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Perpetual
Starlit Night |
Synopsis | Contents | MS. Info | Excerpt
Writing InventoryThe story, "Perpetual Starlit Night," and all writing on this page copyright 2008 by Michael D. Smith
Archeologist Sairjin ShiriKor arrives on a tiny artificial gravity platform in deep space to give a scholarly lecture. However, the barbarian colonists scoff at her evident delusion that she’s anything but a criminal sent to be incarcerated on the changeless and apparently motionless platform. She finds herself apprenticed to the Master of the Hall of Records, whose main purpose seems to be creating pornography for hundreds of doomed exiles. Still maintaining that she’s an archeologist, but beginning to doubt her own story, Sairjin begins to understand that the barbarians view her crime as the greatest of them all.
Diinand 1. Platform
Diinand 2. Idnin Idninistritrix
Diinand 3. Soorjin WitKTa
Diinand 4. Nebulae
Written
2007-2008 MS.
33 pages (Times New Roman 12, double-spaced) Words
8,000 Currently input in
Word 2000 Previously published
No parts yet published
Diinand 1. Platform
“I have a lock on the Platform,” said the navigation computer. “Would you prefer an autolanding?”
“Please,” Sairjin replied. She was a decent pilot but she’d never landed on a small artificial gravity platform before.
“Autolanding confirmed. Platform confirms. Time to touchdown one minute thirteen seconds.”
Sairjin reached for her briefcase. The lecture would start 7 PM local time. Twenty-nine minutes. Not too bad. Time for some quick introductions. At least I know some of the other speakers, that’ll make it easier--
Ahead two rows of landing lights came on, extending down the middle of the rectangle of blackness against the stars and faintly illuminating a conning tower at the far end.
“Wow, this thing’s smaller than I thought--” Sairjin muttered.
“Platform dimensions are l00 feet by 400 feet. The structure at the end measures seventy-five feet by seventy-five feet. Its observation tower is sixty-one feet high.”
Now Sairjin could make out a structure beneath the tower, a flat mass of gray blocky shapes, five stories tall, irregular boxes stacked atop each other, a few poles sticking out at odd angles.
Sairjin shuddered at the raw ugliness approaching. What was Knostner laughing about at the party? The “utilitarian inelegance of the Platform”? I wasn’t going to let him rattle me, though. A lecture’s a lecture. Give it and move on.
Her little ship cruised down the runway between the rows at lights, gliding up to a twenty foot-high arch amid the blocks and rectangles. Figures emerged from the black entrance.
Why would the Platform host an archeological conference anyway? Prestige? Money? How would they make money off people taking several weeks to come here?
Sairjin grabbed her briefcase. Well, the computer SAYS there’s air outside--hard to believe, but--
She snapped open the pilot’s door and stepped down from the cramped cabin, gasping as the frigid Platform atmosphere struck deep into her chest. She stood in her thin white dress among fur-clad men. The air tasted like oil and metal.
“Hello, there--” she managed to an older man in dark glasses. Outside? In this dimness? “I’m Sairjin ShiriKor--your speaker on the Chronside excavations--”
The man nodded, then smiled distantly. Sairjin noticed the same odd little grin on others. A few shook their heads. There was a long silence.
“Ah, yes ... Chronside excavations,” the older man said. “Those would be the statues of the fertility goddesses of H’yurre?”
“Well, yes, of course,” Sairjin replied, shivering. Why are we just standing here?
“Hmm … and you say you’re prepared to lecture on this subject?”
“Yes, of course. I have my notes right here,” Sairjin said, slapping her briefcase against her thigh. “I’m told I’m the first speaker, and ... and aren’t we supposed to start soon? I mean, I was told I should speak first to the Idninistritrix, and ... and pay my respects ... and ... and that was your custom ...”
“Fertility goddesses!” one of the men snickered.
“Well, of course that’s our custom, my dear,” said the older man, silencing the other with a sharp swivel of his sunglasses. “Of course. You come to lecture, you pay your respects to Shi Idnin. Yes. With your notes in your briefcase. Like all newcomers, you must be cold. It’s hard for the MacPherson to keep the atmosphere as warm as the human body might prefer. So we wear these coats. Of course the fur must be imported.”
“Well ... I am a little cold, I guess. Maybe we should ... start preparing, Mr. ...?”
“Ah, yes, I’m Count Glaldwini. These others ...” he sniffed. “Barbarians of no consequence.”
Sairjin met the sharp blue eyes of one of the men. He shrugged and looked away.
“Haw!” cried another.
“l … I really need to get in ...” Sairjin muttered.
“Yes, yes, of course,” Count Glaldwini said. “Note for the record her request, gentlemen. And the Diinand. Shi Idnin needs the Diinand.”
Well, Knostner said Platform people were a little rough around the edges. Okay, don’t panic, just give the lecture and see how it goes--
“Uh ... will it be okay to leave my ship here, or should I tell it to park somewhere else?” She turned to see a Platform man climbing aboard her ship.
“No problem about the ship, ma’am,” a young man spoke. Beneath his parka Sairjin saw a gray-green military uniform with insignia she couldn’t decipher. He had russet hair and deep-set violet eyes. “We park the ships behind the Castle and make sure they’re in good working order.”
“No worries there,” Sairjin replied. “My nav just did a thorough self-diagnostic.”
“All the same, we take pride in making sure visitor ships are well taken care of.”
“Well … well ... thank you. Can we ... maybe get inside?”
“Ah, yes! For the lecture on the fertility goddesses of the H’yurre!” Count Glaldwini said. “How could we miss that? This way, young lady, this way.”
Sairjin found herself amid a dozen men shuffling like a herd of dull animals towards the entrance. The giant arched door opened. Their shoes clacked on a stone vestibule. Sairjin gratefully pushed into the warm air, blinking at the light.
Shouts, laughter, plates clattering on scores of banquet tables. The smells of meat and beer and wine. Hundreds of men and women sitting, standing, wandering through the tables. Guitar notes, off-key singing from inebriated voices.
The hall was gray concrete, two stories high. A bright kitchen to the rear disgorged servants with trays of food and drink. Sairjin looked for a podium.
“Well, where am I going to speak? I guess I should find the Idninistritrix, too.”
The men shuffled awkwardly. Some were still grinning. The young military man eyed her chest with special interest. Others shook their heads
Are they worried I’ll mess up my lecture? These barbarians--are they so afraid of speaking, of using words, that they fear for me? How odd! Touching, in a way--
“Yes, you should see Shi Idnin now,” Count Glaldwini said. “Note, gentlemen, the Diinand. She asked to speak to the Idninistritrix as soon as she set foot in the Castle.”
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07/29/08