1. She had burned all her bridges and was stuck here.
2. She didn’t have my store of crystals.
3. She didn’t know more than the general area where I’d found them.
4. She had only the vaguest idea what they looked like, in their native state.
5. It could take time to find the source and collect enough to make the whole thing worthwhile.
But that was the only way out of here that preserved any chance of getting back to the civilised world and living the life she felt she deserved. So she decided she would stay where she was and start searching.
The cave she’d been taken to would do. She had fresh water and there were enough supplies in the Scoutship to keep her indefinitely. She could try hunting for something if she got sick of emergency rations, however healthy they were.
Aiesha searched my little cabin but found no clue to my claim, neither where I’d found the crystals nor where I’d hidden the ones I had found.
She returned there in a fit of pique and blasted it. Leaving a ruin with all my possessions strewn about in the rubble. Those she didn’t use to fuel her camp-fire that is.
She did find a few small, rather insignificant crystals, up to the size of a large pea, but mostly just fragments. Where had I found them? And where was my hoard? I must have had a fair haul by the time I blasted-well died on her. And so life went on.
I started work fitting tyres on anything from wheelbarrows to earth-movers. Then I became a software engineer, from correcting programs to designing and building systems.
In contrast to that rather sedentary occupation, my outside interests were essentially practical, learning to a level of competency any skill that opportunity presented. From cooking, knitting and gardening to building dry stone walls, wood-working and rock climbing.
I retired early following a mountaineering accident. As a part of my recovery I found that trying to write what I felt, resulted in poetry. Collected into a small book, self published but never distributed.
Then I wrote a fantasy novel, printed it and hand bound it - just to feel how it was done.
I then became interested in the whole arena of writing and am now returning to that first effort and rewriting it with more insight into what I am doing. I am learning all the time, writing when-ever and where-ever the opportunity presents itself.
The benefits that accrue from accepting the advice inherent in reviews are immense, if one has the humility to weigh them and accept rather than deny what they are saying.
I acknowledge that I am a mere tyro compared to the majority on here but trust that you will look kindly upon my desire to develop my skills.
Took me a while to read but was definitely worth it. A very good one John. I thoroughly enjoyed each of those 35 pages, even though as a rule I don’t like “reading” Sci-Fi but rather wqtch it. Here is one exception to the rule
This first part of your story is interesting. Well written and I especially like the way you’ve described the bank on the first paragraph. Looking forward to reading the following chapters. Cheers.
An intriguing beginning! One suggestion: Remove the comma from “Like being on the inside of a tumble dryer, full of stones.” I am imagining that the poor prospector has had a dinner of stones before tumbling down the mountain!
Took me a while to read but was definitely worth it. A very good one John. I thoroughly enjoyed each of those 35 pages, even though as a rule I don’t like “reading” Sci-Fi but rather wqtch it. Here is one exception to the rule
Keep it up.
Hello John,
This first part of your story is interesting. Well written and I especially like the way you’ve described the bank on the first paragraph. Looking forward to reading the following chapters. Cheers.
Punitha
Thank you Brenda, well spotted, comma removed.
John.
An intriguing beginning! One suggestion: Remove the comma from “Like being on the inside of a tumble dryer, full of stones.” I am imagining that the poor prospector has had a dinner of stones before tumbling down the mountain!