Author: marylowd

Pluribus, Christmas Movies, and Other Tidbits

I’m watching episode three of Pluribus and the fleet of trucks and people that roll up to the Sprouts right after Carol insists she’s a really independent person is quite the sharp commentary on the concept of independence.

Well, I won the game of random Christmas movie roulette tonight with two unusually excellent finds: Continue reading “Pluribus, Christmas Movies, and Other Tidbits”

Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 23: Regrouping

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter.

“His bright eyes looked genuinely concerned, and Lt. Diaz felt embarrassed that he’d seen her despair.”

Sojourner burst out of the ocean first, splashing the blue-and-green algae-laced water aside.  The Wanderlust followed, emerging from the alien ocean into the clear atmosphere of a world with a pale yellow sky.  The turtle and ship continued flying and growing, upward toward the yellow sky, carried by the last dregs of their momentum from the exploded asteroid base just far enough to coast into orbit above this random world in the Tetra Galaxy.

“Of all the places to end up,” Lt. Cmdr. Vossie observed pedantically, “a habitable planet was quite unlikely.” Continue reading “Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 23: Regrouping”

Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 22: Large Friends in Small Places and Small Friends in Large Places

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“What are we supposed to do with a giant tardigrade?!” Captain Carroway exclaimed, furiously.

All eyes on the bridge turned from the viewscreen — as fascinating as Sojourner’s fight with the outsized tardigrade was — toward Lys, since everyone knew the caterpillar had the best chance of understanding what was going on.  Lt. Diaz expected the caterpillar to be doubled over, her squiggle of a body bent into the shape of a hook, as she wrestled with overwhelming feelings of fear or anger.  Any kind of emotion that would make sense during a fight.  But that wasn’t what the Xolo-Lupinian saw.

Lys looked blissfully, peacefully happy.

“What the hell is going on?” Captain Carroway yeowled at the caterpillar. Continue reading “Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 22: Large Friends in Small Places and Small Friends in Large Places”

Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 21: Several Sizes Up

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“It was Sojourner, and the baby world-turtle was tussling with a pinky-brown shape.”

During their time traveling at the nearly quantum level, the Wayfarer’s child had learned how to fly close enough to the Wanderlust to share her hyperspatial slipstream without having to cling to the ship with her flippers.  She had also chosen herself a gender and with a little help from Lys, a name:  Sojourner.

When Lys passed along the message to Sojourner that it was time to get large again, the baby world turtle was excited.  She’d found the fizzy frothing of Hawking radiation tickly against the underside of her shell where it was softer, and she looked forward to the universe returning to a scale she could more easily understand. Continue reading “Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 21: Several Sizes Up”

Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 20: The Sudsy Fabric of Space

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“By some tacit agreement, the whole crew kept watching the main viewscreen in silence.”

Regardless of the captain’s orders or their stations, all of the crew onboard the Wanderlust had gravitated to the bridge by now to watch the main viewscreen with openmouthed awe.  Many a muzzle gaped at the fizzing, crackling static on the viewscreen.  It didn’t look like the emptiness of space.  It looked like they’d broken open the universe and found pop rocks fizzling in soda pop under the veneer.

“What are we looking at here, Captain?” Korvax asked, his squeaky voice unusually low and sedate.  The gravity of their situation, the sheer bizarreness of it all seemed to have subdued him.  Though, his pointy snout kept twitching, and his prickles stood out more than usual. Continue reading “Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 20: The Sudsy Fabric of Space”

Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 19: Without a Goodbye

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“Anyone watching could see that there couldn’t possibly be any survivors.”

The Wanderlust sped away at an unthinkable speed, so far beyond the speed of light that ancient human physicists who’d had epiphanies caused by falling apples would have never believed it possible.  They flew away with a large turtle riding piggyback on them.  They left the binary star system and the planet where Risqua was now stranded far behind in the blink of an eye.  Down on the planet’s surface, the traitorous reptile-bird was watching the sky, and she saw the asteroid base explode, or rather it began as an explosion, but after the fiery beginnings breached the base’s containment systems, the entire craggy, asteroid-like moon quickly crunched in on itself, filling the hollow space inside. Continue reading “Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 19: Without a Goodbye”

Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 18: The Strangest Dance

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“Under his skillful control, the Wanderlust with the Waykeeper’s child riding piggyback easily swooped around the more solid masses of protons and neutrons globbed together like gooey, melty chocolate nut clusters.”

The baby world-turtle and the Tri-Galactic Union spaceship flew towards each other, each shrinking, becoming smaller targets for the Zakonraptor vessels pursuing them.  The Waykeeper’s child’s hyperspatial slipstream shrank in proportion with their body, but also, the ship and tortoise flew closer and closer, making up the difference.  Like in Zeno’s famous paradox, they halved the distance between them, over and over, never quite reaching the other.

All around them, the asteroid base seemed to grow and grow like Wonderland after Alice tasted the mushroom.  Except, of all the beings aboard the Wanderlust, their fungal officer — currently busy playing custodian to a lot of potted plants — probably had the least to do with this particular wild adventure. Continue reading “Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 18: The Strangest Dance”

Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 17: Shrinking

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“The size of the baby world-turtle’s face grew uncannily fast on the main viewscreen as the Wanderlust both grew smaller and got closer to it.”

The Waykeeper’s child agreed to the plan as soon as Lys passed it along; in fact, they agreed so fast that the newly-hatched creature couldn’t possibly really understand what they were agreeing to, which caused Captain Carroway to make a much bigger deal about Lys explaining and re-explaining the whole situation and all the possible dangers involved far more thoroughly than would’ve been necessary if the baby world-turtle had just taken a little longer with their response.  Or if Lys had passed their consent along with a slightly longer hesitation preceding it, Lt. Diaz thought rather cynically. Continue reading “Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 17: Shrinking”

Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 16: Convincing a Cat

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“Walk me through the plan again,” Captain Carroway meowed begrudgingly.

Lt. Diaz chased after Captain Carroway as the Norwegian Forest cat strutted down the central corridor of the Wanderlust toward the bridge.  A dog chasing a cat.  Tale as old as time.  Except this time, the dog really wanted to know what in the world the cat could possibly be thinking.  The dog didn’t just want to catch the cat; she wanted to change her mind.

Captain Carroway’s tufted ears flicked just enough as she walked to show that she could hear Lt. Diaz following her, but she didn’t stop.  She strutted all the way to the bridge and took her seat in the captain’s chair, paws immediately working the control panel in the arm to pull up status readings about the state of various systems on the ship.  So even though she only beat Lt. Diaz to the bridge by about three strides, the Norwegian Forest cat already managed to look busy and like the Xolo-Lupinian was interrupting her. Continue reading “Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 16: Convincing a Cat”