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#Post#: 8492--------------------------------------------------
Re: Authoring A Story Together
By: HOLLAND Date: July 9, 2014, 12:49 pm
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Chapter Eighteen
Eloette stopped speaking of her vision still in her euphoria.
Kaney could see that, after coming to, her eyes seemed to have a
far-away look to them, that though she could see this world, she
was still, somehow, in that other dream world. Kaney got up and
looked again at the letter. He looked down to the flowing
clouds that surrounded the mountain. He watched a bull elk come
out of the clouds below followed by three hinds. The great rack
of horns of the stag glistened in the sunlight. The elk and
hinds, slowly, majestically, walked into the conifers where they
were no longer seen.
It's so beautiful, sometimes it seems that it is not real, mused
Kaney.
Below those clouds and mist, Kaney thought, is where the real
world is, the world we live in. This place above the clouds,
however beautiful it is in the unobstructed sunlight, is a
netherworld.
Kaney looked down at Eloette. He saw that she still had a
weakness about her. She would not be able to travel for the
rest of the day. Frustrating, but then looking off to the west,
beyond the escarpment of the knifeback ridge that went off of
the mountain at the west end, Kaney could see a bank of clouds
flowing towards the mountain. It would ruin any visibility and
prevent any further safe travel. Further frustration. Kaney
took out his sensor-trac and brought up the map of the mountain.
He located a flowing spring not more than a short walk from
where they were. He hurriedly helped Eloette up and led her to
the place, a small semi-rounded enclosed place between the
rocks, hard against the mountain. Kaney sensed that it was a
good place to camp and wait out the cloud formation.
He helped Eloette to set down and immediately went to work. He
cut down grass for bedding for the both of them. He gathered
firewood to last for the night and for the following day, if
need be. He put the packs in the end of the cave, behind the
small waterfall that was in the back of the enclosure. He got
out their thermal blankets, a single blanket for each of them,
that had temperature controls that could keep them warm at
night. These he placed on their respective separate grass
beddings. With rocks in front of the spring, he built a
firepit, both to keep them warm and to deter the bears.
As the clouds were beginning to come over the mountain, and to
darken the sky. Kaney went out further down the slope and,
using his knife, dug up some bulbous roots of a nutritious plant
that he was familiar with. These he took back to the camp and
cleaned them up.
As the clouds swept in, obscuring all vision beyond ten feet,
Kaney started the fire. On wooden stakes next to the fire he
headed the bulbous roots until they were piping hot. Soon both
Eloette and he were comfortably warm by the fire. Kaney, then
took out a ration pack, meat and vegetable casserole, and
pressed the button that caused the ration to heat up. He got
out the plates and silverware and poured some of the casserole
onto the plate for her to eat. Eloette took the food down, and
ate some of the root bulbs which Kaney had sprinkled with herbs
he had found.
She still seemed to be in that dream world. When she was
finished, Kaney helped her out of her coat and shoes and she
laid down upon her blanket and covered herself with it. She was
soon fast asleep. Kaney checked to make sure the blanket's
thermal setting was on.
As nightful came on, Kaney could hear the roaring of the wind
through the pines. He could not see the trees. He could only
see the swirl of the clouds and they passed by and over the
fire. What a solitary place, thought Kaney. He banked the fire
further so that it would last the night and prevent any bear
from easily getting to them. Before he went to sleep, he got
the pistol out an set it in front of him. He set the
electromagnetic setting of the pistol to its highest to increase
the velocity of the bullet as it would go down the barrel.
He, then, very tired, wrapped his blanket tightly around him and
then drifted off to sleep amid the sound of the wind roaring
through the pines . . .
#Post#: 8497--------------------------------------------------
Re: Authoring A Story Together
By: HOLLAND Date: July 10, 2014, 7:19 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Chapter Nineteen
Kaney awoke in the middle of the night. For a time he watched
the swirling of the clouds above the fire and beyond it, beyond
the enclosure where the spring was. He could hear the roaring
of the wind through the pines.
How solitary this place is, Kaney thought.
Feeling hungry, he ate his plate of casserole that had gone cold
and carefully cleaned the dishes by the firelight and then put
them away. As he was doing so, he sensed something. Looking
across the fire, he saw an indistinct figure of something
concealed by the moving tendrils of the clouds beyond the fire.
It came closer.
At a certain point, Kaney could clearly see that it was mountain
cat that he was not familiar with. It had a bobbed tail. It
had grayish-brown fur, with black streaks on the body and dark
bars on the forelegs and tail. The ears appeared black-tipped
and pointed, with short, black tufts. Kaney could see that the
cat's eyes were yellow in color with black pupils. The nose was
pinkish-red. The face had a base color of gray which extended
to its sides, and back.
It sat briefly on the other side of the fire. It clearly had no
fear. Then it abruptly got up, as if bored, and went into the
clouds and was gone.
Kaney checked the sensor-trac. According to the unit's species
index, this kind of cat was unknown, not listed as a known among
the species of this world. Kaney was only familiar with the
desert wildcats, that had long tanish, gray bodies with rounded
ears and big paws. That was the only wildcat that appeared in
the index. Kaney didn't like it, the mystery of it all.
Is that cat of this world? Kaney wondered.
He banked the fire and was satisfied that it would last until
daylight. He wrapped himself into the blanket and watched the
cloud tendrils as they moved by and above the fire, until the
sound of the wind roaring through the conifers brought him back
into sleep . . .
#Post#: 8560--------------------------------------------------
Re: Authoring A Story Together
By: HOLLAND Date: July 21, 2014, 6:17 am
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Chapter Twenty
He woke again and drifted again into sleep. Waking again,
staring into the flame, into the glowing coals, he recalled a
time, when he was a young man, when he went hiking with his
Uncles Tahl and Arthur, up to the lake on Soltys Mountain.
Standing by the lake in the rugged ridges between the mountain,
resting under the conifers, Uncle Arthur casually asked him,
"Kaney, who are you?"
Kaney replied, "I am your nephew." He was puzzled by the
question.
"That is a fact," said Uncle Tahl; but, "Are we more than our
facticity?"
Kaney thought for a moment. "I am in a process of becoming, so
I am not necessarily a fact, or facticity. I am someone who is,
in a freedom out of that facticity, moving into a future, ever
changing along the way."
"And would you say that as we are being formed as we go through
time we are not necessarily a factiticy, in this respect until
the moment has passed?" Uncle Tahl looked at him with love in
his eyes.
"I suppose so," Kaney said.
"If we are not a facticity but are ever changing, what would
this mean to us in other ways?" asked Uncle Arthur.
Kaney thought for a while regarding this and then said, "We
would be ever faced with our fragility in life, ever threatened
by its dimensions and seeking to guard against it."
"That sounds logical," said Uncle Tahl.
Kaney hesitated, but then continued, "We would have dread, a
fear of failing to reach in all that becoming that which we want
to be. And we would have the possibility of despair, the
reaching to the conclusion that we would not or never become
that which we want to be. In our transforming, we may fail."
Kaney hesitated again. "Freedom is, or can be, a burden," he
said. Kaney thought back at all his friends, those who were
experiencing dread at failing to reach their life's dreams, and
those who had already entered into despair.
"Who are you?" asked Uncle Arthur.
"I am your nephew, a synthesis of freedom, in respect to
becoming, and necessity, a creature of facticity." He watched
his two uncles faintly smiled at this. He was being too glib
about it.
Uncle Tahl then said, 'But does all this really say who you
are?"
Kaney had no answer . . .
The roaring of the wind brought Kaney back into the present. I
wonder what answer Desh would have to all this, Kaney thought.
Why would one talk to an alien, an off-worlder about all this?
He put another log onto the fire and drifted back again into
sleep.
#Post#: 8561--------------------------------------------------
Re: Authoring A Story Together
By: HOLLAND Date: July 21, 2014, 6:44 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Chapter Twenty-One
Kaney woke again, feeling a light pattering of something falling
onto his head and blanket.
It was sleet, tiny round balls of ice falling through the
swirling clouds that pressed in around him and Eloette. That
meant a cold flowing of air above, air so cold that it was
changing what could have been rain into sleet.
The tiny round balls fell in abundance around them and swirled
and moved across the rocks and grasses visible to Kaney; who,
observed that the area of vision had grown. it was now daylight
and one could clearly see that one was still in the clouds, but
the clouds were, most likely, moving off.
Kaney looked at Eloette and watched the tiny granules dance
along the blanket she was under and through the tresses of her
hair. Kaney thought that she was an attractive girl. I wonder
why I hadn't thought of that before?
As briefly as the sleet came, it was soon gone, and Kaney got up
and brushed himself off. He walked off into the cloud
reflecting as to how we are so much in a cloud. He followed the
small brook that went down the slope from the spring.
He recalled what his two uncles had told him that there is a
cloud of unknowing that separates us from the divine. We cannot
penetrate it, unless God so discloses. Then there is the cloud
of forgetting, our movement into a place where we leave behind
the things of this world. Apparently, one must go through a
cloud of forgetting to approach the cloud of unknowing.
Kaney thought again. This mountain is a netherworld.
Kaney dug up more bulbous roots and some herbs, and found blue
berries near the brook. He picked up other herbs for a tea that
they would have. He took them back to the campsite so that
Eloette and he could could have them for breakfast.
When he returned, he built up the fire, but then felt a warmth
on his belt. He took his pistol out and discovered that it was
heating up because something was blocking its "at ready" signal.
He shut the EM pistol off. They were now defenseless. He got
out the sensor-trac and, turning it on, discovered that it was
displaying no readings. It flashed a signal indicating that
some field was suppressing its sensory and computer functions.
He checked his sat-phone. It was not functioning either. This
would mean that Eloette's sat-phone and 'plat' controller would
not be able to work as well. Not good. Not good at all.
Was this Desh or was this the artifact?
#Post#: 8571--------------------------------------------------
Re: Authoring A Story Together
By: HOLLAND Date: July 22, 2014, 7:30 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Chapter Twenty-Two
Kaney thought of his Uncle Arthur. He was and is a grandfather
to me. He was my grandfather in a way that my real grandfather
never could be having died so many years before. Children need
a grandfather and grandmother even if they are substitutes to
that which is the supposedly real. They made much of my life
possible. Things are never what they seem, thought Kaney. What
should be simple is complicated. Our family relations are
complicated. Our world is complicated. Nothing is as it seems.
We learn things later when we should have learned them sooner.
Kaney watched the clouds rolled by and overhead with the cloud
tendrils seemingly reaching into their place beside the spring.
We walk in beauty and ugliness, light and darkness, being and
becoming, He thought. Life is a speaking and being spoken to,
by those we know, those we don't know and the divine in our
inmost being. And sometimes we listen . . .
He began to doze off again . . .
#Post#: 8585--------------------------------------------------
Re: Authoring A Story Together
By: HOLLAND Date: July 24, 2014, 7:08 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Chapter Twenty-Three
Kaney awoke hearing a sound and glancing up he saw Eloette
awakening.
"How are you?" She asked.
"I'm fine," Kaney replied. Actually he wasn't, he thought. I
didn't have much restful sleep last night.
Eloette continued, speaking out of joy. "The vision was
amazing. It was something of great happiness. I had never
heard such singing in my life." Eloette paused, puzzled seeking
to express in words what she saw and what she should say to
Kaney.
Kaney was pleased, relieved that she appeared to be well rested
and mentally back in this world. "I imagine that such
experiences would be hard to describe to those who do not
experience them," Kaney said.
"You are very guarded about this, aren't you Kaney?" Eloette
looked at him with a hint of misgiving.
"I prefer the tangibility of the things of this world, Eloette.
I know how to deal with a bear and other predators in this
world. I know nothing of dealing with predatory creatures in
the dream world."
"You always seek security, don't you?" Eloette continued.
"Isn't it because you had in your youth troubled family
relationships."
"My family situation was not troubled, Eloette, there were
family members only missing," Kaney replied. "My grandparents
died and my father died when I was very young and had to be
raised by surrogate family. I've done well in my situation. I
did not lose much emotionally and materially."
Eloette smiled faintly. "You had the inner personal void of
missing your father and grandparents. It is why you are so
concerned with security."
"I would call it prudence." Kaney began to set up the wooden
stakes to put the roots onto them to cook them.
"You got blue berries," Eloette said. She smiled at him. "You
have been very attentive towards me and very protective. I do
thank you." Kaney watched as she smiled sweetly at him.
"I'm happy to do so. I shall also make us some tea." Eloette
watched as how Kaney had dried the leaves in front of the fire
and then put them into a metal container. When the water
started to boil, he put the container into it to make the tea.
"We will need to eat hearty before we go since we do not know
when we will have our next meal." Kaney looked sharply at her.
"We will need to get to the massif after the clouds move on.
We'll need to see this person named Desh. Perhaps he has
something to do with what I discovered during the morning."
"What was that?" asked Eloette.
"All of our electronics are down, the EM pistol, the sat phones,
the sensor-trac. I suppose your 'plat' controller as well."
Kaney paused again. "The sensor-trac coded that it was a
suppression field. It is a very effective field, probably
better than what our civilization's technology can do."
It was now Eloette's turn to frown. She tried her sat-phone and
her 'plat' controller. Both were not working.
"From the letter, it would seem that your Uncle Tahl and my
Uncle Arthur view Desh as a benign, very wise man."
"That's what I thought when I read the letter."
"We'll soon find out."
Abruptly, the sun got brighter and the clouds, in turn, got
brighter as they flowed by. Then, in a sudden moment, the
clouds moved on and the sun and blue sky appeared. The two
looked across the southern slope of the mountain, at the
conifers swaying in the roaring wind. They ate hurriedly out of
hunger, enjoying the food, the herbs, the berries and tea. When
they were finished, they repacked their packs. Kaney doused the
fire and then carefully covered it, burying it.
He leaves no trace, thought Eloette. I did not expect this.
Kaney opened his jacket and then took his EM pistol off his belt
and quickly adjusting the holster, put the holster and pistol at
the small of his back, concealing it.
Eloette felt some anger. "Must you do that," she asked.
"Even though it doesn't work, I'm not going to be showing the
pistol off to a powerful alien off-worlder." Kaney frowned.
"There are, also, probably going to be government officials from
our world and the home world, because of that artifact." He
helped Eloette putting on her pack. "I don't trust the
situation."
"I think you're wrong about this."
Kaney continued, "Didn't you notice something important. This
has been going on for fifty years. These aliens have longer
life spans. I just don't like what I don't understand and need
the clarification."
They both then headed into the wind and up the slope. They were
moving again.
#Post#: 8620--------------------------------------------------
Re: Authoring A Story Together
By: HOLLAND Date: July 28, 2014, 7:00 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Chapter Twenty-Four
They walked on going up the steep slope until they came to a
worn elk path, that switched back and forth up towards the top
of the ridge. They followed it making their walk easier. They
didn't make any conversation as they walked on. Kaney
understood why. Talking is fatiguing if it is a hard walk.
Kaney thought Eloette was probably inward as a person, a girl
much inside herself. She was probably thinking about her
vision.
Half-way up the top of the ridge, they stopped and rested, still
leaving their packs on. They took a long drink of water from
their canteens.
"I remember you to say that your name, 'Eloette' means coming
from heaven," said Kaney.
"It does," Eloette replied, who smiled shyly in return at him.
She noted his dark eyes and hair, his easy assurance, his
strength.
"You were deeply welcomed into your family. You must have come
during a time of deep, emotional hardship."
"It was," Eloette responded. She then got up and Kaney got up
with her. Eloette adjusted her backpack so that it was more
comfortable and then they both proceeded up the slope.
Just as they got towards the top of the slope, they heard a
bird's cry and witnessed a hawk swiftly appear, soaring in the
sky above them. It was soon followed by another. The two
turned into the wind and observed that there were three pairs of
hawks soaring and rising in the wind above the mountain, above
the roar of the wind through the conifers, above the green of
the plateau, above the clouds.
"This is a beautiful place," Eloette whispered.
"Yes it is," said Kaney. "But beak and talon and claw can mean
pain and ugliness as well."
Eloette looked at him angrily.
Kaney shrugged and said, "There is no paradise here, not in this
life."
"I suppose it must be so."
When they got to the top of the slope, they found a smaller,
more gentle slope arch upwards to the top of the ridge, where
grew some scrub trees, long-buffetted and stunted by the wind.
Half-way up this smaller slope, Eloette cryed out, "Look at
that!"
They observed the mysterious cat, with the pointed tufted ears
and bobbed tail, that Kaney had seen below by the fire in the
night. It watched them briefly and then silently, slowly
moving, swiveled and went beyond the edge of the ridge out of
sight.
"It's not a listed species in this, our world," Kaney observed.
"It was missing from the index. It is not suppose to be on our
planet."
Eloette looked at him, very puzzled by that. They both then
walked to the top of the ridge . . .
#Post#: 8652--------------------------------------------------
Re: Authoring A Story Together
By: Jella Date: July 28, 2014, 11:20 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Chapter Twenty-Five
Eloette, along with her thoughts of this interesting cat type
creature, had been musing...turning some of the things that were
in her vision over and over in her mind as she and Kaney stood
on the ridge. She hadn't shared everything about her vision with
Kaney...as it seemed almost impossible to put some of it into
words.
As they stood there Kaney reached over and took Eloette's hand.
He could feel her hand rest in his with a trust he hadn't felt
from her before. Her palm and fingers were longer than his, but
so soft...which he didn't expect because of her fondness for
climbing trees. Yes, climbing trees! But this was something she
told Kaney not to tell anyone about!
Then as he pressed his hand more deeply into hers he felt a lump
in the middle of her palm. As he squeezed her hand tighter she
looked over at Kaney and said with almost a smerk and a roll of
her eyes, "So, you feel it? Yeah, that's one of the other things
that show that I came from a different place. In my vision it
was called a 'Hospirin'.
It was explained to me that it was inplanted in order to help
and direct me...and that in time I would learn
more about it's significance...that is, IF I pay attention!...
#Post#: 8653--------------------------------------------------
Re: Authoring A Story Together
By: HOLLAND Date: July 29, 2014, 7:18 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Chapter Twenty-Six
"May I?" asked Kaney.
He gently took up Eloette's hand with his and examined it
closely, carefully feeling it. There was indeed a small disc
under her skin. It appeared to be imbedded between the muscle
but it was not a hard disc, but something with a soft outer
texture.
Is it a sentient AI? Or can it be something else? One thing
for certain is that it will be a tracking device, or data
collector. Kaney wondered. How will it affect us? What could
its purpose be? Kaney looked up at Eloette and seen that she
was deeply looking into his eyes. They both pressed on.
They reached the top of the ridge. Looking to the northwest,
they could see the large flat massif that extended out of the
northern face of the mountain. The wind blew more keenly here
and the trees looked it, having the scrub look of trees heavily
buffetted by the wind. The cat was no longer in sight. They
then descended the ridge. until they were at the base of the
mountain parallel to the massif, and soon they were on the
massif, itself, a rocky barren windswept granite edifice.
Eloette then raised her hand and pointed, "Look at that." It
was Eloette's 'plat' setting next to some other 'plats' at a
center point at the base of the mountain on the massif. They
approached it and then it was Kaney's turn for wonderment.
"Look at that," said Kaney. They both looked out onto the
massif and could see in the distance more of the mysterious
bobcats. They seemed a large number of them, to be setting at
intervals at the edge of the massif cliffs like they were
sentries.
"They have sentience," Eloette said.
Kaney quietly turned and looked on the horizon. He could now
see the cats were everywhere placed at predetermined intervals.
They were sentries and they, indeed, had to be sentient to be
placed where they were.
Eloette and Kaney arrived by her 'plat' which was in front of a
cave that faced the northern side of the mountain. The 'plat'
was still in lock-down condition. It did not appear to have
been tampered with. It must have been moved by some sort of
grav field after they had left it, either in the mist or clouds
or in the darkness. Kaney wondered why he didn't hear it, but,
again, it was very windy on the southern slope of the mountain.
Next to it there was another 'plat', which was a grander
affair. It had official markings of the Space Patrol, the
police forces. Attached to the back of that 'plat' was a dark
round platform, a hologram platform used for official meetings
with high officials, very high officials. Next to them, there
was a dark podium of some sort, resting on a platform. Oddly,
it seemed to have faint textures of controls on its surface but
nothing was immediately visible. Behind the podium, on the same
platform, there was a bucket seat.
"Hello, Eloette and Kaney!"
They both turned to watch a rotund old man come out of the cave
with another, younger man. Kaney knew them both. The older
rotund man with the florid red face and white hair was
Counsellor Paak, the younger man was Brock, a collegue of his
when they both attended the Academy.
"You two have made it I see," said Paak. "Your uncles Tahlkas
and Artur have called us on the sat phone to advise us."
Eloette smiled at the use of the formal names that Paak was
using. But again it was official practice.
"Do you know why your uncles have asked you to come here?" Paak
smiled at them.
For a fleeting moment, they could see a disquiet in the old
man's face about it . . .
#Post#: 8662--------------------------------------------------
Re: Authoring A Story Together
By: Jella Date: July 31, 2014, 1:51 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Chapter Twenty-Seven
But before Eloette could speak, out of the shadows came a figure
that made her lose her breath for a second. It was a young
woman, with long flowing curls that were as shiny and luminous
as her own. She was also just as tall as she was, or maybe a
smidge taller...but, thought Eloette, she sure does have big
feet! Then after the quick 'once over' she looked up and saw
that this young woman's eyes were looking right into
hers...which made Eloette gasp! as she gazed back....as it, was
exactly like she was looking into a mirror!
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