Oil World

By Ivan Popov

When young Dianozzis chooses her adult name and starts her life as a fully-fledged member of the colony, she has no idea that her first day as a driller will also be her last. What she finds in the bowels of the moon will change everyone's life forever!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ivan Popov
• Release date: Oct 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9798215560990

Ivan Popov

I am a fan of Terry Pratchett and Sergey Lukyanenko, of Tolkien and Brandon Sanderson. I've written several short stories through the years, trying to get out all the ideas that my imagination churns out day and night, I have made websites and programmed roguelike RPGs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike), I've played and GMed pen-and-paper RPGs, designed board games, started writing several longer works.This (publishing at Smashwords) is an attempt to put all this creative chaos in order, and finally get out into the world the stories that come out of my head. You can get a taste also at my blog, where I'll probably post some of my older works these days.Welcome!

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Oil World

Ivan Popov

Copyright © 2021 Ivan Popov

All rights reserved

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

If full attribution is given to the author and cover artist, this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise.

Cover design by: Rashedjrs

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Twirl

Puncture

Link

Freefall

Moebius

Commander

Promotion

Bridges

Robots

Stars

Nanites

Tunnels

Descent

Fire

Family

Forge

Battle

Madness

Darkness

Earthbound

Afterword

About the author

Twirl

What kind of a name is Twirl?

Jamiz Striker smashed his oversized fist on the r-poli table, which made an ominous creak. They were sitting in the small room that was the center of the family's habitat. An oil lamp, running on raw and producing a thin layer of black mist, stood in the middle of the table. Its flame quivered and made the face of the girl on the other side seem frightened. She wasn't.

It's already written down. I went to the kopi office last cycle. Her lips pressed together and became even paler than usual. The mention of the administrative caste of the colony did nothing to improve her father’s mood, but she did not care. Just live with it.

Live with it! The table took another hit that made a small crack appear on top. Jamiz took notice and withdrew his shaking hands. Tables were expensive. This is what I get for raising you all by myself, a stream of live-with-its! You couldn't just be satisfied with your funny nickname; you had to make yourself the colony clown!

Di cocked her head in challenge.

So, calling myself Di is worse than you telling everyone to call you with a single letter of the alphabet?

Her father frowned and looked at her in silence. The rage slowly drained from his eyes, the face assuming its usual stone-like expression of patience and endurance.

Okay, Dianozzis Twirl. Then what is your first chosen task for the cycle?

She told him, and he agreed. Then they went out and hugged hard before going on their chosen ways. Names mattered, but only for a while.

***

The prober's noise came down the tunnel in low waves that made Di's body go numb. She hurried forward, eager to escape the area with the heaviest physical effect. She passed the last plant post, a large tuft of dark green under a cracked U-lamp that flickered in concert with the prober's rumbles. Ahead in the dark, the smell of oil coming from the walls grew stronger. Di’s stomach twisted. The more free oil there was around, the more unstable structures became. She hurried on, plunging into the smelly darkness against her screaming common sense.

The thuds of her heavy boots on the floor became squelching splashes, and Di felt the mud drag her feet down. Then, suddenly, a blinking white light appeared on her left. The tunnel walls were gone, and in their place came an even deeper darkness filled only by the stench of raw oil. Di snapped the rhomboid mask over her face and drew an experimental breath. The stench got a complimentary side of burnt hair, and she nearly retched, tearing the metal frame away from her nose. Her numb fingers fumbled a new filter on the mask, and then she could let herself take a breath again. Filters were expensive too.

She turned towards the blinking light and approached carefully, prodding the floor with her boot. Up close, she could see the door in one of the prober's massive pylons. She pressed the blinking button, and it sunk with a satisfying click-and-whirr. The hatch rose with the clank of cogs that didn't match well, and then she was inside. Flickering red light filled the cramped space in the pylon, but it was bright as a new U-lamp after the complete darkness of the tunnel. Di jumped up to grab the lower edge of the door and pulled it down with both hands. The mechanism gave slowly, then suddenly accelerated, and the gate smashed into the lock under the threshold, dangerously close to Di’s toes. The crash reverberated up the structure, and the girl listened. The harmonics died down slowly and kept coming back from the top of the pylon, like the echoes of the long lost ancestors. They would be proud, Di thought, if they could see the monstrous prober that defied the structure of the whole moon. And now she was going to operate it.

She smiled and grabbed the nearest rung of the ladder that went up the wall. The other pilot was probably waiting for her.

***

Where have you been, Di? The lead operator called out as she opened the hatch at the top of the stairs. He was sitting in front of the control panel with an annoyed expression.

Got to explain something to my dad.

Di settled in the second chair facing the controls and frowned. Her pillow wasn't there, and she couldn't reach the top levers without stretching forward. She looked around the dimly lit interior of the cabin.

Where's my adjuster?

Ah, the accessory. I threw it out the back hatch, I'm afraid. It spoiled the ambience.

Di looked at the man sitting next to her. His smug expression was fit for a kopi reception chamber. The fact that he was sitting in the dirtiest room imaginable, preparing to drill a hole that could collapse and kill them both, didn't seem to change his attitude at all. If anything, he looked even more joyous as he faced her. Don't go looking for it. I won't wait any longer. And with that, he turned back to the controls, brushed aside a dirty lock of black hair and pulled at the main throttle.

Di felt the machine come to life beneath her chair and thought about her options. Without the pillow, she was too short to comfortably operate the controls. On the other hand, if she didn't do her job, she'd be paid nothing. They couldn't throw her out, could they? Outcasts didn't last long, or at least