Song in the waves: Science Fiction Tales, #1

By David Rees-Thomas

Song in the Waves is an exciting collection of 5 science fiction tales.

People at the edge of existence, people who have lost everything, and yet, people who hold so much hope.

They struggle against a humanity which has lost the skill of understanding, and a cold universe, callous and indifferent.

In the end, each of them reaches deep within to find a new way forward.

Science Fiction Tales Volume 1

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Rees-Thomas
• Release date: Oct 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201205591

Book preview

Table of Contents

Introduction

Introduction to Song in the Waves

Song in the Waves

Introduction to Fish

Fish

Introduction to Children of the Node

Children of the Node

Introduction to Not Lost, Just Always Moving

Not Lost, Just Always Moving

Introduction to The Draze Train

The Draze Train

About the Author

Introduction to

Song in the Waves

Science Fiction Tales

I read a comment recently somewhere on the internet from a writer who mentioned that they don't usually write introductions for their short story collections. And, here I am, not just writing an introduction for this collection, but also writing one for each individual story. Perhaps, it's too much, but as I've noted elsewhere, I enjoy writing them, and I hope they sometimes serve to open up some aspects of the possibilities of (the) story.

Part of their thinking, and I understand the perspective well, is that the stories say all that the writer feels that needs to be said. They may well be right.

I always enjoyed the introductions which came with a collection of science fiction short stories. They were usually bursting with the author's often humorous or sardonic voice, perhaps with a good dollop of snark included. For a young kid in the depths of the South Wales valleys it was always interesting to hear tales of writer conferences in lost American places which sounded magical, and that I'd never been to, and to this day still have never visited. Science fiction offered something just that little extra, and American science fiction, to my British ears, sounded just that little more otherworldly.

Back then, in the eighties, America still represented the new, the untraveled, the weird borderland between the world as it was, and the chance for something freakishly amazing.

I believe America as a concept still has those elements in abundance, even though we've had a few rocky patches in the last few decades. And, I still believe that science fiction is a genre which continues to surprise and innovate.

So, back to the actual collection at hand.

This is a collection of nominally science fiction stories. Some of the tales within are set on other planets, or maybe just the remnants of other planets. Some are closer to home. I've been a science fiction reader most of my life, from when I was a child discovering Robert Heinlein and H. G. Wells in the school library, to later finding Brian Aldiss and Larry Niven paperbacks at my uncle's house, and, a little later in my mid teens, coming across Samuel Delany, Philip K. Dick, and Michael Moorcock, as well as many many others. It would just end up as a big list, so I'll stop there.

Much has changed in science fiction as it's evolved within itself, and also influenced other genres and art forms. The very definition of science fiction is always in flux also. It's the kind of thing which people can sort of recognize when they see it, but aficionados within the field will debate and rethink the parameters of the meaning forever.

This is no bad thing. It allows a broad community of writers and readers, which all writers also are, to continue to nurture ideas and creations, and to create platforms for future writers to build their own nuances and perspectives.

I'd love to read it all, but it just keeps coming.

Thank you

David Rees-Thomas

Nishinomiya, Japan

October 2021

Introduction to Song in the Waves

The future, if we ever get beyond our own planet, is going to be so strange, probably incomprehensible to our current imagination. This is part of what makes science fiction fascinating. It seems to deal with this future, while its reality might be that what it’s really dealing with is our present understanding of our present selves.

The future is an incredible place, and it’s also a scary place. It’s uncertain, it’s unproven, it’s unreliable.

In our present, humanity often seems to seek to achieve a sort of tempered status quo, where advancements are permitted, but great thought and responsibility must also be shouldered. No bad thing.

Without this sense of responsibility, the drive for the future becomes potentially dangerous. We are currently witnessing a loosening of the moral, legal, and technological codes, which allow would-be tyrants to exercise their insecurities on populations which may not truly grasp what is being perpetrated. All in the name of ‘safety.’ A reliable and irrefutable symbol for this particular age.

I watched an episode of Doomwatch recently, where a train was pulling into the station, and all the train doors were already being opened by the passengers inside, ready to knock into any unwary commuters on the platform. This was the seventies, where the rise of safetyism and technology as religious provider was in its infancy.

Those swinging doors symbolize something, which may well be contentious, but is also undoubtedly human. Humans will always find a way to piss off those who seek to control. It’s inevitable, and should also be welcomed.

Science fiction provides us with warnings, and also with optimism. It’s an incredible genre, far more varied than those who don’t read it perhaps understand. Science fiction deals with the human, just like any other genre, and it often deals with how we manifest our strength in the darkest moments of our existence.

There are numerous characters we can point to which exemplify this. For example, Gully Foyle in, The Stars My Destination, Dana Franklin in Kindred, Case in Neuromancer. These are remarkably different characters, but they all provide us with a path to the exploration of the human factor within the story.

In the following tale, elements are examined that are often the elements which make for the most interesting stories, such as the ones mentioned above. It boils down to a question of identity, the question of where the character mentally and emotionally resides within their own universe, and the question of how we relate to our present in tandem with our own concerns about this thing we call, the future.

Thank you.

David Rees-Thomas

Nishinomiya, Japan

October 2021

Song in the Waves

1. The Meeting

Coogan leaned on the rail separating him and the seething waterfall below, the air cool and fresh, the fine mist from the crashing water beneath billowing up toward the lookout area where the tourists gathered.

He closed his eyes, allowing the spray to soak his skin, cleansing him, as if it could sanctify his soul, forgive his sins.

He tilted his head down toward the Cirrus 3 waterfall, an exact replica of Earth’s Niagara, though replicas are never properly the same. The sound filled his ears, a droning growl as if the tumult of noise rose up from the belly of a starving demon. Coogan could easily believe the truth in this.

He breathed deeply, the air giving away the artifice of his surroundings. It didn’t smell like Earth, it didn’t even quite smell like water. Just a little bit different, a little bit off, a little bit left of reality. But it didn’t matter to him.

He grasped the rail, the dampness chilling his hands, the slight taint of the chemical waterfall fizzing on his tongue.

This was enough, as close to reality as necessary. For now.

A tour guide pointed his flock towards the rainbow water beyond, talking into a mic that would relay his words to an internal comms patch the tourists wore, the water far too loud this close.

Two days out of a ten stretch, his head still full of the past, Coogan let his mind wander, drifting back to the one thing he knew he wanted to do when he got out. Surfing. The last thing the guards had asked him as they dumped his stuff in the exit tray, aside from whether he had actually done the crime, was what he was going to do next.

Surfing.

No family left. His friends scared him. And to hell with everything else. It could wait.

He sensed a shadow pass between himself and the waterfall, far too close. He opened his eyes, searching the throng of tourists who clustered near the cliff’s edge, all trying to get just the right image of themselves suspended above the raging white water.

Hello, Coogan.

He shut his eyes just a fraction, recognizing the voice, then clutched his breath in his chest, his fingers stiffening, every muscle ready.

Coogan turned to the speaker, eyes wide again, still hoping he had made a mistake.

No such luck. There he stood, the sallow man of his past, wearing more layers than Coogan thought possible, though the sun beat down a steady sweat inducing glow. His bony cheeks protruded from the top of a knit scarf, and his sunglasses were as black as the last time they'd met. Coogan had only seen the man's eyes once, silver specks that floated on a bed of milky blue white.

What the hell do you want? asked Coogan with a tone full of venom.

The man raised a bony finger, clad in a white PlastiSeal glove. How are you doing now you're out?

Coogan turned back to the cascading water. Fine. And I don't want anything to do with you, Hanratty.

The thin man joined him, resting his padded arms on the rail. The water seemed to sense a darkness in this creature also, the mist not soaking into his clothes in the same way it did with Coogan and the tourists.

They both looked down at the cascading cauldron below.

And I understand your predicament, I really do, said Hanratty.

Coogan sighed. It wasn't like Hanratty was an inherently bad guy, very creepy, but just a middle man ultimately.

He looked up. I came here once with Joni. I guess I wanted to see it again, because I couldn't quite place it firm in my imagination. Maybe that's what prison does to you. But even now I'm here, it still feels as though that happened to someone else.

"I know how much you sacrificed for us, Mr. Coogan. And this is