Tag: dialogue

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Imperturbable Calm

“I’ll get Mr. Cameron! He can help.” Partly moved from prostrate to upright so quickly she never heard the Captain croak, “No, wait.”

Partly sprinted around the galley to the pilothouse ladder. A series of four pops and four clangs rang out below deck. The Marcail pitched sharply to a dive as she grabbed a rung with one hand. The deck underfoot became a hill and the ladder overhead an impossible set of monkey bars. For a moment she hung by one hand on the ladder parallel to the Marcail’s deck sharing Captain Munro’s fate, but she caught her toe on the railing next to her. Once she stood to get a second hand on the ladder rung, she also got a better footing on the rail.

Mr. Cameron cursed in the pilothouse above her. She was sure it was one of the few times in his life he’d done so. It was meaningful and brief.

Partly looked down past her feet and past the bow of the Marcail to the trees below. They weren’t coming up—rather they weren’t going down. The Marcail maintained it’s altitude and direction, but it did so bow down and stern up. Then Captain Munro pendulumed into view. Good, Partly thought, she’s still there.

“Mr. Cameron!”

“Just a moment, please,” he replied gently. She heard him grunt and despite clinging to the edge of the ship felt a little embarrassed interrupting his efforts.

“Miss Partly?” Partly manuevered around to see Mr. Cameron had appeared at the doorway at the end of the ladder in what was now the ceiling above her. “I’m going to need your help.”

“The Captain needs you. She’s…” Mr. Cameron put up a hand and stalled Partly’s words.

“Is Captain Munro on this boat?”

“Yes, but…” He slightly moved his palm-out hand. She stopped speaking again.

“Is Captain Munro alive?”

“Yes,” Partly said. Mr. Cameron’s steady voice and imperturbable calm warmed a part of her she hadn’t realized had gone cold. She removed one hand from the rung and brushed the grit and chilled sweat on her shorts.

“The Captain and I have drilled for this, so bobbing the Marcail is unexpected but not unplanned. Take a deep breath, please.”

369 words on day 809

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Valley Number 12

If I write anything more than this single sentence then today will be a triumph of promise over necessity.

http://www.stefan-morrell.com/Gallery/12Valley.jpg

“Dal! Come take a look!” Neven shouted, not even bothering to pull her head back in the window of their new flat.

“I’m not going out on any of those,” Dal said as he continued to remove their clothes from a day bag and place them in unfamiliar cabinets.

“What?”

“I said, ‘I’m not going out on…’. Would you get back in here?”

Neven turned from the shuttered window to face him and the room. Dal wondered if the alcove she stood in even had anything beneath it. Or if it jutted out from the building, out over the street, out from the safety of where he stood in the center of the room. He pinched the corners of a t-shirt with both hands to keep the fold intact then placed it into the top drawer.

“You can go out one of those walkways—or all of them for all I care—but you’re not getting me out on one.”

“But they all have walls. And I think I saw one with a cover…” Neven twisted to peer out the window, but turned back to the room.

“No. Just knowing that writing desk there is probably suspended…” Dal shivered.

“But the other building has all the shops. And, and food. How are we going to eat?”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t go over there. Just not over a bridge.”

249 words on day 804

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Church of the Mech

http://gorillaartfare.com/2009/10/sci-fi-dumpage/ (fourth down)

Martin found the encompassing feeling of the abandoned mech hanger remarkable. The lofty girders above and the open bay doors along the perimeter reminded him of a church he attended as a boy before he stopped praying.

“Thanks.” The occasional single-syllable acknowledgement was all that remained of Martin’s belief.

:Roger that, Commander.: Lieutenant Abilene Guerrera’s voice spoke in Martin’s earpiece. She drove the mech guarding above him. He smiled and pretended it was Goddess responding instead. He then tried to think of what he’d say to the Lieutenant’s inevitable query. :…uh, ‘Thanks’ for what, sir?:

:[something profound and direct]:

:Of course, sir,: Guerrera replied after a delay. Her brief protocol made Martin smile and almost laugh. He imagined her turning wide-eyed and questioning to her ensign co-pilot and him, cringing, unable to offer an explanation for their boss’s sudden melancholy. They’d chew on that shit for days, he thought.

xxx words on day 788