked out by the time Angel had dragged him back into the ship.
He and Angel had waited three more days before they made another move. Before the engineer had been killed, he and Alex had managed to get patches on the holes in the engineering section and the bridge. Angel and Alex inspected the engines and the fuel status. The engines themselves were a total loss. The only thing left were the emergency burn cones, but the lines from the fuel tanks to them had been severed, and all but one of the fuel tanks were now empty, and it was leaking badly.
After compressing two of the living sections there was only enough air left in the ship for another two weeks. There were three working emergency stasis tubes and one working escape pod. They had agreed to wait until the ships had gone for at least the balance of a week before they attempted a burn, because one of them would have to go outside and repair the fuel lines. But on the fifth day, the patch in engineering blew out and they lost main power and most of the breathable air.
Now they had no choice. Angel would go into a stasis tube as soon as Alex was able to repair the lines to the burn cones. They had fired the retro rockets ever so slightly to slow the spin of the ship to give him more time when he would not be exposed to the mars ships while he worked, but it meant that he also had to waste more time waiting for the ship to turn back around so he could continue work. Then once the balance of a week had gone by he would fire the engines in an emergency burn and climb into a status tube himself after turning on the emergency beacon.
It was a long shot they knew, but it was better than both of them freezing to death or suffocating.
There was nothing more he could do. The Ship was moving now and if he wanted to live, the stasis tube was the only way. He looked for a moment at the one holding his sister. Her naked body floated in thick blue liquid, her eyes shut, there was no movement, not even the gentle rise and fall of breath. She could have been dead.
Then grudgingly, but quickly he stripped off his clothes. The cold air burned his skin, and threatened to overwhelm his already exhausted body.
“Engage stasis tube number three.” he said through teeth clattering so hard that he was not sure the computer would be able to understand him. He could barely feel the needles prick his skin as he leaned his back against the freezing cold metal and he briefly thought of the stories of children getting their tongues stuck to metal object during the winters on earth. Then he felt the liquid around his feet. It rose quickly and he felt the sudden panic of drowning just before the powerful sedatives from the needles in his arms took hold of him.