Wedding day had come and gone. Svami Reva Yudhvan and Stena Zaramalla were on honeymoon in, of all places, Harbor Town, Nivi — where Suban Dhava’s natural parents lived.
Suban’s life, he surmised, was in process of being planned.
Cadre counterinsurgency school was three weeks off. In the meantime, Grahana was bringing in crops. Svami Reva’s friend, a district engineer assigned to farm support, needed skilled workers.
During his first ten days on the job, Suban cut up a derelict harvester in a bean field, reinforced a grain bin, revived a water well, rebuilt three irrigation gates and graded a service road.
He told the supervisor he was worn out. The lady said she was not sending him home to Svami Reva with a debilitating injury.
Airspace over Titan Village was busy with weekend campers coming down from AMV Anuraga, so much so that a local air traffic Oma refused a request to land in front of the Fowlkes campsite.
Mason put down at the airfield; a slow, careful descent allowing time for Marie to admire row upon row of identical clover habitats, the presumptive model for Disneyland’s Monsanto House of the Future attraction, Anaheim, 1957.
In Titan Village parlance, ‘Smurf Castles’. Mason said, “I was a plebe in the shipwright guild when they started bringing these down.”
Erin added, “He and I worked the build-out. That’s how we met Glenn and Arya Mehrenholz.”
Marie made eyes at her. “You were ten.”
“I can carry stuff.” She led them out the aft hatch, gesturing north. “The missile silos are that way; full of diamond dust.”
Mason brought up the rear. “It was like, a couple of months before the Disclosure. Damik Balusek and his co-investors wanted out of the project. They dumped the reservation on Glenn for a price he couldn’t refuse.”
“And he made a campground out of it.”
He pointed south. “See the roof sticking up over there? That’s a separating plant. Diamond dust goes into forty-pound bags. Coal dust goes up in smoke.”
There was a golf cart traffic jam at the main entrance. A maroli grounds attendant served the wicked eye-dot to bad drivers, tertiary tentacles curved to mimic hands on hips.
Mason high-fived him on the walk past.
The maroli told them, “Watch your step. Rattlesnakes are active.”
The warning spooked Marie. “I’ve never been any place where I had to watch out for snakes.”
When Tim and Myra Fowlkes came to fetch them in a golf cart, Marie was high-stepping.
Tim was amused. “Do you have a rock in your shoe?”
Myra was emotional, having just spent a week in therapy — processing missteps that might have permanently estranged her children and yet, miraculously, did not.
She lurched out of the cart, wrapped Mason and Erin in a frantic embrace, and cried her eyes out.
Literary Science Fiction Action Adventure Intrigue Family Drama Space Soap Opera. LSFAAIFDSSO.
The target audience is persons looking for entertainment that is not shallow, lurid, and pessimistic.
Bren sidled up to Brandon. “Pop took me to the action show on Zaramalla deck.” He pointed at his forehead. “They loan you this headset that shoots lasers into your eyes so you can experience augmented reality. It was fantastic.”
Robbie poured coffee. “It’s a history lesson.”
Monica shook her head. “It was too violent.”
Skye drew a long face. “I had to stay with the little kids.”
Carmen pinched her cheek. “First time your parents allow it, I’ll take you.”
Skye tugged on her grandmother’s ear, whispering, “Is Brandon your boyfriend?”
I did not retire from the work life for the purpose of toiling at another job. Writing is its own reward. In other circumstances, I would tend to be satisfied with unremarkable sales.
If I did not believe there is an audience for the opposite of ugly.
“Bring back wholesome,” says the book beat.
Dystopia is out. Optimism is in. The literacy crisis is overstated.
I should be in like Flynn — but I am not.
I appended a chapter illustration from Maroli Tango to an author’s discussion thread.
She replied, “I think this looks absolutely terible. There is no life in it. I cant explain why exactly. But I would not want to open a book with this image waiting for me in it. It’s weird.”
Maroli Tango is forty percent family drama, performed on a Science Fiction backdrop.
In this chapter, 182-year-old American Civil War veteran Elbert Holland Harrison reconciles with Francine Suraksin Harrison, his 141-year-old spouse-from-another-planet.
The sun was setting in the Loire River Valley when Ranger arrived at the Veronica Charron cottage.
The maroli twins Virgil and Chester bailed out early, waving lighted ground crew wands. Street traffic came to a halt.
Francine watched the final descent from the main hatch, shaking in her sandals, hanging on to Marie Jourdain’s arm as though gravity might fail, sending her pinwheeling into the sky.
Magic stairs unfolded. The next-door neighbors helped her down.
The wife said, “We showed your husband to the patio.”
Virgil entered the house through the front door. Francine went around the side by herself, knees weak, legs like rubber.
Elbert met her on the stone path, arms open. He hugged her tight, kissed her ears, massaged tension out of the space between her shoulder blades.
She leaned in, chin on his collarbone, murmuring, “If you take me back, I’ll never let you go.”
He whispered, “It’s settled, then.”
When I started my Anye Universe series, I had no idea there was such a thing as furry porn. That is not what these books are about.
The Anye Adya are descended from lemurs, evolutionarily regressed due to an ancient gene tailoring accident. Had that not happened, one would be hard-pressed to distinguish Francine from a citizen of Greece.
Sure, it’s weird. It’s SF.
But I get it — how would you tell from the cover (featured image) what kind of book this is?
I am waiting impatiently for Amazon to publish the 8.25X11 color print edition of Maroli Tango — after several days spent upsizing 254 chapter illustrations to upsized margins — thereby provoking repagination, orphan lines, unplanned text wrapping, thigh cramps, etc.
Curious, are we? See the eBook, also in color.
Imagine Maroli Tango, supersized, on your coffee table.
From the French, Bourgeoisie. A member of the materialistic middle class.
Or, an intrusive medical instrument favored by urologists.
We’re talking about the first citation, articulated by a neighbor after throwing down 3 Manhattans; ironically, a hoity-toity cocktail preference for a man who dares call me rich.
Back in the 1960s, my dad informed me that a millionaire was not a wealthy person. I was shocked to hear it — but Dad was a wise man and now, given perspective and adjusting for inflation, I can say with certainty the wife and I are not rich.
That said, I can see where it’s coming from. I married a terrific gal and hung onto her for 50 years. Other men are intuitively jealous. How did I do it, they wonder, and naturally assume I was prosperous.
Which brings me to the story of a cash register clerk who commented on my appearance in the checkout lane, attired in motorcycle racing leathers.
She said, “You look hot.”
“Yes,” I replied. “Yes, I am.”
That was a long time ago. These days, I look bougie.
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