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Chapter One
Previously...

Fusion
      As I was floating back to the pilot room, Tammy was waiting outside her quarters, hanging from the doorway with one hand. "Is Destiny OK?" she said with a worried tone.
      "She will be," I said. "A little anoxia." They'd warned us about anoxia in Captain's training and I'd seen it before. "She's in the infirmary getting oxygen. You can see her if you want but she was still unconscious when the robot took her."
      "Thanks. I would have thought you'd have stayed with her."
      "God knows I'd like nothing better, but I have to make sure we get to Mars alive. We're off course and I have to inspect the ship to make sure it isn't about to blow up or anything. Look, I gotta go," I said as I continued to the pilot room.
      We were even farther off course than I'd feared. Now it was a matter of juggling speed and fuel usage to the company's specifications.
      Back in the old days, way before my time, these boats weren't so automated. Crews were human rather than robot, and the Captain had to calculate all this stuff by hand, with their primitive computers helping.
      Captains had to go to college back then, and some of the crew, too. The Captain had to figure out all that shit almost by hand; he needed to know calculus. Hell, I ain't even took algebra even though I could have in high school.
      I made the adjustments the computer read out, and we had gravity again and were going the right way. I didn't look at what gravity was, and it was hard to tell since we'd been so heavy before weightlessness.
      The empty crew's quarters were first, then cargo pens. I wondered why they call them that.
      "Who is it?" a voice said at my knock. Presumably Kathy, which was the name on the doorplate.
      "Captain Knolls. Ship inspection, you girls should be used to this by now."
      "Yeah? You should be used to us telling you to fuck off, too."
      "Door, open. I can lock you up any time I want, you know. I don't even need no excuse."
      "I ain't got no drops, bitch."
      I suddenly realized why they called them "pens". They were designed to house any species of animal, and a word Destiny had teased me for using came to mind.
      Feral. From what I'd read of Tammy's book, some of these whores were more animal than human, especially when they didn't get their drops. It had driven Billie wild enough that she'd wound up blowing her quarters up, with her in it.
      I sighed. "I hope you're lying. From what I found out I'm better off when you have them."
      "Well, cough 'em up, Joe!"
      I laughed, and replied "I ain't got no drops, bitch!"
      I did wonder why they hadn't run out. Where were they getting them? They shouldn't have been able to get them onto the boat in the first place.
      Billie's quarters were next. She, along with some fifty odd fellow cargo were confined for the duration. Of course, I just opened the door and entered, taser in hand. This would have been a "brig" back when Captains had diplomas.
      The robots had done a good job, but they always did. Except for making coffee. They suck at that. But you couldn't tell that she'd almost burned to death. Well, except that her hair was really short and frizzly.
      "Inspection."
      "I ain't got no drops, bitch."
      "Whatever," I sighed, and inspected the quarters. It was obvious she was lying, her eyes gave her away. I wondered again where the drops were coming from.
      After hearing "I ain't got no drops, bitch" so many times I didn't even hear it any more I went to inspect the infirmary, the one part of the inspection I looked forward to. I wanted to see how Destiny was.
      Tammy was sitting there talking with her. "John!" Destiny said. "Tammy told me you saved my life."
      I blushed, and grinned sheepishly. "It's my job."
      Tammy laughed. "Bullshit, any other 'cargo' wouldn't have made it. Destiny almost died, and she would have if you weren't moving so frantically. God but you're fast!"
      Destiny pulled me close and kissed me. "Thanks, Johnnie," she whispered, then said in a normal voice "go ahead and finish your inspection, I should be able to go home in half an hour. I'll meet you there."
      I walked back to the starboard generator and wondered why in the hell I had to do this. I mean, I don't know anything about a fusion generator. There was a stairway to get there, as the generators and engines were on the "bottom" of the boat. It was the "bottom" because the ion engines pushing against the ship pushed everything else the other way. Something about "three laws of thermoses" or something but I think I was hung over that morning's training and don't really remember. Something about actions and opposite reactions or something.
      I went over the checklist and checked the first engine. These things were huge and there were a lot of them. A hell of a lot of electricity went through those things.
      I had two more engines to go when an alarm went off. "Damned whores, not now!" I thought.
      But it wasn't the whores, it was the port generator and I couldn't get in; the computer said it was an inferno in there. Hell, that damned thing should have shut down automatically. I pulled the breaker and there was a sort of thump. Damn. Another trip to the pilot room, we were going to be off course again.
      It would have to cool before the robots could start repairing it, if it was repairable at all. Damn, if the other generator went out...
      I called Destiny. "Honey, I'm really sorry but this is going to take a while."

Continues.

I'm on a roll this morning. Besides this chapter I've started on a foreword; as I write this thing new ideas pop into my head and the foreword will be sort of a teaser you'll think of when you see the surprise at the end (hey, I have to give some sort of clue).

Someone said my web site was ugly so I added a <style> tag and filled out the <body> tag. Happy now?

Yesterday was beautiful and all I did was get a haircut, take Leila to lunch and spent the afternoon in Felbers' beer garden. Spring fever?

Now it's snowing. I'm staying inside today.

Chapter One
Previously...

Oxygen
      The cargo hold door was open. That wasn't right, that door should always be closed. I went in, scared to death about Destiny, straight for the airlock.
      The outside hatch of the airlock was open, which meant somebody was outside the boat. That relieved me a little, I'd worried one of the whores had thrown her out the airlock without a suit. But the open hatch said that thankfully hadn't happened.
      It also said that I wasn't getting outside here. Thankfully there were three airlocks that doubled as boat docks. One was for the Captain's houseboat connected to the pilot's room, and the other two were at opposite ends of the ship. Sometimes dozens of ships coupled like this traveled together. It's supposed to be cheaper that way for big loads.
      I flew as fast as I could to the other wing, put on a suit and went through the other docking airlock, closing it behind me.
      The climb on the skyscraper-like boat was a lot easier without gravity. It was probably stupid of me but I was in a hurry to get to Destiny, who was probably dying by now so I didn't bother with tethers, I just moved as fast as I could. My God but this woman was my life! The thought of losing her... I climbed faster.
      I kept trying to call her on the suit radio, knowing it was useless. Her radio probably wasn't even turned on or she would have tried to call me rather than following me out.
      I finally made it around to the airlock she'd left open and saw her floating about six or so meters from the boat. I hooked two tethers to a rung next to the airlock and one to my suit and pushed off towards her. She wasn't moving and that worried the hell out of me, if she was conscious she'd be thrashing around in a panic. She was obviously out of air.
      You would think climbing a tether without gravity pulling at you would be easy. You'd be wrong.
      There's no gravity but there's still mass. There was the mass of two humans and two suits, which weren't all that light. I climbed the tether to the lock and pulled her in behind me.
      Finally inside the airlock I shed my gloves and her helmet. She took a big gasp of air - she was alive! I got our suits off as the medical robot wheeled her away with an oxygen mask on her face.
      I floated back to the pilot room to make the course correction. The ship's inspection would be a little late today.
      I should have inspected the ship first.

Continues.

As many might know SoylentNews resides on http://li694-22.members.linode.com/¹ and because of this some people were talking and joking about using li694-22 as a new name. It's a cool name, I was tempted myself! Perhaps an even "weirder" inside joke than http//:/..org :)

No need to be tempted any more; a Mr. Watt (not me!) of Washington bought it and pointed it at SoylentNews¹ :)

¹ naturally your cookies are in different jars

Edit: just to practice safe surfing don't log in through redirection or move your cookies manually or anything like that. Not that I would think anything bad would happen in this case but one would never know until it was too late (maybe Mr. Watt suddenly develops an appetite for collecting low UID accounts).

For those of you new to my writing, I like to write while sitting in a bar stool and my favorite bar is a little redneck place in the ghetto. It's always full of interesting characters, most of whom I know well, and there are all kinds of folks. It's mostly construction workers but the crowd ranges the gamut from homeless crackheads to successful business people, from age 21 to quite elderly, from illiterate to college-educated.

Most of Nobots was written there. I left a signed copy in the bar for anyone to read with the admonition that it was not to leave the bar. Several folks wanted to read it, but not sitting in a bar stool. So I donated a second, unmarked copy for loaning out.

Heather, one of the patrons there, had been nagging me to loan her a copy and I kept forgetting to bring one. So I finally remembered, but she wasn't there so I loaned it to Art. Art is a bookworm, a little older than me who likes sitting in the beer garden with a book when the weather's nice. But it's a little dark inside for reading.

The next time I saw Heather she nagged again, and I told her I'd loaned it to Art. The next time I was in there, Art had left it with the bartender and Heather came up. "You got that book?" She demanded. "Ask Ruthie," I said. "It's behind the bar."

So yesterday a guy texted me (in code, of course) that he had some weed and did I want some? So I texted back "2@4" meaning two bags at four o'clock. I started the car about two or so; it was damned cold yesterday. It's been damned cold all winter. Yesterday it only got to 17F (minus eight point three in celcius). So I let the car warm up or I'd have hypothermia before I got there.

I walked inside from the parking lot and was snowblind when I went in. I couldn't tell who anybody was, just made out vague figures. A stool looked open, no drink in front of it so I sat down, still uable to see well. It was really bright outside and like I said, you'd have a hard time reading paper in there. Rachel, a co-owner, was tending bar and got be a beer. Damn it, their draft cooler had gone out a week ago so it was just bottles and cans, more expensive than draft.

My eyes finally dialated enough to see. There was a young guy I'd never seen before to my right, the woman to my left I could finally see was Jeri Lynn, and man was she loaded! I'd never seen her so messed up. Drunk as a skunk and sporting cocaine eyes. I think she was trying to seduce me, but she was way too loaded and I was way too sober; she's not bad looking but nobody looks good when they're shitfaced.

KY and a few other folks at one end of the bar waved. A woman I didn't recognize at first walked up - I dated her several years ago until I found out she was married to some rich guy, and there was no way I was going to put her kids through what my kids went through. Embarrisingly, I can't remember her name.

We chatted and reminisced about our short-lived romance. I mentioned that I almost didn't recognize her because she'd cut her hair short. She said "it went gray, too. That's why I cut it."

Damned if she wasn't hitting on me, too. Was I wearing a George Clooney mask or something?

She asked what I'd been doing, and I told her I'd written Nobots and had retired last week. She wanted to buy a copy, and I refused to sell her one. However, the loaner book was behind the bar so I got it from Rachel and told her it was a gift. She protested.

"Look," I said, "When we were dating you would never let me pay. You bought me beer, food, carriage rides, and this is just a little thank-you." She bought me a beer and I went back to my stool. Heather came up before I sat down. "I loved your book!" she exclaimed, and gave me a big hug. Man, the women must have all had some really thick beer goggles on.

Billy, sitting at the far end of the bar by the front door, motioned me over. "Hey, I got some hash if you want some." I declined, the price was ridiculously low so the quality surely would as well. And I had some coming around shift change when the bartenders would be too busy to notice.

Art was sitting next to him. "That book was sure different," he said, and grinned. To us like we are to australopithecus!" He stuck a folded up piece of paper in my pocket. I looked at it when I sat down - there was a small bud wrapped up in it.

My former girlfriend came over to say goodbyes and tried to give me her new phone number. She threw a twenty on the bar in front of me and hurried out. The guy I'd been waiting for finally showed up and slipped me a coupld of bags, and I slipped him a couple of twenties.

I went home in a very good mood. Some things are far better than money!

I typed that out a week or two ago and waited until I had what was written of Mars, Ho! posted. I'll probably write a new chapter of that in a day or two.

I ran across another snag with The Paxil Diaries this morning. I got the covers acceptable and went to upload it to Lulu, but I'd formatted it to A5 and they don't have that in hardcover, only American Standatd size (which I abbreviate as ASS) and an even more rediculously big book. The only books on my bookshelf that big and bigger are monsters like the entire Lord or the Rings trilogy.

And I'm very unsatisfied with their prices. I got a postcard, actual dead tree delivered by the USPS from a printer in St. Louis. Their prices were good but what the price listed was perfect bound softcover and I'd been looking for hardcover. So I stuck it in a fat science fiction anthology I've been reading that someone gave me.

So I was at Lulu's site getting ready to upload Paxil and damn, that sucks. Well, lets see, perfect bound?

Ridiculously expensive. So I'll reformat the damned thing to ASS and call the lady at mirabooksmart, the St Louis place, tomorrow.

No promises, but you may be able to get a soft cover Nobots for ten or fifteen bucks in a while, and maybe a really cheap pocket book most people read and pass along.

The next Mars, Ho! chapter has been making my brain itch, so like I said it will be soon.

Oh, BTW, this is another Soylent exclusive.

Since I've moderated and can't be bothered to log out I'll write some thoughts here for my own interest. By no means is this meant to be any kind of complete answer or anything of the sort, just some idle thoughts/speculation.

0.a. It is an entirely unknown failure mode that is sudden and immediately cripples everything. Very unlikely.
0.b. It is an entirely unknown phenomenon that is sudden and immediately cripples everything. Extremely unlikely but not zero.
0.c. A confluence of simultaneous and lasting shoddy operation and systems malfunction in two culturally different countries (Malaysia and Viet Nam). This one is hard to judge; I wouldn't think so on behalf of Viet Nam but they hadn't yet taken airspace control/responsibility for the plane and might not have paid much if any attention to it. Malaysia is fully able to fuck anything up beyond rational belief (*cough* bigoted apartheid-style legislation on the use of a word *cough*) but even so Viet Nam should still have the radar records and be fully able to find anything if there in fact was a more normal disaster.

I guess the simplest ad hoc would be 0.b. with some kind of unusual simultaneous failure of radar range for whatever reason: the signal would then simply disappear giving no clues about anything. If this was caused by some freak meteorological event local to the aircraft it might explain the total lack of everything except debris which might be found later. It might not have to last all that long if the electronics in the plane are knocked out before any remaining related blips on now-functioning radars disappear among the noise. Still extremely unlikely. Inverted clear sky sprite plasma bolts (no such thing is known to exist) or time-space warp bubbles (sorry no link to the paper handy and no such thing is known to exist) or alians!!1 (etc.) or whatever, but who knows.

1. Whether or not some terrorist organization claims responsibility doesn't mean much. Some YKW (You Know Who) organizations claim just about everything or are created solely to claim credit for anything new (like happened for the attacks in Oslo before those claims were discredited) and all it takes for the opposite to happen are a few things:
1.a.1. Whoever did it has discovered and understood the meaning of tactics, and the incident while public in nature is also long term in nature (there are several possibilities here, I'm not comfortable with spelling it out). Somewhat likely.
1.a.2. Whoever responsible simply (and without any deeper thought) doesn't want to draw attention to something that is still ongoing. Fairly likely.

and

1.b.1. For whatever reason(s) the incident fails to trigger knee-jerk claims. Doing something to a flight from a YKW nation to China should naturally avoid most if not all such attention because China is kind of outside the horizon of most YKW despite the recent YKW attacks both in Beijing and western China. Not too unlikely.
1.b.2. Someone figured it was stupid and counterproductive to make bullshit claims and has the clout to stop those who still don't get it. Very unlikely but not impossible.

For a 1.a.2. that passes 1.b.1 it seems very likely that some YKW "Chinese" did this to simply kill as many Chinese as possible. Such YKW "Chinese" aren't known to be big on making public statements of responsibility, in fact they seldom say anything at all (probably it makes them very easy to catch and kill) so that fits.

Oil slicks don't mean much on their own but are often the first thing spotted. If nothing else is spotted (lots of debris floats for a fairly long time) then 0.b. increases.

Sometimes there isn't an answer.

Chapter One
Previously...

Meteors
      The damned alarm woke me up. Damn them whores... but it wasn't whores, it was a meteor shower. Fuck. I went to the pilot room.
      The meteors were tiny but when you're going fast, well, when a meteor shower is coming you want to slow down.
      Or speed up. Usually it was slow down but not this time. I spoke into the fone. "Attention, passengers and cargo. Prepare for higher gravity in ten seconds." Ten seconds later I gradually added thrust. We were almost at Earth-normal now, and man it was not the least bit comfortable. I felt like I weighed a ton.
      After these long interplanetary trips it was customary to spend a month or more in a gradually faster centrifuge until 1.3 normal. After a few days of this, Earth felt pretty good.
      Right now it wasn't too comfortable, but we had to outrun those rocks. We'd be at .85G for the next hour. It looked like I was going to be up early today, I had inspection in two hours. I was glad we'd gone to bed early instead of drinking, this would have been hell with a hangover. I went to my quarters and made coffee, wishing again that robots could make decent coffee.
      I flipped on the video and saw the last quarter of the zero-G football semifinals. That's one hell of a sport. Too bad Memphis lost.
      I was wishing we were back to half gravity again, just sitting here was tiring. When the game was over I headed back to the pilot room.
      I couldn't get in, over fifty angry whores were blocking the hallway. "You're all going to be confined if you don't let me through."
      One of them laughed. "You and whose army? You think you can take us all on?"
      I pulled out my taser. Most of them laughed. "Go inspect your boat, Joe." I don't know why the whores call me that, they know my name. The woman continued. "This full gravity is great, Joe, and we ain't givin' it up!"
      "Look," I said, "this acceleration is going to need a course correction. I have to get in that pilot room!"
      "Fuck off, Joe." Scattered giggling from the whores. I turned around and slunk off to the cargo area. I sure wasn't looking forward to this.
      Damn but the cargo area was a lot longer off than at half G. I finally got there, suited up, and went through the airlock.
      My God but I was scared. With the boat's acceleration it was like hanging from the side of a skyscraper. With weights on you. In a space suit with clumsy gloves.
      I hooked the A tether to the highest rung I could reach and climbed. When the tether was below me I hooked the B tether above and unhooked the A tether.
      I don't know how long it took me to get to the houseboat. I had to stop and rest a few times. I was sweating so hard I was afraid I'd drown in my suit.
      I finally got there, went inside, and pressurized it. I took off the suit and went through the dock into the pilot room, pulling the suit in behind me. I was soaked in sweat, I wouldn't have been wetter if I'd been caught in a thunderstorm on Earth.
      All my muscles ached, on fire. Them whores was going to be floating in a minute, I was really pissed off. I strapped into the pilot chair and killed the thrusters. The asteroid threat had long since passed and we'd been at high G way too long. Damn, our trajectory was way off.
      Well, I'd fix that later. Right now I had a bunch of whores to lock up, and I wasn't about to be gentle. I was hurting like hell from the climb, I stunk, I was really pissed off at those damned whores and almost hoped they'd give me an excuse to tase them.
      I was also looking forward to a shower. I was nasty.
      I checked the monitor - they were all still outside the pilot room, floating, guarding it from me, ignorant of how the houseboat was docked to the ship. I wonder what went through their heads when we started floating?
      I pulled out my taser and went outside. "All of you worthless bitches, hands behind your backs or God damn it I'm going to tase the shit out of you!"
      This time they complied. It took half an hour to get them all cuffed and another half hour to get them to their rooms. I stopped by my quarters to make sure Destiny was OK.
      She wasn't there. I knocked on Tammy's door. She opened it and said "You're probably looking for Destiny."
      "Yeah, you seen her?"
      "She was worried about you. She was heading toward the cargo bay right before we lost gravity."
      Holy hell, I hoped she hadn't gone outside the boat to find me. If she did, she was probably dead, or would be soon.
      I kicked off as hard as I could towards the cargo hold, flying as fast as I could.

This is a crude, rough draft of an upcoming book that is less than 10% finished.

This chapter is a Soylent's Fiction exclusive for a few days or so. It continues.

Chapter One
Previously...

Addiction
      I woke up before her for once. I took a shit... hey, you wanted everything, right? Started the coffee because the robots really suck at making coffee, and got dressed. I was just taking my first sip when the doorbell rang. It was Tammy.
      "Hi, uh Destiny invited me for coffee."
      "Come in. She's still asleep, I'll get you a cup."
      "Thanks."
      "Uh," I said, handing her a cup, "Destiny says you're a psychologist and a, uh I forgot. You're not a whore, you're studying them.."
      "Did destiny tell you that?"
      "She didn't have to. I ain't went to college but I ain't stupid, I can add two and two and get something between three and five. It's obvious."
      "Is it?"
      "Yeah, I wondered how you got the money for a ticket, but shit, you got two doctorates. You ain't gotta look for work."
      "Nope. Want to know about my studies?"
      "Huh?"
      "Jesus, you're a dumbass. I'm studying drug abuse and prostitution and you have two hundred drug addicted whores on board! Do you want an education, dumbass?"
      I felt like a dumbass. "Yeah, I guess it might help."
      "Here," she said, giving me a small memory chip.
      "What's this?"
      "Just read it. Don't worry, anything you don't understand I can explain."
      Shit, I hate reading. That's one thing where me and Destiny are different, she loves reading. "Well, you had me fooled when I met you."
      She laughed. "I study them, you don't know them at all. Don't let them know they're being studied or the study will be ruined."
      "I'm discrete. Guess I have some studying to do."
      "It'll save you a whole lot of trouble. I have some studying to do myself," Tammy said. "Tell Destiny to drop by when she wakes up. I'll be in the commons."
      I put the chip in the tablet and started reading.
      After reading for an hour and a half I had to put the tablet down. I was in trouble. No wonder they was paying me so good.
      Most of these girls were abused and sexually molested as children, most of them raised in foster care. Many and maybe most were children of criminal parents; thieves, often very violent. They were the kids society allowed to be ruined for life.
      It was sad. Most of them were droppers. There's a chemical name for drops in Tammy's book but I'd have to look it up.
      These girls hated sex, having a normal sex life was ruined in their childhoods when they were molested and abused. But drops made the whores enjoy getting fucked. Most of them had never had an enjoyable sexual experience until they put a drop in an eye before work.
      There were other psychoaffective (and yeah, I had to look that and lots of other shit up when I read that damned book) stuff. Her book had a lot of other big words like neurotransmitters and I just kind of glossed over them, I ain't went to college or nothing.
      I gathered the whores just stayed really fucked up.
      And the drug was highly addictive physically as well as in worse ways. It made the user the opposite of pissed off when under the influence. When that was taken away, well... it ain't pretty.
      "Damn," I thought, "Addiction must be a bitch" as I got another cup of coffee.
      It seemed I was in for serious trouble.

This is a crude, rough draft of an upcoming book that is less than 10% finished. This is the last of the chapters that were posted at slashdot, and in fact has a little added to the end.

I just "finished" tomorrow's chapter, which will be a Soylent's Fiction exclusive for a few days or so. Continues.