Charlie's Meme, Part 3
Oct. 2nd, 2005 05:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsAnd, finishing up on Charlie's Meme, here is part three: the first paragraph of every story in my Journal Entries "to get to done" box:
"I was in mourning the last time I made this trip," Kaede said. She pointed out the floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall viewport that opened up onto the view of space. In the near distance, the little airless world of Emerald glittered. "Petterin, my job, my adventure in Terran space, my... my goals. My life." [Connected Together]
Both of them could have wandered out of a fairy tale, their round faces, brownish-red skin, and overly large teeth in delicate mouths promising exotic kisses. The younger sister was also the shorter. Both wore their hair straight, down about their shoulders and longer. The elder sported a symmetrical plait of fingerwidth strands that started at the top of her head and disappeared behind her ears, her sister had a single thin braid that dangled provocatively by her cheek. [The Last Princess]
Karsten tried to shout as the ship's hull ruptured, but no air remained to carry his cries. His claws found a perch, useless as it might be, from which he could watch, helpless, as his crewfen were sucked into the cold strain of space. He felt the Crixoro Tiresse's death-rattle through the metal he held tight. Friendless vacuum reached out for him. Like the others he beat his wings helplessly, finding nothing to push against, finding nothing to breathe. [Ship of Dragons]
"So, what did you leave for the natives this time, Brynda?" Captain Caster held her report in his hands and sensed something buggy in it. [Maykir Of Stones]
Freya smiled as the plates were set in front of the two of us. "Thanks, Li," I said to the waitress. She gave me a smile and disappeared into the prep room. "You know, I brought Katrina here just a few days before she and Wren decided they were leaving us." [Raising Castles 2]
Olivia awoke, her ears straining at the limits of her hearing even before she was awake enough to wonder why. Something was wrong, something missing from the usual ambience. "Lindsay?" she asked. [Tree, Apple, Serpent]
My knees kept bouncing. That didn't make sense to me. He was just another trick, I kept thinking, one who would take me out, treat me nicely, and then send me home just like all of the rest. That's what this was about. Right, I kept telling myself. Right, sure. [Green Eyes]
Forty years doesn't seem like a long time. On Terra, forty years had once been the interval separating three generations, but on Pendor people had children so rarely there there was no point in calling something "a generation," nor was there any attempt to track the slow, inevitable evolution of our culture. [Treehouse]
"The Rangsey Empire does not welcome the Pendorian interest in our affairs." [Wooden Girl]
A few of the other students chorused, not quite as one, "G'night!" as she headed for the door. She reached for the grip but another hand got there before hers. "You're heading back towards Northwest 18, aren't you?" [RenRenRen]
"Message for you, Captain." [After Effects 3]
"I like the winter uniforms," Linette said as she looked herself over. White slacks with sky-blue piping, soft white boots, the thick blouse and the truncated caftan, also white with the logo of the Blue Gondoliers Association over her right breast. She looked at herself carefully, wondering if she'd gained weight recently. [The Gondolier 1]
Misuko stared down at the blue-green ball that was the planet of her birth. All worlds seemed small to her now that she had seen the truth and the horrors of war and of space. For all their vaunted immortality, humanity was still a vulnerable species, forced to deal with a universe that had nothing for it but cruel indifference. Down there, there were people who pretended otherwise, who believed that the universe actually regarded sentient beings as ''different,'' as if organic sentience conveyed some special blessing in addition to the ability to plan its own self-defense. [Rejection]
The alarm went off again. Misuko groaned as she turned over in bed to strike it, silencing it for the third time that morning, then threw herself onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. She had looked at that ceiling every day now for seven years, reassured by it's yellowish beige familiarity, the little tags of paint here and there proclaiming that it was actually painted by something other than a perfect machine. "When did I start to feel so old?"[Half In,Half Out]
"Do you have any idea how often this happens?" [Forgoing Eternity]
"Transition from hyperspace complete." [Federation]
Freya listened through one of the microphones mounted on the outside of the shuttlecraft. "Do you think they'll look any different?" [Done Right]
"What you need is to get laid," Polly said. [Reservations The Free Worlds]
On what was supposed to have been the assignment of her life Polly found herself in the ship's rearmost lounge looking through her schedule to make sure she had enough time to get dead drunk. The bartender, a nice enough masc Felinzi, gave her a concerned glance as she gestured for another whiskey, then poured it anyway. She had long since gotten past the point where she could even taste the alcohol, and the shot followed a well-scorched trail down into her gut, failing along the way to have any effect at all on her reasons for coming to this dive in the first place. [Reservations The Free Worlds 2]
Em was the first to notice, in the school physics lab. She had hunched over the gravitics survey display, watching the path of every object that weight more than a few grams as it wandered through the space occupied by the Marble Orbital Stations, when the whole system suddenly warped hard. She turned to a screen on her left and cued in commands with her fingers. No, nothing had hit the sensor, a shere of rarefied petroleum oil 200-meters wide trailing the planet like a spare moon. The sensor would have detected it and initiated its own defense program under any circumstances. The defense program was running fine. She ran the diagnostics and they said everything was within tolerances. [The Seas Are Cold]
"Do you like my shoggoth?" [The Seas Are Cold 2]
A figure in a hooded cloak made a small, brownish shadow in the low mist that clung to the grassy meadow in the sunless early morning. His destination, a low wreck of slate and stone in one corner of the meadow, could barely be seen through the mist, yet se waited until his path had brought him as close to it as possible before he broke out from the trees and scuttled across the grass to get inside. [Bith Reservations]
Her consciousness flickered like a cold light fixture, at first dull, violent and random, then full, bright and steady, prepared to illuminate everything in stark shadows. She was upside down her systems told her. For the moment that was all they told her. Then she registered that her temperature was chill but warming slowly, her power supply was at full, and many of her motor systems reported some small degrees of degradation. [Robots Of The Deep Versus The Vampire Girl Of Fallow Five]
Kudashko Karn stood in his office on the top floor of Integrity Tower, the tallest building in Greater Watson Arcocity, and smiled down at the smoothly running civilization over which he was but one small but important part. His white, square office with its curving, womblike walls and its soft, indirect lighting was designed explicitly to comfort anyone who stepped into the space that all was well with the world-- clean, enclosing, attentive. [Mond Reservation]
K1341 stood alone in pod four of eight in data collection center sixty-seven. Two black tendrils, thick wires with plugs at their ends, descended from the ceiling and moved as with confidence to the back of her neck. A pair of data ports opened smoothly, exposing the access to her brain. She waited for ''connection'', for that moment of completion. It would last an hour, and at the end she knew she would be sated, her need abated. The sensation would last until tomorrow when the hunger to return to this place would once again bring her to the door. She did what the Hive asked of her and in return the Hive fed her, warmed her, cared for her, kept her safe and clean and separate from the natural world outside with its sticky hindrances and random terrors. [Planet Of Dreamers]
The Pendorian Military Exploration Vessel ''Apparatchik'' dropped out of hyperspace far outside the normal transition terminus of the star cataloged only as SUS-276, hurtling towards the star at a speed that would carry it through the system in a matter of weeks. ''Apparatchik'' was over 8000 light years from the nearest inhabited Corridor world, so far that the crew had spent much of the last three years in suspension. SUS-276 was the first of 25 worlds that they were scheduled to explore. [Kyama]
Wish appeared at the front door just as the light of day was receding to aspin. She glanced left and right at the ancient-seeming facade that was in truth only a century or so in age, and instantly she flet better. She was home. Where she wanted to be. Wehere she had chosen to wait out eternity with her family. The ones who loved her and accepted her. [No Place Like Home]
"I was in mourning the last time I made this trip," Kaede said. She pointed out the floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall viewport that opened up onto the view of space. In the near distance, the little airless world of Emerald glittered. "Petterin, my job, my adventure in Terran space, my... my goals. My life." [Connected Together]
Both of them could have wandered out of a fairy tale, their round faces, brownish-red skin, and overly large teeth in delicate mouths promising exotic kisses. The younger sister was also the shorter. Both wore their hair straight, down about their shoulders and longer. The elder sported a symmetrical plait of fingerwidth strands that started at the top of her head and disappeared behind her ears, her sister had a single thin braid that dangled provocatively by her cheek. [The Last Princess]
Karsten tried to shout as the ship's hull ruptured, but no air remained to carry his cries. His claws found a perch, useless as it might be, from which he could watch, helpless, as his crewfen were sucked into the cold strain of space. He felt the Crixoro Tiresse's death-rattle through the metal he held tight. Friendless vacuum reached out for him. Like the others he beat his wings helplessly, finding nothing to push against, finding nothing to breathe. [Ship of Dragons]
"So, what did you leave for the natives this time, Brynda?" Captain Caster held her report in his hands and sensed something buggy in it. [Maykir Of Stones]
Freya smiled as the plates were set in front of the two of us. "Thanks, Li," I said to the waitress. She gave me a smile and disappeared into the prep room. "You know, I brought Katrina here just a few days before she and Wren decided they were leaving us." [Raising Castles 2]
Olivia awoke, her ears straining at the limits of her hearing even before she was awake enough to wonder why. Something was wrong, something missing from the usual ambience. "Lindsay?" she asked. [Tree, Apple, Serpent]
My knees kept bouncing. That didn't make sense to me. He was just another trick, I kept thinking, one who would take me out, treat me nicely, and then send me home just like all of the rest. That's what this was about. Right, I kept telling myself. Right, sure. [Green Eyes]
Forty years doesn't seem like a long time. On Terra, forty years had once been the interval separating three generations, but on Pendor people had children so rarely there there was no point in calling something "a generation," nor was there any attempt to track the slow, inevitable evolution of our culture. [Treehouse]
"The Rangsey Empire does not welcome the Pendorian interest in our affairs." [Wooden Girl]
A few of the other students chorused, not quite as one, "G'night!" as she headed for the door. She reached for the grip but another hand got there before hers. "You're heading back towards Northwest 18, aren't you?" [RenRenRen]
"Message for you, Captain." [After Effects 3]
"I like the winter uniforms," Linette said as she looked herself over. White slacks with sky-blue piping, soft white boots, the thick blouse and the truncated caftan, also white with the logo of the Blue Gondoliers Association over her right breast. She looked at herself carefully, wondering if she'd gained weight recently. [The Gondolier 1]
Misuko stared down at the blue-green ball that was the planet of her birth. All worlds seemed small to her now that she had seen the truth and the horrors of war and of space. For all their vaunted immortality, humanity was still a vulnerable species, forced to deal with a universe that had nothing for it but cruel indifference. Down there, there were people who pretended otherwise, who believed that the universe actually regarded sentient beings as ''different,'' as if organic sentience conveyed some special blessing in addition to the ability to plan its own self-defense. [Rejection]
The alarm went off again. Misuko groaned as she turned over in bed to strike it, silencing it for the third time that morning, then threw herself onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. She had looked at that ceiling every day now for seven years, reassured by it's yellowish beige familiarity, the little tags of paint here and there proclaiming that it was actually painted by something other than a perfect machine. "When did I start to feel so old?"[Half In,Half Out]
"Do you have any idea how often this happens?" [Forgoing Eternity]
"Transition from hyperspace complete." [Federation]
Freya listened through one of the microphones mounted on the outside of the shuttlecraft. "Do you think they'll look any different?" [Done Right]
"What you need is to get laid," Polly said. [Reservations The Free Worlds]
On what was supposed to have been the assignment of her life Polly found herself in the ship's rearmost lounge looking through her schedule to make sure she had enough time to get dead drunk. The bartender, a nice enough masc Felinzi, gave her a concerned glance as she gestured for another whiskey, then poured it anyway. She had long since gotten past the point where she could even taste the alcohol, and the shot followed a well-scorched trail down into her gut, failing along the way to have any effect at all on her reasons for coming to this dive in the first place. [Reservations The Free Worlds 2]
Em was the first to notice, in the school physics lab. She had hunched over the gravitics survey display, watching the path of every object that weight more than a few grams as it wandered through the space occupied by the Marble Orbital Stations, when the whole system suddenly warped hard. She turned to a screen on her left and cued in commands with her fingers. No, nothing had hit the sensor, a shere of rarefied petroleum oil 200-meters wide trailing the planet like a spare moon. The sensor would have detected it and initiated its own defense program under any circumstances. The defense program was running fine. She ran the diagnostics and they said everything was within tolerances. [The Seas Are Cold]
"Do you like my shoggoth?" [The Seas Are Cold 2]
A figure in a hooded cloak made a small, brownish shadow in the low mist that clung to the grassy meadow in the sunless early morning. His destination, a low wreck of slate and stone in one corner of the meadow, could barely be seen through the mist, yet se waited until his path had brought him as close to it as possible before he broke out from the trees and scuttled across the grass to get inside. [Bith Reservations]
Her consciousness flickered like a cold light fixture, at first dull, violent and random, then full, bright and steady, prepared to illuminate everything in stark shadows. She was upside down her systems told her. For the moment that was all they told her. Then she registered that her temperature was chill but warming slowly, her power supply was at full, and many of her motor systems reported some small degrees of degradation. [Robots Of The Deep Versus The Vampire Girl Of Fallow Five]
Kudashko Karn stood in his office on the top floor of Integrity Tower, the tallest building in Greater Watson Arcocity, and smiled down at the smoothly running civilization over which he was but one small but important part. His white, square office with its curving, womblike walls and its soft, indirect lighting was designed explicitly to comfort anyone who stepped into the space that all was well with the world-- clean, enclosing, attentive. [Mond Reservation]
K1341 stood alone in pod four of eight in data collection center sixty-seven. Two black tendrils, thick wires with plugs at their ends, descended from the ceiling and moved as with confidence to the back of her neck. A pair of data ports opened smoothly, exposing the access to her brain. She waited for ''connection'', for that moment of completion. It would last an hour, and at the end she knew she would be sated, her need abated. The sensation would last until tomorrow when the hunger to return to this place would once again bring her to the door. She did what the Hive asked of her and in return the Hive fed her, warmed her, cared for her, kept her safe and clean and separate from the natural world outside with its sticky hindrances and random terrors. [Planet Of Dreamers]
The Pendorian Military Exploration Vessel ''Apparatchik'' dropped out of hyperspace far outside the normal transition terminus of the star cataloged only as SUS-276, hurtling towards the star at a speed that would carry it through the system in a matter of weeks. ''Apparatchik'' was over 8000 light years from the nearest inhabited Corridor world, so far that the crew had spent much of the last three years in suspension. SUS-276 was the first of 25 worlds that they were scheduled to explore. [Kyama]
Wish appeared at the front door just as the light of day was receding to aspin. She glanced left and right at the ancient-seeming facade that was in truth only a century or so in age, and instantly she flet better. She was home. Where she wanted to be. Wehere she had chosen to wait out eternity with her family. The ones who loved her and accepted her. [No Place Like Home]
