Kate’s answer to “And what about Jaran - which is an absolute masterpiece of a series - but really never got finished…” > Likes and Comments
5 likes · Like
Thank you for such a comprehensive answer - I'm so, so, so glad to hear there's still hope!
At Diana’s last acting job one of the props had been a centuries-old revolver, still in working condition. When, after the final night of the production, she found herself sitting alone in an empty park with the purloined revolver in her lap and a bullet in five of the six chambers, she had finally understood that she’d crossed a line past which she could no longer return.
So it was only forty eight hours later, having shed her life in a wretched, slipshod haste, that she stood in a dusty hanger among sixty-two other people desperate enough to take this drastic step.
The manager mounted the podium and greeted them with a weary smile. “Remember, we only take volunteers. This is your last chance to turn back. I advise that you do.”
After a pause, during which no one spoke, the manager went on.
“Statistically you have a one in six chance of contracting angel-lung, which will at best cripple you and will definitively make it impossible for you to return to Earth or anywhere because angel-lung interdicts you from vector travel so you can never leave that hellhole of a moon at all, ever again. Never.”
The man next to Diana scratched the stubble of his shorn head, a gesture that made her want to touch her own shaved head, but she had cut that golden life all away from herself and let it be swept aside. Someone else coughed, and then the silence became focused like a drop pulling off the surface tension of water, ready to fall.
“All right, then. Get your staple and proceed along the gangway to your berth in the shuttle.”
They filed into an obedient line, one by one stepping into the cradle.
As she waited for her turn she studied their faces, because emotion was her scholarship and expression her skill. One man had his eyes closed, as if replaying a memory he wasn’t yet willing to erase. A woman wearing a blue cap was tracing a crazy path with her eyes along the ceiling, almost certainly following some kind of nesh game on her neural network. A couple held hands contentedly, their tight smiles of triumph making it seem they had just scored a secret victory.
There were no children.
Children weren’t allowed, only the hopeless, the cast-off, the chronically debt-stricken, and the woman who had pressed the muzzle of an antique gun to her head and decided it would be too much trouble for someone else to clean up and besides that too much of a shock for the young daughter she rarely saw.
“Next.”
She stepped into the cradle.
“Lean back,” said the technician.
Padding framed her back, keeping her upright, and the cradle closed its claws around her face to keep her head still. Cold pinpricks measured the curve where the back of her neck met the base of her skull. A puff of spicy air clouded her nose and mouth, and just when she thought she would choke, pain stabbed as the staple’s twin needles were punched into her flesh. Her lower body jerked, but she could not cry out because her facial cavities were full of the taste of nutmeg. A moment’s searing heat sealed the staple against the bone, followed by a cool mist blown over her head.
The claws retracted, and the cradle gently tilted her out onto the gangway.
When she glanced back, the entry into the cradle was already closed, her view of the hanger, and therefore Earth, blocked by a dull metal wall like the end of hope.
She stumbled along the metal mesh of the gangway, caught herself on the railing, and took calming breaths until she could walk steadily. The staple did not hurt; that would come later, when the numbing agent wore off, so they’d been told. It was the shock, the knowledge that she had pulled the trigger, just not in the way she had first intended.
There are no second chances, only new paths.
Gah. You are such a tease. However, I have developed all sorts of patience :D
Well, I still have to write the rest of the novel . . . but I am having more coherent thoughts about it. So ....
Wow! Well we're all here cheering you on!
Believe me, I cherish all of you! Thank you for reading.
Kate, if you decide to self publish this, I am one of many fans who would be glad to pre-pay with an advance.
Thanks, Sunny. RIght now it really is more a matter of time.
Another thanks for that really long, honest answer. My wife gave me the Jaran books to read, before (many?) other Kate Elliott books existed, and I greatly enjoyed them -- and I've followed that to the Crown of Stars series, which I loved, and Spirit Gate, which I enjoyed (though, if I'm honest, not quite as much as Crown of Stars). But another vote that, if this does ever happen, I will buy it and reread the whole series to remind myself what happens...
I hope that one day you'll pick this back up!
back to top
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
Alexa
(new)
Nov 20, 2015 11:18AM
Thank you for such a comprehensive answer - I'm so, so, so glad to hear there's still hope!
reply
|
flag
At Diana’s last acting job one of the props had been a centuries-old revolver, still in working condition. When, after the final night of the production, she found herself sitting alone in an empty park with the purloined revolver in her lap and a bullet in five of the six chambers, she had finally understood that she’d crossed a line past which she could no longer return.So it was only forty eight hours later, having shed her life in a wretched, slipshod haste, that she stood in a dusty hanger among sixty-two other people desperate enough to take this drastic step.
The manager mounted the podium and greeted them with a weary smile. “Remember, we only take volunteers. This is your last chance to turn back. I advise that you do.”
After a pause, during which no one spoke, the manager went on.
“Statistically you have a one in six chance of contracting angel-lung, which will at best cripple you and will definitively make it impossible for you to return to Earth or anywhere because angel-lung interdicts you from vector travel so you can never leave that hellhole of a moon at all, ever again. Never.”
The man next to Diana scratched the stubble of his shorn head, a gesture that made her want to touch her own shaved head, but she had cut that golden life all away from herself and let it be swept aside. Someone else coughed, and then the silence became focused like a drop pulling off the surface tension of water, ready to fall.
“All right, then. Get your staple and proceed along the gangway to your berth in the shuttle.”
They filed into an obedient line, one by one stepping into the cradle.
As she waited for her turn she studied their faces, because emotion was her scholarship and expression her skill. One man had his eyes closed, as if replaying a memory he wasn’t yet willing to erase. A woman wearing a blue cap was tracing a crazy path with her eyes along the ceiling, almost certainly following some kind of nesh game on her neural network. A couple held hands contentedly, their tight smiles of triumph making it seem they had just scored a secret victory.
There were no children.
Children weren’t allowed, only the hopeless, the cast-off, the chronically debt-stricken, and the woman who had pressed the muzzle of an antique gun to her head and decided it would be too much trouble for someone else to clean up and besides that too much of a shock for the young daughter she rarely saw.
“Next.”
She stepped into the cradle.
“Lean back,” said the technician.
Padding framed her back, keeping her upright, and the cradle closed its claws around her face to keep her head still. Cold pinpricks measured the curve where the back of her neck met the base of her skull. A puff of spicy air clouded her nose and mouth, and just when she thought she would choke, pain stabbed as the staple’s twin needles were punched into her flesh. Her lower body jerked, but she could not cry out because her facial cavities were full of the taste of nutmeg. A moment’s searing heat sealed the staple against the bone, followed by a cool mist blown over her head.
The claws retracted, and the cradle gently tilted her out onto the gangway.
When she glanced back, the entry into the cradle was already closed, her view of the hanger, and therefore Earth, blocked by a dull metal wall like the end of hope.
She stumbled along the metal mesh of the gangway, caught herself on the railing, and took calming breaths until she could walk steadily. The staple did not hurt; that would come later, when the numbing agent wore off, so they’d been told. It was the shock, the knowledge that she had pulled the trigger, just not in the way she had first intended.
There are no second chances, only new paths.
Gah. You are such a tease. However, I have developed all sorts of patience :D
Well, I still have to write the rest of the novel . . . but I am having more coherent thoughts about it. So ....
Wow! Well we're all here cheering you on!
Believe me, I cherish all of you! Thank you for reading.
Kate, if you decide to self publish this, I am one of many fans who would be glad to pre-pay with an advance.
Thanks, Sunny. RIght now it really is more a matter of time.
Another thanks for that really long, honest answer. My wife gave me the Jaran books to read, before (many?) other Kate Elliott books existed, and I greatly enjoyed them -- and I've followed that to the Crown of Stars series, which I loved, and Spirit Gate, which I enjoyed (though, if I'm honest, not quite as much as Crown of Stars). But another vote that, if this does ever happen, I will buy it and reread the whole series to remind myself what happens...
I hope that one day you'll pick this back up!
