The Wordsmiths

By Brendon Hull

The Wordsmiths is a collection of 10 short stories. Read about an Astronaut with a bad attitude who discovers plumbing on an alien planet. Meet a G.I who seeks refuge in the wrong foxhole while running for his life through the frozen woods. The Wordsmiths will entertain you with horror, fantasy and dark humour.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brendon Hull
• Release date: Jul 16, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301180189

Brendon Hull

I've been a graphic designer for a long time, but I've loved reading even longer. My earliest happy memories are associated with short stories or novels. As I grew older I attempted to tell stories through drawing, painting and photography with some success, but I could never sit down for five hours a day to draw or paint. Then I started writing and have never stopped (I'm always hunched over the damn laptop, just ask my fiancé Jennifer). Expect more from me, I think I've sprung a story leak and there might be flecks of gold in the water if you care to look.

Book preview

The Wordsmiths

Published by Brendon Hull at Smashwords

Copyright 2013 Brendon Hull

Learn more about the author http://www.deathbydesign.co.za

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Milky Way Plumbing

The Wordsmiths

Float Like a Butterfly

Ava and The Juice

Diamonds in the Old Man's Eyes

Riverwatch

Mirror Hound

Send / Receive

Warren

Dim & Fri

About the Author

Preface

Thank you for purchasing The Wordsmiths. I wrote the following 10 short stories over a period of 8 months, mostly at night and over weekends.

The themes in these tales range from insanity and addiction, through to dark humour, the unexplained and an innocent children’s story, ending the collection on a slightly sweet note. A little bit of sugar is needed to soak up all the blood, sweat and tears that went into putting this together. I hope you enjoy reading these stories as much as I enjoyed creating them.

Milky Way Plumbing

Flight Engineer Rikeman wished his loved ones back home could see what he was seeing, before him lay a sea of thick black slabs of rock; the slabs were of various sizes ranging from a queen-sized bed up to the largest, which he equated to an Olympic sized swimming pool. They were frozen waves rising into peaks and falling into troughs, the landscape resembled a paused night time scene from an old disaster movie seen through the eyes of a passenger on a doomed ocean liner. The only features breaking the foreground sea of dark waves were a group of three high spires of rock pointing up in the direction of the scarred blue moon to his left. He blinked on the zoom icon in the left corner of his visor display and the far horizon came into focus. Here the waves rose into sharp peaks, creating jagged silhouettes against the bright night sky.

Four moons ranged around the sky like dinner plates on a giant’s table illuminated the whole scene. All four moons were of a similar size but whereas one glowed with a faint blue tinge from a surface of scars and meteor blemishes giving it the appearance of a battle scarred playground marble; its neighbours gave off a cold white light from surfaces as smooth as pearls. The Milky Way was a massive moth eaten ladder in the black tablecloth spread across the giant’s table, and the stars he had grown up with were all in the wrong place; he struggled to put names to the brightest and most prominent members. The size and depth of that sky hurt his eyes, there was almost as much white light in the sky as there was black.

It was unbelievable to think that they had travelled from somewhere to the left of the edge of that expanse of white, eight light-years and nine years away from home. Nine years of constant fitness training and calculation cross checking. Nine years of seeing the same two faces over mealtimes and during daily status meetings.

The crew of three had left Earth aboard the fusion-powered deGrasse Tyson on March 2, 2210 as part of a three pronged historic mission to explore the closest star systems to Earth. The deGrasse Tyson’s two sister ships – the Chiang-Diaz and the Hawking had headed to the Proxima Centauri and Sirius star systems respectively, both missions had arrived at their destinations around a year ago. Had they discovered anything ground breaking? Well no, not exactly. Other than the usual alien bacteria - the same boring slightly differently evolved bacteria that had been discovered on Mars more than a hundred years ago, there hadn’t been much to report. After two months of exploration, unmanned research bots had been left behind and the crew had embarked on their long return trip to Earth.

The deGrasse Tyson’s crew had received orders en route to their destination to make a detour to investigate Wolf 359c, a dark planet twice the size of Earth orbiting around its red dwarf star. Their original destination - Wolf 359d showed signs of oceans and a healthy atmosphere, whereas 359c appeared to be a charred lifeless hellhole.

Commander Ann Jiang stepped down beside him from the landing module, which upon first sight back on Earth had reminded Rikeman of a bunch of pale grapes atop a metal cone. It rested on what they had calculated to be the only safe, flat surface to land on. Jiang stood next to him without speaking, riveted by the breath taking scenery (Wolf 359c was literally breath taking, the air being mainly carbon dioxide with a faint trace of oxygen too thin to breathe).

A flat and emotionless voice came to them through their helmet link. ‘Surface team, this is Control. Collect as many rock samples as you can, do not travel far.’

Rikeman looked over at Jiang. ‘You lead, I’ll grab the specimen cart.’ Jiang nodded and moved off roughly in the direction of the three spires. Rikeman grabbed the lightweight handles of the cart, which resembled a shopping trolley without the wheels and metal mesh. It hovered above the ground by means of an inner electrostatic system (the mechanics of which he had bored many nubile young women with, engineer talk wasn't hot with the women he found attractive). He watched Jiang walking slowly up ahead of him, bending her knees with each step, Rikeman felt the double Earth gravity work down on him when he took one step then another in an imitation of his leader. He watched as Jiang tackled the first rocky peak, a three metre high crest, her form fitting white suit a sliver of fallen moon amid the dark landscape.

‘Let’s make for those three spires, looks to be about three miles away,’ she said.

‘It’s going to be a helluva workout in this gravity.’

‘Take it easy Rikeman, this isn’t the running track.’

‘If I ever see another running track it will be too soon.’

As Rikeman pushed the cart forwards, he looked down at the surface; the rock that looked smooth from a distance was actually textured with tiny dimples reminding him of roughly cast iron. His boots could easily find enough purchase on the textured walls of the peaks and troughs, which varied in depth and height. Even though the slabs varied in size and frequency, their surface integrity remained consistent, Rikeman couldn’t find any scarring or erosion, which was strange when you considered how exposed that landscape was to the cruelty of deep space.

Rikeman entered the elongated triangular shadow of the three spires forty-five minutes later, Jiang stood at their centre a few feet in front of him. The ground was flatter here, more like low dunes than crashing waves. He guessed the spires height to be around 200 feet, width at the base to be 30 feet and distance from each other around 60 feet, broken rock lay scattered around the base of each spire like a collapsed tar surface.

‘This is what we came for,’ said Jiang as Rikeman arrived with the cart.

‘Wonder how these came about?' said Rikeman placing a hand on the closest spire. The surface was as unblemished as the landscape; the spires weren’t round like a horn but faceted like a roughly cut crystal.

‘Seismic plate activity most probably. At least they’ve made our job easier for us.’

Rikeman slid open the top of the specimen cart and bent to pick up a chunk of rock the size of a pillow. It weighed twice as much as an Earth rock would of the same size. Fuck you gravity, he thought as he dropped the rock into a protective metal cylinder from the cart.

‘Rikeman, come here,’ said Jiang, standing with her back to him at a spot in the centre of the spires.

She turned to him as he approached with a look of concern or confusion on her usually super calm face behind the visor of her pressurised helmet. He stopped next to her and looked down, immediately understanding what she was confused about.

Rikeman turned back to Jiang, ‘Wha-?’

‘Maybe it isn’t what we think it is.’

‘It’s what it is, I don’t know what it's doing here but there's no mistaking what it is.’

Rikeman bent down to look closer. ‘It’s a fucking bathroom plug, when last did you see one of those?' The white rubber plug was embedded in the black rock; the top lay flush with the surface. A thin ball chain was attached to the plug top and lay on the rock in the shape of a small S.

'Maybe as a child, when I visited my grandparents house?' replied Jiang. Basins and sinks drained via touch screens integrated into mirrors and kitchen surfaces these days.

‘Control, are you seeing this?’ Whispered Jiang.

'Affirmative,' came the reply. Both astronauts waited for Control to say something more, but there was only silence.

‘I think Control just spilt their coffee in their crotch,' said Rikeman.

‘Shit, when they said there would be strange things out here, they weren’t kidding. What else are we going to find?’ He looked around. ‘Hell, maybe Wolf 359c is one big antique plumbing store.'

'Cut the wisecracks Rikeman.'

‘I think if there ever was a time for wisecracks it’s now Commander.’

Jiang shushed him with a flap of the hand and a shot of her dark eyes.

Rikeman smiled and turned his head up to watch a falling star.

Finally Control replied, 'Collect the object for study.'

'Hang on Control; if you don't recall - plugs were designed to either stop something leaking out or leaking in. Maybe we should let the Research Bot pop the plug after we're long gone?'

Jiang spoke through clenched teeth. 'Control just gave us an order Rikeman.'

'Hey, I'm not saying I'm going to disobey but wouldn't it be wise to explore this place a bit more before we go pulling the plug. I mean rubber shouldn't survive in this hostile environment anyway it would just disintegrate. '

'Collect the object for study Surface Team.'

Rikeman looked up at Jiang from his crouched position with a bemused look on his face. ‘Why does it need to be studied? I know it is completely mad that this should be here, but look at it, it's a piece of junk made from rubber and metal.’

‘If you don’t collect the sample, you’ll be cleaning prison toilets before you’ve taken your first bite of an Earth cooked meal Rikeman.’

‘We're eight light years from Earth. Control isn't here, I don't give a shit that they can hear me. I know you're following orders Commander but what does your gut tell you?'

'Think scientifically Rikeman. It's a little object embedded in a massive planet. It just messes with your mind because this isn't Earth, so it looks out of place. Take it and let's study it, this could be our first sign of alien contact.'

Rikeman shook his head and looked back at the plug. 'Yeah a distant alien civilization uses old Earth plumbing. Or did our 21st century ancestors receive rubber bath plugs as a gift from an alien race?' He ran his gloved fingers over the flat skirt and felt a number of small raised bumps. He magnified the plug through his visor until the skirt filled his vision. The bumps were letters making up the words Milky Way Plumbing. He repeated what he read to Jiang.

Her eyes flickered.

Rikeman stood to face her. ‘Don't tell me those words don't freak the hell out of you. I don't know about you but it feels as though I'm breathing in pure laughing gas here.’

Jiang looked down. 'I'm responsible for this mission and our lives.'

'Commander, why were we sent here? What’s in this rock, I don’t even know why we’re collecting it. We could be collecting way more viable samples right now on 359d, you must have been told something?'

'You don't need to know that Rikeman. You do know I'll answer to Control about any subordination from you.'

'Maybe Control needs to remove the plug from its own ass. I'm not touching that plug. I'll take my punishment and yours, hell, I have nine years of freedom out here before returning to Earth anyway. I bet my psych test didn't pick up my Assholes In Authority sniffer but here it is Control, 9 years away from Earth will do that to you.'

'Commander Jiang, pacify Flight Engineer Rikeman.' said the flat and emotionless voice.

Jiang blinked and Rikeman felt a crippling shock in his legs, he collapsed where he stood like a puppet without strings.

Jiang stood over him, 'Jesus, since when did they start building Tasers into our suits?' said Rikeman, spitting out the words.

'Sorry I forgot to mention that in our security briefings. You'll be able to move in a minute or two.