Story: Predictable in the way that a good human story is predictable. Unfortunately, this was an alien story, so you kind of wanted things to be a little more…alien. The humanoids were odd, but still more human than not. Hard to believe the sentiments of characters like the manager Selfridge, who thought of them as blue monkeys, especially in what is ostensibly a “future of humankind” setting.

Acting: Outstanding. Thanks to the effects, the acting came through on the avatars, allowing for much more effective emoting than in past effects movies. It was understated in many of the supporting characters, but it was very compelling in the main characters. Giovanni Ribisi’s character Selfridge and many of the military characters were totally one-dimensional, but that suited the tone of the movie well enough to fit the story, rather than to distract from it.

Casting: I’m still not convinced that Worthington is A-list material, but the cast was good, and the characters seemed realistic. In particular, I liked the characterization of Stephen Lang’s Colonel Quaritch. The man had obviously had some of his soul ripped away by the harshness of Pandora, and it left him mean. MEAN. It made him an excellent villain to counterpoint an otherwise understated protagonist in Sam Worthington’s Jake Sully.

Direction/Art/Effects: Incredible, but enough to call a movie revolutionary? No. Nor were they in my opinion ground-breaking. The effects of the Avatars were the only really compelling new effects, in that they simply overlaid alien appearances over the actors’ live performances, instead of trying to mimic them with animation. The 3-D aspect of the movie was, in my opinion, completely over-hyped. I would have enjoyed this movie much more, without the distraction of 3-D glasses, occasional out-of-focus effects that wore on my otherwise perfect vision, and dust motes behind which the story was actually happening. Perhaps I will re-watch it in the theater in standard 2D, just to compare. I believe my suspicions will be upheld.

Cameron has delivered a solid action picture with a contrived romantic undertone, and a strongly delivered dislike for corporation-driven exploitation and colonialism. I for one would have found it much more realistic if Jake had fallen in love with the planet but had ultimately been rejected by it and by Zoe Saldana’s Neytiri, as he was an obvious outsider, even when in a pseudo-na’vi body.

The story was, as I said at the beginning, predictable, in the way that good human behavior is predictable. However, the overt corporate exploitation seems out of place in a future where, one would assume, such things have been governed away. Perhaps that is just my own naiveté regarding the progress of humanity. I also was continually distracted by behavior from the na’vi that was all too human. They should have been more inscrutable, and their goals, desires, and motivations more obscure. I suppose that would have added an extra hour while dimwit Jake fumbled through his learning of na’vi ways, though.

Okay, final word: great movie. It kept me in a grin the way that Jurassic Park did when it first showed us what realistic dinosaurs might look like, just before they ate you. It was a wonder land that kept me smiling for hours. Cameron’s vision was my dreamscape, and I reveled in it. Star Wars-ian? Perhaps. Do I want five more blurry 3-D movies about the na’vi? Probably not. Overall, I have to say that the Lord of the Rings trilogy is still more of a cinematic achievement, even without an original story.

Edit: UPDATE: Cameron is all set to deliver sequels to this movie…I better save those 3D glasses. I paid five bucks for ‘em!

I’d been aboard the International Space Research Station for about three months of a two-year tour of duty when it happened. The station’s official Virgin Galactic title was Sustarre Station, but some of the Americans didn’t like the cheeky—albeit obscure—reference to 20^th century role-playing games. Bloody Nora! Most people didn’t even know what that referred to then, much less now. Ridiculous. I say look it up for yourself, later, but be prepared to be underwhelmed. The job was good, however, and living in space was ace! The station was powered by a micro-singularity; it provided about one quarter gravity to some parts of the central station structure, in addition to being a nearly limitless source of power. Elsewhere on the station, things had a tendency to float for a while before eventually drifting towards the center of the station. This meant “down” was generally used to describe the center of the station, and “up” meant any of the outer limbs of the station. My job was to maintain all of the peripheral systems aboard: plumbing, non-navigational electronics, life services, and so on.

It was my first space tour, and so far, I was really enjoying it. The Commanding Officer, Captain Audrey Jackson, was a tough American commander, but she really took a liking to me when I interviewed. I can sometimes tell right away how a person is going to react to me. She immediately began talking to me as though I were a protégé or some kind of adopted son. She’s actually only about five or ten years my senior though. Still, it was nice to know that she would be looking out for me (even while she looked over my shoulder…nobody trusts a space rookie completely, even one with my grades and qualifications). I’ve never kidded myself about being any kind of bloody genius, though. I worked damned hard to get this assignment, and I planned to reap the rewards of it. Perhaps a nice administrative job back home on Earth once this was done, or if I really enjoyed this, perhaps a career as a spacer, like my counterpart engineer, Pavel Kosov. I’d been all over the world, traveling every summer in between college semesters for nearly ten years. “Settling down” in space for a while just seemed like a natural extension of that journey.

Pavel was an old-timer, a spacer since the first of the Virgin Galactic flights. He’d been in and out of space for about 25 years of his life, and though he was only about 55, his bones were so deteriorated from extensive space travel that he wouldn’t survive more than a few months of normal gravity. Most of his loss happened before the gene re-sequencing was developed which hardened and fortified spacers’ bones before traveling in space. Unfortunately for him, those treatments were only good as prophylactic treatment. Nothing would put the structure back into his bones…he was pretty well fucked. His health issues didn’t stop him from making the most vile space vodka ever brewed though, or from rambling on endlessly about bikini-clad women, or about lounging on beaches that he might never see again. Like myself, Pavel was a civilian engineer, though he was definitely senior to me.

It was easier, I thought, to be here as a civilian, than to be one of the scientists assigned to the station. They got a swift kick in the stones about two times a week by the Captain her own self, if they fell behind in their projects, or if they just failed to update her adequately. The scientists were all military doctors of one stripe or another, and all fell under her command, like or no

As I floated nearly weightless through the station, making my morning rounds and checking them off my extensively populated clipboard, I slowed as I went into the Biosciences lab to steal an eyeful of my new fling. Juliette—or as the captain affectionately calls her, “Dr. Bonhomme”—was furiously scribbling on a tablet PC in front of some kind of machinery; it was a centrifuge if I recall correctly. Her short, boyish haircut stood oddly vertical in the zero gee environment, the puffed crown of hair recalling to mind some images of 1980’s era musicians…”Flock of something.” Ah well. Her shapely figure was buried under the swaths of a white lab coat. No big deal I thought. I’ll just waft in on the microgravity and give her a little start. An impish grin crept across my face as the space between us diminished. My stealthy approach was nearly sabotaged by my own barely-suppressed snicker.

“Boo.” I said softly into her ear just as I was about to drift into her back. She had been completely absorbed with whatever she was writing. When she started, her pen leaped from her hand as though animated of its own accord. It struck the top of the cabin with a dull thunk, and began to ricochet around the tiny lab space, providing entertainment for the myriad tiny cages containing a plethora of small critters. Many of them reached for the pen, but they, like me, were relatively new to the nearly absent gravity—many of them arrived with me—most failed to even reach the fronts of their cages in time to do any more than salute the pen with their tiny wavering paws as it floated by them, oblivious.

Meanwhile, Juliette turned to identify her assailant. Realizing it was me (apparently Pavel has done this to the entire crew at a more or less relentless pace. I am just getting into the swing of things here…) she launched into me with a barrage of comically flailing fists. Since I was just freefalling, though, the first strike pushed me back out of range of the rest of her onslaught. Her Velcro shoes kept her feet firmly planted, but the attack thrust her backward until she looked like a movie hero dodging bullets.

Chuckling, I said, “You sure are jumpy this morning.” My smile began to melt as I realized she was still not smiling herself. Even Pavel wouldn’t normally have been received so poorly.

“Have you heard about the meeting that Jackson called?” she asked, still maintaining that look of concern.

“Yep. Didn’t think much of it,” I replied honestly. I had drifted into a wall, and the Velcro patches on my uniform had lodged me there rather firmly. I had the faintest sensation of hanging like a family portrait. I was still getting used to this place.

“She doesn’t call all hands meetings, David.” Juliette replied. She absently pushed her glasses back up to her face and glared at me through them, as if they would focus her thoughts and burn them through my thick skull. Even in space, glasses never stayed where they were put. How peculiar, I thought. Barely enough gravity to pull things to the floor, but her glasses dropped again like they were poured from pure lead.

“Well, I’m headed that way, finishing my rounds,” I said. “You want to join me, my little boffin?” I slyly winked. We’ve been sneaking off for about two weeks now. It’s a new tryst, and both of us are like 30 going on 16. Hormones out of control. I’m surprised her Biosciences background hasn’t encouraged a more formal study of our nocturnal experimentation…then again, who’s to say it hadn’t, and I had just been too horny to notice?

“No,” she said flatly. Well, she was worried then. “I want to finish this experiment before I head up. You know how I am. It’ll take me two hours to figure out where I left off.” Aye. She was funny that way. Brilliant, but a little ditzy; a perfect boffin—the wacky professor. I’m sure everyone made the typical references to absentminded professors (behind her back, out of self-defense against her quick swing, I’m guessing). The cliché has merit though. Most truly brilliant people are just a little bit out of touch with the rest of the world.

“Okay,” I pushed off the wall that I had come to rest on, my cornflower blue jumpsuit making a quiet tearing sound as the Velcro patches on my arse and shoulders released from the scratchy pads on the wall. I floated directly towards her, spinning slowly, like an old mercury capsule. I gripped her shoulder gently as I reached her to slow my progress. I completed the “docking maneuver” with my face, pressing my lips to hers. This greeting/farewell was much better received. She changed her mind quickly, as a rule. This was to be no exception. Juliette reached for the lab lights just as we drifted gently towards one of the walls.

“Mmmm!” she murmured into the dark cavity of the capsule. I was pressed flat against a wall, clinging to it as though trapped by an enormous space-dwelling spider. As I’ve said, my jumpsuit was covered front and back with patches of Velcro. The mated sides covered the walls of the space station like a fuzzy carpet, catching all manner of things, like tools, books, and even people who had the patches on them. It was a handy way to keep things in one place, and it made itself useful for other, less well-documented activities. Juliette was on her knees, her lab coat open in the front, and her suit pulled open clear to her waist. I suppose if you were to enter the room, it would appear that we were using one of the walls as a floor, because she was straddling my prone body in a most fortuitous manner. There was only one real problem, and that was that we weren’t going to get much farther in our current position, with the suits in the way, and taking them off meant turning ourselves into an orgiastic pinball in a Brighton Beach boardwalk game, as we screwed our way around the room in zero gee. We had done so before, but not on short timetables, and with some rather curious bruises to explain to our peers afterwards. In the dim light we could both see the clock. It was ten minutes of two, and we were due in the main conference room in twenty-five minutes. It would be enough. It would have to be, at least for now.

“Not a problem, yet, my dear Jules,” I said to her gallantly as I pushed us both away from the wall. The gentle grip of the Velcro gave way under my strength easily; it was designed to hold things still, not to resist effort. As we drifted across the darkened laboratory, a chorus of animal sounds rained around us, adding a sense of urgency and voyeurism to the experience.

“Oh, my!” she exclaimed as we drifted lazily across the compartment. I hurriedly helped her free of her outer garment, and partially escaped from my own. As we reached the other side, I had undressed just enough of myself from the suit to…ahem, allow for certain…well…you know…liberties. Back on earth I had never considered myself to be shy, or private. I was an open book. Perhaps even a touch exhibitionistic. But living in such close quarters had taught me to respect the limited privacy afforded, and had made me much more modest than I usually was.

..They say that a gentleman never kisses and tells. Being a modern man myself, I feel that this is a bit of an antiquated sentiment, but for the moment, I will suffice it to say that we had a wonderful time, the animals got an incredible show—if I do say so myself—and we made it to the all-hands meeting (the official one, mate) on time…but only barely.

?

I made my way incautiously into the main control room. It was in the hub of the station, which was shaped overall somewhat like a starfish. Each of the five outer limbs housed various rooms for laboratory space, recycling, hydroponics, and assorted dwelling spaces. The hub was where the gravity well was strongest on the station, because of the micro-singularity. Because of this, the kitchen, exercise rooms, and the control rooms were all in the hub, where the gravity helped a great deal to perform such work.

The second in command was Jim Zagovich, a Czeck Commander. He was one of those guys who not only had many a pair of white gloves, but he actually used them during cleaning inspections, much to the annoyance of the crew, particularly Pavel and myself. The second I entered the command room he was in my face.

“You have the morning status, Mr. Brown, yes?” Zagovich slurred, his heavily accented English running the words together as he brazenly snatched the notebook from my hand, unasked for. For a guy who graduated from MIT, you’d think he would speak the language better. For a European, his manners were atypical, however. I personally think he does it on purpose to alienate himself from the rest of us. Captain Jackson is so open and personable that Zagovich must feel he has to play the role of “Hardass” or else we’ll all revert to weed-smoking coeds. He was already seated at the conference table thumbing through the daily checklists from my notebook before I noticed that his haircut was a mirror of my own. Had we popped out of a can head-first, our heads both might have been mistaken for brown-furred tennis balls. How peculiar, I though for the second time that day—thinking of tennis in a time and place like this. Was I getting homesick, at long last?

“Still no word on the repairs of our secondary re-entry vehicle, eh?” Zagovich raised an eyebrow as he quizzed me. Sometimes I’ll give him something to bleat about in his blustery, ram-like way. Other times, like this one, I could sense that there was already enough tension, and just meekly handed over the status checklist without a word. As he was reviewing it, I padded over to the coffee machine and fixed myself a proper cup of hot English tea, grateful for the partial gravity created by our power core here in the center of the station. As a new spacer, I still enjoyed freefall at times, awkwardness and all, but as an Englishman, I wasn’t about to give up my tea, and you can’t sip a cup of hot tea in freefall.

“Last report was that mission control would have it for another three weeks before sending it back. We have one remaining vehicle, and the next scheduled shuttle is about two weeks away.” I reported with my usual level of detail. He seemed satisfied.

Pavel and Dr. Richard Noell, the American Astrophysicist stepped into the tiny conference room, already apparently in discussion of some minutia regarding astrophysics. Pavel had his nose in everyone’s business, and could double as a lab technician in almost every field. He was my mentor and my idol, to some degree. Dr. Noell was not one of my favorites. When I had first arrived at the station, he had grilled me intensely, as though I was there to challenge his position. I’m just an Engineer, I had told him, but he continued to track me from the corner of his eye every time I had to enter one of his compartments for anything…which was a bit too often for my preference.

“So you believe quantum signature of star is blocking transmission to system?” Pavel’s grasp of English was no better than Zagovich’s but at least Pavel learned it the hard way, and had an excuse for forgetting the odd article here and there.

“Precisely,” said Dr. Noell, apparently agitated by this statement. “If you had more background on quantum physics I’d love to bounce more of this off of you—“

Pavel interrupted, “Have studied some, actually. Can we run over this later?”

“You mean, go over this later?” corrected Dr. Noell. “I’d like that, but I’ll be the only one doing any calculations, just…well…you know, because.” That American astrophysicist was always correcting Pavel’s English, and his isn’t much better, considering it’s his native language. Twitchy fellow, too…always looking over his shoulder. I didn’t ever catch him trying that “correction business” on the second in command, Zagovich, though. I heard once that he tried it and Zagovich assigned him to mess duty for a full week—a duty we normally share from meal to meal—and did a complete inspection of every one of Dr. Noell’s lab and personal spaces every day during the whole time. Every discrepancy had to be checked off by Zagovich before he let him off mess duty. Zagovich was a right bastard.

My musing was interrupted by the simultaneous entrance of the rest of the crew: my new sweetheart Dr. Juliette Bonhomme (O Canada!) and the commanding officer, Captain Audrey Jackson. Captain Jackson, as she preferred to be called, was an amazing woman. She had advanced through the American ranks like a dervish moving through a crowd of mongrels. Now she was in charge of one of the most prestigious space assignments to be had by any country. She was tall, and almost stately. Her dark skin was nearly ebony, and her hair, like the rest of us, was close cropped. Her features were somewhat severe, and even a bit exaggerated by her über-conservative use of makeup, but we all knew she was a gentrified lady. She was not smiling now, though, and held a lightly crumpled piece of paper in one hand. As she took her seat, sans coffee, the rest of us settled down and stopped whatever small talk was going on.

Without comment, which was highly unusual for the captain, she handed the missive to Zagovich. The commander began to read it aloud in his heavy accent:

“AP News: Dateline Atlanta, Georgia.

Research on a man-made virus designed to attack cancer cells went horribly wrong today. Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that an airborne strain of the virus was accidentally released in the lab two days ago. Initial reactions were mild as the virus was not deemed toxic. Later discoveries indicated that the virus was mutating and had begun to attack the normal physiology of humans, rather than cancerous cells. This new variant has spread all throughout the southeastern United States and is considered pandemic at this time. Reports from abroad are starting to come in from cities that are along airline routes from Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, indicating that the virus is spreading out from there, as well.

All international travel has been halted indefinitely. The President has declared the entire nation a Disaster Area, and has initiated Martial Law to protect the health of uninfected citizens, but the virus continues to spread unchecked. Deaths are already approaching the millions. The CDC has announced that its scientists were the first and worst hit, and have assumed responsibility for the virus’ initial spread.

Symptoms of infection mirror Lepromatous Hansen’s Disease (Non-tuberculoid Leprosy) and include bruising and loss of sensation in the extremities. Onset is 24-36 hours, and is currently fatal in 100% of cases. Advanced cases are highly contagious, and considered untreatable. Death occurs painfully, when the victims’ internal organs fail.

End Transmission.”

?

“I think I’m going to be sick,” I exclaimed. Apparently Dr. Noell agreed, because he was almost as pale as the white lab coat he wore over his ubiquitous blue jumpsuit. Without warning, he abruptly spun in his chair and heaved into the small waste basket next to the coffee maker.

Several others, myself included, seemed as if they might become sick sympathetically, but no one else actually did get sick, at least not at that moment. Captain Jackson was ashen. We were all stricken dumb. Zagovich was the first to react.

“We must call Mission Control at once.” He rose, crumpling the paper and pitching it to the center of the table to punctuate the sentence. We were all probably thinking the same thing, though, as we stared at the harbinger in the middle of the table. What if they don’t answer? I thought to myself.

For as long as this station had been in orbit—seven years, now—Virgin Galactic mission control had been stationed in southern Florida. It was very close to the epicenter of the outbreak, and, even though there were other stations for communications, it was the only commercial center left in service that had a viable launch center for boosting our periodic and necessary restocks of supplies into orbit. None of the other nations was currently supporting any independent space programs, commercial or otherwise. They had all acquiesced to the clear leader, and had funneled their space exploration and research funds through Virgin.

We were in deep shit.

We followed the commander into the command center like a troupe of zombies on a parade route. We already all stank of fearful sweat. We settled into our regular stations. Pavel and I were at the Engineering Controls, Dr. Noell (who was still shaken after his little oopsie) and Juliette were stationed at Astrogation and Life Sciences respectively, Captain Jackson and Zagovich were seated in the Pilot and Copilot seats. Those last two seats were really just nicknames. Everyone knew this station didn’t really fly, so much as it just kept itself from falling too far. The seats were named in honor of their user’s titles, rather than for any semblance of flight control. Both stations were identical, and included redundant views of what each of the rest of us were seeing. We all donned our headgear to drown out the station noise while we eavesdropped on Zagovich’s call, rather than try to listen over the control room’s lame speakers.

“Mission Control, this is Sustarre Station, over.” Zagovich’s English was suddenly much more crisp than usual, though still heavily accented. I hadn’t been in the control room with him before while talking to Mission Control. I was a tad surprised.

“Mission Control, this is Sustarre Station, we require information, over.” No answer a second time had my heart in my throat. I couldn’t tell how most of the others were feeling; they all faced away from me except for Pavel. Pavel looked at me and took a brief swig from his hip flask. Almost as an afterthought, he screwed the cap on before passing me the flask. I greedily drank from the tiny battered steel container. I really needed something to chase the fear out of my soul. Perhaps, I thought, I can wash it away with liquor.

I passed the dented flask back to Pavel, with a silent grin of thanks as my only reply. I noted, not for the first time, the faint inscriptions on the flask of the RKA and of MIR, the defunct Russian space station program. Man, I thought, he wasn’t old enough to have been part of that, was he? I hadn’t asked him about it yet, though.

“Sustarre Station,” the voice broke through all of our thoughts, and we all jumped as one at the sound, “This is Mission Control. Please stand by for a prerecorded message from the president of Virgin Galactic. Confirm that you are at your control stations, over.”

“Mission Control, this is Sustarre Station,” said Zagovich crisply. “Please explain why we are being played a recorded message. This is unnecessary. Please advise us of your situation, over.”

“Sustarre Station, please confirm you are at control stations, over.” The reply was more like an ultimatum than anything I had ever heard. Dread began to well up inside me. My fingers and toes went curiously numb. What an odd sensation.

“All control stations are manned, Canaveral. Just get on with it, please. You’ve got a lot of very nervous people waiting on you right now.” Captain Jackson smoothed all of our nerves with her commanding voice. It was the first thing she had said to anyone since showing the commander that message.

“Stand by.”

“…”

Static played into our headphones momentarily. I was lulled for a moment into the sound, when it was interrupted by a voice.

“My esteemed colleagues. There is no way to soften the blow of what I must tell you, so I shall be succinct, and hope that you understand my need for directness. I must regret to inform you that there will be no further international flights in the foreseeable future. This, unfortunately, includes all orbital flights conducted by the Galactic division of Virgin Airlines. It is regrettable that your life, too, has become forfeit in the face of this global tragedy. If you and your station-mates are cautious and can plan creatively, you may survive long enough to outlive what we most assuredly will not. Our scientists and those of every nation work feverishly to discover a vaccine or cure for this malicious virus, but for that there is little hope. May God be with you and watch over you in your final days, and may you forgive us all for our foolishness.”

“End Transmission.”

We all looked around at about the same time, and everyone was wearing an expression more suitable to someone that had just been shot, than someone who had just calmly listened to his or her death sentence being pronounced. As the transmission was coming to a close, my stomach began to flip-flop of my own accord. I felt as though I was a new flyer on my first freefall flight. It was either going to be tears or I would vomit. Torn by indecision, I chose instead to freeze. It wasn’t hard. My blood had already done so, after all, right in my veins, and I felt colder inside than I had ever felt outside. Looking around, it was clear that I was not alone in my feelings. I had never felt lonelier, however.

?

Two weeks had passed, and nobody seemed capable of thought. The entire crew, myself included, refused to talk about the news coming from planet-side. It came to us in ever-decreasing regularity, until Canaveral stopped responding altogether. Other stations occasionally checked in on us as the hours and days passed, but the news was always bad. Catastrophic, actually. Even the stalwart Zagovich was an automaton, drudging through his daily routine without even remembering to shout, or glare, or be his usual unwelcome self.

Alone amongst us, Captain Jackson seemed to be a reflection of herself. It was she who coordinated the retrieval of wastes that were normally jettisoned downward to provide upward thrust in order to power the micro-singularity. This was more efficient, but it meant that we had to store the waste onboard longer than we used to. This was going to affect the smell of our little tin-can home drastically. Pavel and I adjusted the hydroponics systems and increased their production by nearly 20%, which meant that we could go for at least 8 months on the air we currently had stored. The food and other supplies we needed were always overstocked, because of countless flight groundings from Mission Control. We had plenty of food for 8 months. Knowing when you will die does strange things to a person, though. Some of the crew were exhibiting bizarre behavior as a result of our unique position.

The captain was doing routine inspections of our changes when she happened upon me working on the carbon dioxide scrubbing system. I was feeding the huge plates of plankton that ate our exhalations and spat out cleaned oxygen for us to breathe.

“How are you holding up Mr. Brown?” She said. I thought she seemed too preoccupied with her thoughts for small talk, but I engaged her nonetheless.

“Spot on, skipper. Everything is coming together, though I think Juliette…er, Dr. Bonhomme…is regretting having to euthanize so many animals, just to save our air.” I was thinking of her nonstop, now, because I knew as we all did, that there wasn’t much time left to share.

“Don’t worry about your relationship with Dr. Bonhomme, Mr. Brown. It’s a small station, for all of its size, and there are only six of us. It was inevitable that some of us might pair up, and I’ve been aware of your discrete relationship with the doctor almost from its inception.” She didn’t appear to be upset, so I inquired further, to assess her mood.

“Yet you said nothing. Is this common for spacers? I’m still learning the ropes, you know.” I gave a little smirk, intended to disarm her further. With only a little smile of her own, she turned and drifted out of the room, saying nothing more about that or any other subject.

“Shocking,” I said quietly to myself as I returned to my work.

“Indeed,” came a reply, almost from nowhere. A blue-clad shape drifted in foot-first through the thick hedges of the hydroponics plants. As it emerged, I was relieved to see that it was Pavel, and not Juliette. I could just imagine the fireworks of her overhearing such an encounter.

“You are some kind of fellow, David Rubenovich,” said Pavel, using the strange Russian surname of replacing my own surname with my father’s first name, Ruben, and ‘-ovich’ which, roughly translated, meant ‘son of.’

“Whatever do you mean old man?” I reached uninvited for his shirt pocket, Pavel’s most recent “hiding place” for his flask. Everyone on board had a standing offer to drink as much as they wanted, and his production of vodka had skyrocketed along with the new demand. Almost everyone took him up on the offer. Everyone but Dr. Noell, the uptight Astrophysicist. He disapproved of the drinking, but couldn’t say much when Pavel was doling it out in small and mysteriously-replenished quantities, and the captain was openly approving, even going so far as to ask to pass the flask during our meetings, which had become a regular part of daily routine since the…news. I never did find out what he meant though—

“All hands to the command center on the double,” Zagovich’s voice rang clearly through the old speaker system. This couldn’t be good news, I thought. Considering the last time this had happened.

Pavel and I made our way towards the command center. I had improved greatly on moving in microgravity, and was keeping up with Pavel.

“I bet dinner tonight this call is about waste management system again, eh, tovarich?” Pavel was being dinged almost hourly about ways to store the waste that were more sanitary. Pavel suggested just feeding the waste to the micro-singularity all at once, but Dr. Noell had poo-pooed the suggestion, saying it might overload. “The brightest candle burns twice as fast.” He would say, and then spout off long mathematical equations just to shut down any possibility of argument. Personally, though I disliked the man on a personal level, his knowledge of the subject was impeachable, and I was inclined to side with him against poor Pavel. The commander and Juliette hated the stink that was building up, but there was no recourse for it. It meant more work, but it also meant more certainty on our ‘expiration date.’

“No, I’m not taking that bet, with your luck, you old Russian goat.”

“Dr. Noell was acting like jackass yesterday, I think maybe he does this just to piss on me.” You mean, piss me off, I thought, but on afterthought, he probably meant it just like he said it. Like all of us, he had enough on his mind without having his English attacked, anyway.

“Yes, he has been losing his grip this last week. I hope that he doesn’t—“ I was interrupted by the station’s tinny intercom system.

“Dr. Bonhomme, please bring a medical kit…code blue, Command Center!” He was completely panicked. It was the first and only time we had ever heard Jim Zagovich panic. It was terrifying. None of the rest of us had remained as composed as he was at the beginning of our ordeal, but the commander had fallen the farthest, even so. Now it appeared that something even worse was about to reveal itself. We ran into the captain and Juliette as we raced towards the module, and we met the commander at the door to the command center. His face was ashen, and he was sweating through his thin blue jumpsuit at the armpits. Dr. Noell was nowhere to be seen. The door to the command center was locked, its red “No Entry” symbol clearly lit in the now-reduced lighting of the control module. The captain pushed past Zagovich and attempted to enter a code into the door’s locking mechanism.

“What the hell is going on, Jim?” shouted Captain Jackson as she furiously entered a long string of numbers and letters.

“I have been expecting something like this. It is unfortunate that I had to be right this time. The doctor has lost his sensibilities. He says he will land the re-entry vehicle himself and take his chances among the population, rather than die here. He will kill us all with this foolishness.” The burly Czeck punctuated each sentence with a soft slam against the hull where the door joined the outer chamber to the command center.

“Oh, my god, he’s gone insane,” said Juliette. I wondered whom she meant for a moment. I moved to her to attempt to comfort her, but she rejected my offer, withdrawing into herself visibly as she curled her arms about herself.

“David, help me break through door,” Pavel suggested. It seemed like a sound idea. I moved to an outside wall and began to uncoil one of the small welder/cutters that was in every compartment in the case of hull breach or other problems. Captain Jackson stopped me short of the door, though.

“No, I don’t want to risk burning through this door. It will compromise the airtight integrity of the entire station. Think people, what if he commits a hull breach in there, and we burn this door open? How the hell would we stop that kind of leak?” Stalled, we all foundered for a moment, searching for another idea to present.

“This door has been reprogrammed, Mr. Kosov. You have worked with Dr. Noell the most. Will you try to open the door electronically first?” Before Pavel could voice assent, he was interrupted by the speaker system.

“I know what you’re all trying to do. Don’t try to stop me, or I swear I’ll kill myself right here and now!” Dr. Noell was completely frantic. His voice was high and cracking, and sounded very unpleasant and not at all sane.

“Dr. Noell, open this door. This is the Captain. I realize how much stress you are under, but you cannot seriously expect me to allow you to harm this station and abandon everyone aboard just to satisfy your own need for self-destruction.” She banged on the door with her balled fist, her long legs spread wide to prevent her from pushing herself backwards in the low gravity. She looked much angrier in that position than her words belied, I thought.

“Self-preservation is what I seek, captain. I don’t think that your commander clearly understood what I was doing when I threw him out the hatch. I’m merely starting up an emergency module and preparing for my own egress. To hell with the rest of you. If you want to die out here in the vacuum, go right ahead.” Pavel had been peeking through the tiny glass observation window mounted in the door, and said, “Holy Mother of God, he is doing it. We must stop him now, or not at all.” He and I looked to the captain, and saw resignation in their eyes. With that, I struck the engage lever on the cutter. Captain Jackson and Zagovich looked at each other and then back to me briefly, then they both parted and gave me access to the door.

“Don’t you fucking do that, you goddamn limey bastard! I’ll fucking kill myself, I swear it!” Now, names don’t really bother me, normally, but for some reason the insane ranting of Dr. Noell actually spurred me to a greater pace. I frankly was less concerned that he would kill himself than the thought that he would steal our only remaining reentry module, or Heavenly Mother forbid, damage it or the station. Nonetheless, I carefully slowed my progress to be sure that I did not accidentally hit an O₂ line—or worse.

Juliette snapped out of her shock long enough to press the transmit button on a nearby intercom and scream, “You go right ahead and kill yourself, you selfish prick. See if we care! It would be better than you screwing up the station and killing us all, now STOP FUCKING AROUND!!!” She was nearly as apoplectic as the man inside the command module.

The captain grabbed her and yanked her away from the intercom, and in an attempt to return to some order, she spoke slowly and calmly into the device. The picture of confidence: “Dr. Noell. I know that you’re frightened. We are all frightened. You can see what your actions are doing to the rest of us. Please stop what you’re doing and just talk to me for a minute. That’s all I ask.” A lone bead of sweat ran down the captain’s forehead; the only indication that she too had begun to worry.

“Tell Brown to stop cutting the damn door up, and I’ll consider it.” I looked to Jackson and she made a cutting off motion to me, so I snapped the cutter off.

“There, the noise is gone now, Richard. Please come over to the door and talk to me. She gave the commander a strange look that I didn’t understand, and Zagovich began fumbling around the cut that I had already made, trying, it appeared, to peek through the cut. He reached into his jumpsuit as my attention was drawn back to the captain, her face practically pressed against the tiny window.

“Come and talk to me Richard, face to face. There’s no need to panic. We’ll just talk, okay?” She was much more nervous than she sounded. Her hands flexed and balled of their own accord, as though they were creatures in their own right, coiling to strike.

“Fine,” came the voice through the intercom. I couldn’t see Dr. Noell, but I could tell by his voice that he was anything but fine. “You should know that there’s no way I’m going to just sit around and wait to die. I’d rather die in a fucked up re-entry than just sit here and suffocate, or starve to death. Do you have any idea how long it takes a person to starve to death, Commander? DO YOU?” It was evident that communication wasn’t going to last long. Dr. Noell was raving like a cuckolded Frenchman.

“Richard. Please reconsider your methods. I’m sure that if we all sat down and put our minds together, we could come up with a solution that satisfied everyone. None of us wants to die. None of us is waiting to die, either. If you do this, you take away everyone’s choices. Please think carefully about this.”

“Okay, I’ve reconsidered.” He sounded like he was doing anything but thinking…sounds of him shuffling around came through the speaker. “If I just point us directly downward—“the station lurched suddenly, and we all felt a bit of centrifugal force as the entire station swung around. Pavel began to look around wild-eyed, as though the station might come apart at the seams if he didn’t watch them all himself. “—then I’ll just press a few more buttons, and we’ll—“

“Now, Jim.” The captain stepped aside just as she spoke, averting her gaze. I heard a sharp crack, and immediately smelled burnt gunpowder. A GUN! Sweet Jesus, I never thought anyone would do something so outrageously stupid. Firing a gun onboard was suicidal! Has everyone onboard gone insane? As I looked down, the commander rose slowly, the slender barrel of a small-caliber pistol smoking gently in the cool station air. He had aimed it through the cut and shot the poor balmy doctor!

I was appalled. I could do nothing but stare in disbelief as the captain and commander frantically worked to get the door opened, the captain loosed a single fat tear which mixed with the sweat on her face and was quickly lost. Shocked and frustrated, I stood there watching the entire scene play itself to my eyes. Pavel finally cut through the lock on the door, but by the time we had access to the room, it was too late for Dr. Noell. He had died of blood loss.

It was a strange sight. In the low gravity, the blood had pooled deeply around the doctor’s body. He had crumpled rather slowly into a fetal position, covering his wound with his thighs. The surface tension of the blood had soaked nearly every inch of his garment before pooling on the scratchy Velcro-covered floor. The blood had then pooled, rather than spread, in the low gravity. It was nearly a ½ inch deep, and surrounded him in a perfect red-black circle. We were all strangely unaffected by his death, as gruesome as the final sight was. What gathered our attentions instead was a small blinking red light on every console in the control room. Everyone knew, or rather, should have known, what that light meant.

Pavel clearly did. He walked over to his station and pointed. He mutely looked to us for some consolation, or some negation of what the blinking red light was telling him. His eyes welled with tears that did not fall. However, each of us in turn inspected our own red lights, and turned to each other to confirm what he had already known, even as our bodies became buoyant in the absence of a gravity well. Doctor Noell had not started the engines and pushed us into a dive as we had feared. That would have been bad, but it would have been correctable. He had turned the station and dumped the micro-singularity power supply into space. We had no power.

?

Between the frantic calculations being performed by Pavel and I in the cramped control room, and the steady stream of expletives that fountained from Commander Zagovich, he, the captain, and Juliette managed somehow to clear away Dr. Noell’s body. Pavel and I had come to similar conclusions. We had approximately three weeks of power before we would need to start shutting down modules, and about two weeks after that until life support systems would fail to sustain life. The entire station was now on zero gravity, or free-fall, so even the kitchen had to be shut down and reorganized. We had no capacity for recreating the micro-black hole that was our power supply.

Thankfully, Zagovich’s gun had been loaded with frangible bullets; tiny ceramic beads suspended in a plastic bullet that, when fired, superheated. The plastic would release the ceramic pellets with nearly zero resistance when the bullet struck something. The pellets wouldn’t penetrate anything tougher than thick leather. Skin and thin jumpsuits wouldn’t stop them much, and as they entered the body, they did spectacular amounts of damage. Good news for Dr. Noell, as he wouldn’t have suffered much; the single shot had probably ground his heart to hamburger. The bad news for us was that shot had come a few moments too late to keep us from suffering a five-week long death. At least I could relax my concerns over Zagovich’s sanity; he wasn’t trying to kill the rest of us along with Dr. Noell, when he had used that gun. It was virtually incapable of piercing the hull, loaded as it was.

As it turned out, Dr. Noell had done us one small favor though. In his inexpert attempt to turn the station towards earth and run it down into the atmosphere to keep us from interfering with his “escape” attempt, his rotation had actually thrown us into an even higher than normal orbit. We were clear of the debris of lower-flying satellites and space junk, but we were still in a bloody mess, and our clean orbit had become a mad tumble through high orbit.

Captain Jackson, Commander Zagovich, and Juliette had all changed clothes after the cleanup. It was tough, seeing them haul Dr. Noell’s limp form from the control room, but it was harder still, to concentrate on assessing our situation while knowing our probable fate. Morale, which had been low but stable, had gone directly to pot. Once the cleanup had been done, and our calculations had been shared, we began to stew over ideas for “rescue.” There weren’t many. We sat in the small conference/dining room and tried to talk without emotion. For the most part it was successful. For my own part, perhaps less so.

“Life Sciences? Captain Jackson asked Juliette, for her part looking drawn and ashen. Her usual calm demeanor had taken on a slightly haunted aspect. It seemed to lurk just beneath the surface, refusing to let us see it fully, but refusing to be hidden completely.

“I’ve finished…euthanizing…the test animals, so our air supply should be extended by another six percent. The station’s solar panels are going to provide scrubbing and conditioning of the air long after we’re—well, the real problem.” Juliette did not look up as she spoke, refusing to look any of us in the eyes as she spoke.

“We don’t have enough food.” She shuddered visibly. I was torn by the sight of it. “The hydroponics system depended on a LOT of power from the core, and without it, it’s just going to draw too much power from the solar arrays. We keep food, and we can’t scrub the air, we scrub the air and we starve. Pick one.” She clipped her last words as though they were an accusation. Against whom, I wondered? It was the most she had said since the incident with Dr. Noell, and I think she surprised herself by being so verbose and not breaking down. She too carried the pallor of one beset by grief. I imagined that I probably did, as well. I certainly felt no better than they looked.

“There is no need for melodramatics, doctor,” Zagovich spat back. “We will find a way out of this predicament. Stay focused on one problem at a time. We can all fall apart after we’ve dealt with our situation.”

“Do you really believe this is just a problem to be solved like docking a ship, man? Bloody Hell!” I was incredulous, and couldn’t help but voice my concern. I was a bit surprised by my outburst. I hadn’t realized how close to unraveling that I was, or how much seeing Juliette stricken with grief was affecting me, or how much I doubted these precautions would offer any real survivability. Pavel too was skeptical of the Commander’s assessment, no matter how optimistic he ordinarily was.

“We need other solutions, Comrade Captain, No?” Pavel’s oddly phrased question seemed loaded to everyone but Zagovich. He sat as he had often done, of late. At the edge of the table, with one arm on the small table, and the other reached out, slowly rotating the two-way radio’s receiver frequency with a pair of buttons as static blared from the headphones resting around his neck. He had been doing this every day since the last transmissions from control. He sometimes sat there for hours on end, just turning the dial, always receiving only white noise. I suppose it was his way of coping with a seemingly hopeless situation. Despite this apparent inattention, it was Zagovich who replied to Pavel, not the captain.

“Yes of course, Mr. Engineer. Is there something you wish to say?” he interjected with his rolling Czech accent. He continued to cycle frequencies, even as he looked at Pavel for a reply.

Pavel grimaced at the ridiculous moniker, but replied anyway, “Well, I was thinking about this, while we do the calculations. We have much fuel aboard for our small reentry vehicle. Enough to send four such vehicles down, tovarich.”

“How the hell does that help us, Pavel?” broke in Juliette. Her reserve of self-control was beginning to splinter; her voice likewise cracking as she rebutted him.

“Indeed, Mr. Kosov.” The captain was beginning to pull herself back together yet again. “How do you propose to fit the five of us into a three-person reentry vehicle? Perhaps we could gut some of the control systems and fit a fourth, but five is going to be impossible. What then?” Brainstorming was benefiting her greatly.

“What if I get you one more vehicle, eh? That would be feat fit for cosmonaut of old, no?” Pavel grinned now, apparently pleased that he had found a hole card.

“What are you going to do, call up control and ask for one?” she said as she extended an arm to point at Zagovich. “Don’t you realize we haven’t heard from anyone earth-side in nearly two weeks? If you’ve got an idea, then out with it, dammit! Don’t toy with us now Pavel. I’m not in the mood,” the captain said. I was startled by the way she verbally pummeled him.

Ever gregarious, Pavel spoke slowly, pronouncing each word clearly through his thick Russian accent, “There is another reentry vehicle already in space.”

“I don’t mean to mince words with you, old man,” I said, without much conviction. I knew he had a trump, but didn’t know yet what. “…but that sounds like a lot of ballocks. Virgin is the only company that’s been flying space for the last fifteen years.” Even the Chinese, who hung in there so much longer than the rest, are—no, were—no longer actively developing their own manned programs. Now we were the last astronauts. Sad thought, but one dwarfed by the events going on below us on earth.

“Even if there were enough seats for everyone…” Zagovich began.

“…we wouldn’t have anyplace to go,” finished Juliette.

We all visibly slumped into our chairs. Having the cold reality of our situation thrown in our faces didn’t exactly inspire joy. We had a schedule of events that culminated in a rather firm—and final—date with destiny. Despite my upbringing in the stodgy confines of an East Sussex home, I felt as though I should like to cry. I was about to let go, when—

“Sustarre station, this is Carter Observatory, in Wellington New Zealand. Is theah anyone still up theah?” The tinny voice, with its odd inflection, sounded like a bullhorn in the absence of the steady thrum of the power core. Following the query, the command center was filled once again with the sound of static.

Thunderstruck. That is how I felt. You could have slammed my thumbs with a Birmingham screwdriver, and wouldn’t have got a more shocked expression from me. We all were frozen, our faces had transformed from morose despair to anticipatory shock, and none of us, it seemed, could get any farther than gaping at each other. Zagovich was the first to finally react. His simple motion of removing the headphones was like an electrical jolt to the seat of my pants. I rose too quickly, forgetting that in the zero gee I had seat-belted myself in. The others had no such problem, and as quickly followed the Commander into the control center.

There was no transmission capability in the conference room, I recalled, as I unbuckled myself and launched myself like a spring into the control center. The others were already donning their headgear, and the Commander was adjusting the comms to the frequency he had happened across.

“—ation, can you all heah me or not? I know you saw lights, Hemi, but they’re not resp—”

“Carter Observatory, this is the Cosmos International Space Research Station. We copy your transmission, over.”

“Bloody hell. How about that, eh Hemi? They’re alright after all.” Apparently the voice on the ground was talking to someone named Hemi. I though it odd that a man would be nicknamed after a 20th century American motor, but then I though the Kiwis were odd as a whole, so it wasn’t much of a reach for all that.

“My name is Peter Hohepa.” Another strange name. Then it hit me, they’re probably Maori, natives of New Zealand. Hemi was a Maori version of Jim, or James. One of the places I had really enjoyed during my college days had been New Zealand. I had spent nearly a month traversing the small island nation, and had been forced to leave because of the approaching semester, wanting more.

“Nice to hear from you Mr. Hohepa,” the Captain was taking charge again, and I was glad to see it. She’d been sort of running us all on autopilot for a few days at that point, and I was sorry that it took such a tragic event to bring her back in touch with our situation, but as I said, I was glad it happened anyway. It’s not that I had anything against Commander Zagovich, though, mind you. The strain of trying to run things while the captain moped about must have been hard. His health was in a bad way. After the episode with Dr. Noell, even I was concerned for his health. We all were.

“Well chums, you must be about the only people alive that haven’t been exposed to this nasty little bug, eh?” The tinny voice of Peter Hohepa was sounding more and more scattered. I looked through a portal and realized why.

“Captain, we’re not going to have much more time to talk to them. New Zealand is on the far side of the horizon, and we’re about to go ’round.” I spoke aloud as I faced the window. The control space was small enough to carry my baritone, and my face in the window told half the story to everyone who looked over at me.

“Copy that.” She replied to me off-mike. Then to the microphone, she said, “Mr. Hohepa, we’d love to get a report on the virus from you, if you wouldn’t mind. How is it that you’re alive? I thought the fatality rate of the virus was 100%?” The Captain’s face was animated with anticipation.

“Yeah, it is,” an almost imperceptible pause before he continued, “but only upon exposure, and only if you aren’t vaccinated. We’ve got a good doctor or two heah. They managed to study it and find a cure. Killed two of them before they figured it out, though. Tough turn. Heh, the rest are all getting Maori tattoos—they think they’re warriors now. Funniest part is, the boys are actually going for it! Good laughs, that, eh Hemi?” A faint chuckle crackled through the steadily worsening radio transmission.

“Do you have enough of the vaccine to spare?” The captain, bless her pragmatic American heart, was getting right down to business. No warm-up for those Yanks, once they see opportunity.

“Sure, we got enough for a whole bloody country. I’m guessin’ you got what? Six? Maybe seven people? —jzot—you—gzzt —bottom—down heah! Exzz–Hemi?” And that was it. New Zealand slipped around the horizon like raindrops running up a windscreen in the wind, and was gone. Only static followed. But what news!

?

The captain whirled in her chair and glared at Pavel. I was surprised by the intensity of her gaze.

“Okay, you old salt. Out with it. Where is there another reentry vehicle?” Old salt was a sailor reference to someone who’d been at sea so long he’d begun to soak up salt. I snickered in spite of so recently feeling doomed. Nervous laughs came from the others, as well.

“I only wanted to say—how do you say?—once upon time—there was another reentry vehicle. Maybe isn’t working. Maybe isn’t there anymore.” Juliette, Zagovich, and I were beginning to climb from our chairs. It was as if we had agreed unspoken that we might be able to beat something out of poor old Pavel, just to get him to spill his story without being so bloody evasive.

I have decided for myself that once a person begins to feel the effects of age, he becomes inured to the irritation that his own taciturn ramblings create in the younger generations. Even the normally stoic captain was making a show of aggravation, good-natured though it was. Our spirits had been elevated quite a bit by that brief conversation with the New Zealanders.

We all circled around Pavel as though we were small children, and this was Pavel’s Story Hour, on the BBC. Pavel was to tell us a grand story about the fabled “extra vehicle” and we would all live happily ever after.

“Old Chinese Missile Satellite,” was all he said. Grumbles and moans of dissent were immediately expressed by the gathered group.

“Hear me over.” Out, I though. Hear me out. Who cares?

“Just tell us, you bloody reprobate. Stop teasing us. There’s no satellite full of missiles in space. That’s science fiction, old boy.” I couldn’t believe what he was telling us.

“The Chinese were developing ASAT—anti satellite—systems as early as 2000, but those systems were all unmanned. No reentry vehicle would be required.” The Commander had certainly done his homework. Those early anti-satellite programs had involved tiny anti-satellite probes launched from a “mother” satellite. The practice was very innovative for its time, but was later overcast by cheap and highly effective ASAT microwave directors that could cook a neighboring satellite in orbit and leave no debris or physical evidence of the origin of the failure.

“This satellite, manned. I have seen this with my own eyes, on spacewalk. Saw the reentry vehicle facing space, cannot photograph from earth. Sits in high orbit, like we are now, so no other space vehicles have seen him. Come, you see.” With that, he pushed past us and started for his berthing compartment. We gave chase.

Moments later, gathered around his fastidiously neat yet still somehow dingy berth, he produced a small packet of old 35mm photographs. He had to have carried the film down and returned with it himself. No way to develop old-fashioned celluloid photos here. Everything was digital these days anyway. The photos’ backings all had a yellowish patina, as though they might be rather old. They were immaculately preserved, otherwise, and the photographs themselves were truly startling. Sure enough, there was an enormous bell-shaped Shenzhou-style re-entry vehicle. The massive three-ton craft was originally designed for just a single passenger. To my surprise, the photograph didn’t show any signs of wear or aging on the old model.

“Just how old are these photographs, Pavel?” I asked, looking over to him. He had taken the opportunity while we pored over the photographs to release his flask from its current hiding spot somewhere on his person. He passed it around quietly as we pointed and commented on details of interest in the photos.

“How did you get so close, Pavel?” asked Juliette. This question, Pavel chose to answer.

“Nikon 35 millimeter with telephoto lens, times twenty magnification. I shot him during close flyby working on NASA station in—2004. First spacewalk. I never show them to anyone before.”

“Bullshit,” came the quick reply from Captain Jackson. She looked up from the photos, “this has got to be bullshit! These pictures can’t be real. You’re just jerking my chain, Pavel, and I don’t appreciate it.” She pushed the photos to him, and began to float herself out of the cramped and overcrowded berth.

“We can go see in person, comrade Captain.” She stopped herself at the hatch. “You approve?” he was very smug. He was often in a good humor, and was excellent at staying poker-faced, but he seldom let a joke go this far. I was convinced he was if it might be possible that he was actually telling the truth.

“If you’re just screwing with us, Pavel, leave it out. We can’t take the constant up-down of emotions, man.” I tried to implore him to break off his bad joke.

“We will take a closer look,” surprisingly Zagovich said this more like a demand than a request. The Captain looked at him, then at Pavel, and reluctantly agreed.

“Fine.” She thought for just a moment as she stared at a spot on the bulkhead, and then to all of us, “Mr. Kosov, find your satellite. Mr. Brown, fuel and preflight the capsule. We’re going on a road trip.” Then to Zagovich, “We’re not doing this half-assed. I want a thorough inspection on this old bucket—if it actually exists.” As she turned to leave the berth once and for all, I could see the corners of her mouth turned up for the first time in weeks.

?

Four hours later, Pavel had radar-locked the old satellite. Its orbit had deteriorated a bit from Pavel’s remembered position, but nobody was the least bit discouraged by that. If anything, it seemed to lend more credence to his story. There had been a brief discussion-slash-argument, when the Captain told me that I was going in Pavel’s place. I had argued fervently against it, but between the five of us, I was the only one that had ever even been to China, much less knew anything about the Chinese language. During my travels I had passed through the startling country, bedding down for a while in Hong Kong. It was a former British territory, and the Chinese there were still pretty cosmopolitan by most standards of measure. I had picked up some of the alphabet and a few phrases, but was mostly counting on a laptop with some translation software. It was inevitable that an engineer go, though. No one else was qualified to certify the old capsule for flight. Zagovich and Pavel and I would be going to the Chinese satellite.

We had a few hours to kill while the fueling took place, so I paid a visit to Juliette. She and I had been very cool around the others recently. The stress was getting to us, and of course, the best thing for stress is the first thing stressed people forget to do. She was very receptive. A true gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell, but I’ve never claimed to be one. It was gentle and at the same time quite randy. Urgent. We used a sleeping bag to keep us together, which floated around in her tiny berth as we made love, bumping us randomly into the walls and floors, and adding a level of intrigue to the impassioned lovemaking. Once we had both had our fun, so to speak…

“David, do you think we’ll really get out of this?” Juliette whispered. Her voice was barely louder than the low buzz of the ventilation system.

“This whole situation is pretty loony. Either Pavel is a pillock, or there’s really another capsule out there.”

“We have a chance, then,” she said as she nuzzled me closer. I was struck by how sensitive she could be, for such a well-respected scientist. Amazing how we break down into our constituent parts when the going gets rough. I was happy to see that beneath the polish of her scientific persona, and beneath the lusty young woman she had shown me until now, that there was a gentle and loving woman who needed me as much as I needed her. At that moment, I vowed to myself that I would do whatever it took to see her safe and sound.

“I…I love you, Juliette,” I spoke softly into her hair. She moved slightly, and glanced upwards to me from her cuddling position.

“Oh, David, of course you don’t. It’s sweet to say so, though.”

“No, seriously Jules, I really love you. I’m not just some dumb bloke that has it off with a chippie and thinks he’s found true love.” I pulled away from her slightly in the confines of the soft sleeping bag and turned her to face me. “I will do whatever it takes, Jules, to see you through this. I love you, and that’s that. I don’t care a whit if you believe me or not, right now. You will.”

She said nothing, but pulled closer to me, burying her head into my chest again, nestling closer once more. I took that for assent, having nothing else to go on.

?

It took almost another hour to finish prepping the flight. Zagovich, myself, and Pavel all crammed into the tiny re-entry vehicle. We were fully suited for a long spacewalk, and expected fully to do just that. Without much peremptory activity, we began the launch sequence.

“All systems are nominal and on the line,” Zagovich called to the station, where Captain Jackson was acting as our groundside control.

“Flight One, you are clear for launch. Good luck boys.” It had suddenly struck me that, there we were, three men all crammed into a tiny capsule of air and about to be jettisoned across the sky to another tiny capsule, all based on twenty year old photographs taken by an alcoholic engineer from Russia. What the hell were we thinking? Thinking was the one thing I soon ran out of time for, though.

“Launch  in three, two, one, go!” Zagovich punctuated his last word with a flourishing punch of the launch release button. Nervous energy forced another untimely chortle out of me. I felt like an Irish soccer fan on an all night pub crawl. Puddled out of my mind.

“Good, lets get over with!” came the ebullient retort from Pavel. He must have downed the entire flask before they sealed him into his suit. Nobody even cared.

?

It took nearly two breathless hours of thrusting, maneuvering, and braking before we were able to get our first brief glimpses of the old satellite through the tiny heat-resistant windows in the capsule.

“Sonovabitch,” Zagovich exclaimed as we rotated into view of the satellite at a crawl. “There is a dock on the cylinder!”

Pavel and I looked at each other in excitement. This was much better news than we could have hoped. It meant we wouldn’t have to tear apart the satellite to remove the capsule from its grasp. Zagovich reported this to ‘control’ with his usual terseness. We got the go-ahead from Captain Jackson immediately. It sounded like there was relief in her voice.

“The docking target is clear,” Zagovich reported, then gave the two of us orders off the comm channel. We complied at once, the tiny capsule began orienting itself with the hatch on the satellite.

“Twenty meters.” A short pause

“Ten meters. Engaging braking thrust.” Another short pause. Zagovich was working the control systems now, his heavily gloved hands barely moving on the oversized controls. His eyes never left the targeting screen. I doubt he even blinked.

“Flight One, this is control, I show your blips merged. You have the ball, Jim.” I could hear her smile in the transmission.

“Five meters. Four. Wait…okay, there, got it.” Zagovich was throwing switches and pressing buttons, but I didn’t pay any attention. My focus was solely on the powdercoated and dented aluminum shell outside of my viewport. I was surprised by the seemingly small amount of work it took to lock the tiny capsule to the satellite. Either Jim Zagovich was an ace pilot, or this astronaut stuff was easier that everyone made it sound.

There was a loud clank, followed by a series of cycling motor sounds, and that was it. We were docked to the Chinese satellite.

“Cycling the airlock systems.” Zagovich was still reporting in to control. “There is air pressure, but no breathable air aboard the satellite. The locks cycled, and we felt more than heard the tiny rush of air as the two atmospheres were connected by the tiny gap between the two hatch covers.  We immediately unbelted ourselves and made our way into the darkened satellite.

It was surprisingly roomy within the drifting hulk. Although it was dark, our suit lights shed copious light through the central chamber. It was about three meters across, where machinery wasn’t intruding, which was not very often, and there were two ports in the chamber. It took us some time and exploration, but we discovered the lighting control panel and, with the help of my portable computer, managed to safely turn on the interior lights. Some time later, we established that the CO2 scrubbers had failed, probably some years ago. Though the atmosphere was otherwise clean, there simply wasn’t enough oxygen to support life. Never mind that is was as cold inside the satellite as it had been outside. Thank God for suit heaters.

I began to assess the condition of the Chinese escape vehicle, while Zagovich conducted a thorough inventory of the satellite by personal inspection. He had a list of items that I had translated (correctly, I hoped) for him, and he was comparing symbols on various containers, looking for useful supplies. Pavel had examined the satellite’s egress hatch and discovered to all of our mutual pleasure that it was a fully functioning airlock in its own right, and he began the external spacewalk to inspect the exterior of the Shenzhou-class capsule. It was designed for overland reentry. It was a true antique, and it was clapped out. Really spaceworn.

Pavel and I began the release procedure to separate the old boat after I finished inspecting its interior. It was cluttered with debris, as though the Chinese had been using it as a wastebasket, but the equipment appeared to be functional and the entire satellite appeared to have full power.

“Stepping release motors.” I called through the helmet comms. We hadn’t bothered to try the satellite’s comms equipment.

“Go ahead, David.” Pavel’s voice was tinny in my ear. In spite of the vacuum cold, the closeness of the suit and the clumsiness of the gloves had made me start to sweat. I turned down my internal heater two degrees and then stepped the motors. The release locks were still engaged.

“Looks good, David. Step release mechanism one.” I was vaguely amused by how Pavel’s English was very precise when using technical jargon, but his conversational English had always been heavily broken. I guess you learn what you need to do the job, and the rest comes as it comes. I stepped the first release mechanism.

“Moving now.” A brief pause, followed by, “Step release mechanism two. I wish I had drink right now, tovarich. This is very boring.” I cycled the second mechanism, and red lights erupted all over the board. The hatch leading into the fat bell-shaped Chinese re-entry vehicle cycled shut, but not before it gave me a brief glimpse of vacuum. Thank God we were all still in our suits, or we’d have popped our cogs for sure. Zagovich came sailing up from the storage area below me. Drawn by the rush of escaping air that preceded the closing of the upper hatch, he was cursing a blue streak.

“David…Oh Shit!” Pavel sounded very alarmed. I felt a “clunk” against the side of the satellite, and then the audible alarms faintly rang through the suit, keeping pace with the lights on the control board.

“What the hell is going on, Mr. Brown?” Zagovich had grappled with a set of cables and stopped his upward drift nearly parallel with me. I was trying to interpret the symbols on the flashing lights, but my attention was directed at the fact that I saw space through the hatch before it closed.

“I think the Chinese capsule has been released, but I can’t figure out how, or why.”

“Mr. Kosov, please respond,” I looked over to Zagovich. Like me, he was sweating inside his suit. From Pavel, there was no response.

“I’m going out there,” I said, pushing off from the control panel. Zagovich followed me towards the airlock.

“We both will go.”

We stood silently in the dark little airlock that had been built into the satellite. This old satellite was really more like a stealth station. It had all the amenities expected of a cramped flying tin can. Neither Zagovich nor I spoke. We were dreading what we would find. Or what we wouldn’t find, to be more precise.

When the outer hatch finally opened—there was no indicator to show us the atmosphere had been evacuated, it must have burned out—we quickly clamped our tethers to the inset tie-down point in the center of the dingy floor, and made our way around the exterior of the satellite. It was only the second time I’d ever been out in a vacuum. Zagovich began transmitting to Pavel again, but still no response.

The stars are so crisp and brilliant when you are up in space. There is a sense of vertigo that is heightened by weightlessness, but to stare into that void was to increase the sensation one hundredfold. There’s nothing between you and that spectacular vision but a thick bulb of plastic and a few inches of air. On my first “walk” I had just drifted for a few minutes, enjoying the unfiltered, unequaled view of the universe. The raw enormity of what I was seeing was enough to feed my imagination for a thousand lifetimes. The sight of it all, without sound, special effect, or edge of screen to interfere, was humbling. I shall never forget that day, or this one.

We practically threw ourselves up a series of handholds, Zagovich following me much too closely for safety. I noted on the way “up” that many of the grips had been recently used. Pavel had come this way. Where was his tether line, then?

It wasn’t until I crested the upper end of the satellite that I finally was able to guess at what had occurred. Just as I was about to hand myself over the lip though, I felt an unrelenting tug on my tether. I quickly turned in the suit. Foolishly, I could only see the back of my own helmet. I more slowly turned my entire upper torso, to see what Zagovich wanted, keying my mike at the same time.

“What is it Commander?” I said, perhaps a bit too impatiently, but I was eager to find out what had happened. It was when I was turned to face him that I saw he still had both hands on the hand holds, and was not touching my tether.

“What?” came his confused reply.

“Oh, Bloody Nora!” I exclaimed. I was out of tether.

“Mr. Brown. You appear to have reached the end of your tether.”  Well, golly, Mr. Zagovich, Bob’s your uncle. I did not need people to restate the obvious to me.

“Then bloody go and clip my tether to your suit, so at least one of us can get up there!” I fairly shouted into the mike. I had begun to sweat again, profusely this time. Zagovich wordlessly began the trek backwards to the airlock, and as I turned to face forward, I was gripped with a fierce attack of vertigo. I nearly swooned, and almost lost my grip on the satellite at the same time. I was falling apart, just like everyone else.

It was then that I also saw what I desperately wanted not to believe…could not dare to believe. There was a broken tether clip attached to the rung just above my hands. I had not seen it in my haste to climb up to the capsule. It was the same manufacture as ours. Fresh as a daisy, but the buckle end was rended, as though some great force had torn it free. I began to tremble uncontrollably. Behind me, I could feel Zagovich removing the tension from my tether. I held very still. Any sudden movements might jerk me away from the satellite and rip the tether’s end from the commander’s clumsy gloves and throw me into space—like Pavel, Oh God!

“Go ahead, Mr. Brown.” Came a sudden voice in my headphones, shocking me back into the moment. Zagovich had attached himself to my tether. With all haste, I thrust myself up and over the edge of the bulbous satellite. As I had feared, the Shenzhou re-entry capsule was nowhere to be seen, and neither was poor Pavel. I searched the release mechanisms for signs of failure, of which there were plenty. I snapped some quick photos of the exterior of the hatch and made my report to Zagovich, and then to Control. Through choked voices and vision blurred by tears, we managed to enter our own reentry vehicle and maneuver it away from the old Chinese deathtrap.

“Flight One, we have three blips in motion near the satellite. One is yours, the other two are probably Mr. Kosov and the Shenzhou vehicle.” After some quick transmission of coordinates and estimations of remaining fuel, we set off to investigate. We came upon the Chinese capsule first. It was spinning madly. There was virtually no way for a vehicle like ours to match that insane rotation, especially when short on fuel, so we wrote that off for the moment. We met Pavel a few moments later, and activated the close quarters transmitters, hailing Pavel, but there was no reply. A close flyby revealed the reason. His suit had been horribly crushed; blood had seeped through it in several places, only to freeze. His face shield was a red mass, reported Zagovich from his view port, and I for one was grateful to be spared from having a clear view of such a thing.

Our return to the station was to be one of great celebration. Instead, there was no warm greeting, no happy smiles of success. Only heartbreak announced our return to Sustarre Station. Their eyes still haunt me to this day. There was never anything certain about living—all our lives were subject to the whim of the fates, and that no matter how hard we struggled, there was still a great element of chance that could take away everything. Zagovich reported our loss to the station. He looked as weary as a man could look, and still draw a breath.

Those two very different women were joined in a mutual terror and grief. Looking to me as though I might have an answer—or might be somehow to blame, I could not tell which. Neither ever expressed such a sentiment, but I felt it strongly, nevertheless.

The four of us began the laborious routine of excavating unnecessary equipment from the remaining re-entry vehicle to accommodate four riders. It was going to be no small feat, but we were up to the challenge. Pavel’s death had thrown down the gauntlet, so to speak, and honor demands a response to such a blatant challenge. Once the labor had been completed, we made for our bunks and work areas to gather whatever personal effects that we could carry on our persons; there was no room for any baggage of any kind. Juliette grabbed several of her unfinished research notes, burned to DVD in haste, and some small bits from her personal effects. Zagovich ditched the gun and grabbed the station logs. The captain brought only one thing, her baseball cap that read “CO Sustarre Station” with the requisite “scrambled eggs” decoration of gold leaf along the bill. She was wringing it her hands as though it had been soaked in something. I grabbed nothing of my own. I had nothing here of consequence, my only important belongings were already down there, on the contaminated earth. Instead, I grabbed the last undisclosed work of Dr. Noell, thinking that at least his memory could be carried nobly in this way. I also pocketed Pavel’s battered flask. He had left it behind. There was no room for it in a suit, and no way to drink from it anyway.

Unguided by any kind of ground control, we were forced to make our calculations based on GPS, Magnetometry, and celestial navigation, as well as visual inspection of the ground. It would have to be enough, as there was no one to do the job. We installed one extra piece of equipment, the fastest laptop on the station, to assist us with last minute adjustments. Our return to earth was…anticlimactic, to say the least.

?

There was a bit of tension, as we waited in the vehicle for their boat to arrive, but that was merely an inconvenience. The New Zealanders were very hospitable, just as my memory had suggested. When the ugly old fishing boat arrived, there were more than a dozen of them climbing around in the nets over the side, some knee-deep in the water. They were all smiling and laughing and calling to each other, and as we emerged from the tiny capsule, the entire entourage erupted in cheers. The four of us returned wan smiles. I was very nervous about the virus, and drew a tentative breath, expecting to smell it on the air. Only fish guts and salty air met my olfactories as we trod carefully onto the small rubber raft that had pulled alongside our lifeboat. The men and women on the boat were a mixture of Maori and Caucasians, all had the charming lilt of New Zealanders.

We were brought aboard the boat, and surrounded by happy faces, cheering men and women who were saluting our return as though we had been victorious over something, as though we had surmounted incredible obstacles. We had merely fallen to earth, after losing two of our friends to fear and misfortune. It was obvious to me that the others didn’t feel like celebrating. Neither did I, but the inimitable Kiwis were fully determined to get us pissed—the beer and wine had been brought with them to ally any fears that they wouldn’t get the party going soon enough—and celebrate like there had never been an astronaut in their midst before. I suppose for most of them, that was the truth of it.

There was to be no period of isolation and decontamination, since the earth was gads more dangerous at the moment than any of us could ever have thought to be. We were inoculated more or less right away, in between the back-slapping, and the hugs from strange and beautiful women, and the mugs of beer being plied upon us, we all managed to get hit in the arm with a high-air-pressure injector, which they told us was all we would need to put the horrible virus behind us. How likely that was, none of us were willing to speculate. We all remained quiet amidst the chaos of the fishing boat as it returned to Stewart Island, off the south end of New Zealand. The doctors reported that the virus was mutating, probably because it was lab-created and not a thing of nature. Aside from the deaths of a few minor species of monkey—sad, yes, but nothing compared to the billions dead of mankind—there appeared to be an end in sight for the virus.

We stayed for a few days on Stewart Island, just to make sure the inoculation had taken successfully. They had an excellent if small hospital, and although everything seemed a tad under-populated, for the most part the beautiful little city of Oban is quite warm and welcoming. I found out later that Oban had never been particularly populous. I had never found myself there during my college days, but was incredibly happy to be there now.

When the festivities had died down, and the otherwise sleepy town of Oban had gone back to its daily routine, we decided to head for our homes. Captain Jackson shipped off to the south island, where a small US contingency had retained control over some planes, and were operating the Christchurch airport for the Kiwis. They used to be operating a port of entry for the South Pole research expeditions, but everyone down there was dead or presumed dead—no contact with any South Pole bases in nearly a month, and it was summertime for them. Presumably, she would be flying herself home in one of their smaller combat/reconnaisance vehicles.

Commander Zagovich left us a few days later. His health had continued to decline once we were on solid ground. Apparently the stress of our ordeal, and possibly some guilt over the death of Dr. Noell, had taken a heavy toll on him. I had asked him if the Doctor’s death weighed on him heavily, in a moment of reflection.

“Things are often out of our control, Ano?” He shrugged, and turned away from the conversation, but it was clear enough that he hadn’t come to terms with his guilt yet. I understood him better than he probably thought. I could not stop thinking about Pavel, and what I might have done differently that day on the Chinese satellite. I wish I could go back to that day, and have Pavel set up a camera or something, so that we could have remotely observed the testing. That day has passed though, and there’s no going back, other than in dreams, or nightmares.

?

“David, you know that I care about you, right?” Juliette and I were riding a small ferry flight to Christchurch, and she had seemed pensive all morning. I was curious about it, but had tossed it off as nerves for traveling home.

“Sure, Jules,” I turned to face her in the tiny single engine plane. We were practically nose-to-nose, with the Maori pilot only a few inches in front of us. “What gives?”

“Well…this is difficult, but it must be done,” she half-murmured to herself. My hands were like ice, despite the warm subtropical weather. “David, I probably won’t see you again.” She said that with disturbing finality.

“Well of course you will, I’ll come after—” I began, a pleading tone already coming from me.

“No, David. You see…I…I have someone. A boyfriend. He’s…well I don’t know if he’s even still alive, but I have to find out. And I don’t have room in my life for both of you. You’re very sweet David, but my relationship with Jaques is pretty…well, strong. We’ve been together for several years.” I was stunned. I had no hints, not even a vague suspicion of such duplicity. I slumped back into my seat, suddenly feeling as weary as Zagovich had seemed when I last saw him.

The rest of the flight, we rode side by side in complete silence. Not for the last time, I wondered if she harbored some secret resentment with me over the death of Pavel. I had to quash that thought process though. None of us had foreseen such a horrible outcome. We all had such great hope at that moment that none of us had dared to think the worst of anything.

We landed and went our separate ways, she to Canada to seek out her probably-late boyfriend, and I to seek out my home, and to see if anyone I had known or loved had survived. So decimated had the population been, that I was forced to take a flight four days later. They only flew to mainland Europe once per week, and only the largest planes were being used, so they waited until they could fill one, or nearly so. I was in a particularly black mood that day, still irritated at Juliette for having lied to me all that time about being available, and irritated at myself for not having seen it. She was chasing a ghost now, most likely.

When I finally sat down on the plane, I felt something digging into my right hip, and reached for it. As I was pulling it out, an older woman drew up next to me in a collapsible wheelchair. The stewardess helped her out of the “spaz chariot,” as my peers might call it, and into the seat next to mine. She must have been about 70, and had the sweetest Eastern European accent. Probably Bulgarian, or Prussian, I thought, and I looked down at the battered flask that had appeared, as though conjured via prestidigitation, in my hand. Looking at the thoroughly disreputable container, I remembered how lucky I actually was just to be there, girlfriend or no.

“RKA,” a ragged but otherwise cheerful voice exclaimed from my shoulder. I turned to face the wizened face of the old Easterner. “That is old Soviet Space Program, eh boy? Where do you come by such an antique? You do not look Russian.” Her last bit surprised me momentarily. I glanced down to see my face faintly reflected off the dented and scratched canister, with the cryptic RKA – MIR and the ominous but defunct hammer-and-sickle emblem of the old USSR. Sure enough, my slightly narrow and under-bitten chin, and slightly outsized nose and ears just screamed English. I sighed.

“I’m not, but my friend was.” I turned in surprise and looked at the old woman. Her eyes were shining brightly, and almost watery. I wondered if it was because of the canned air that you get blown at you on every craft that flies, or if it was something else.

“I am Kisa Yuptirova,” said the old woman, “and you?” No, the glitter was definitely hers, and not a byproduct of air to the face. I reached up and turned my own air vent away from me. It was threatening to make my own eyes run.

“David Brown, ex-astronaut.” I replied, idiotically. I had practiced saying that as though it would be an accusation that it was the fault of the person to whom I was speaking at the time. I regretted saying it instantly, even though Kisa seemed to take it in stride.

She said, “This must have been very good friend to give you such a fine thing. They are rare today, beyond guessing. My grandfather was Yuri Koptev, he was—”

“—in charge of—” I tried to interrupt.

“Russian Space Agency.” We finished in unison, perhaps Kisa felt as silly as I, for we both looked down for just a moment before continuing.

“My friend Pavel died up there,” I said, more to the flask than to her, with a cursory wiggle of my finger in the direction of space, “this was the only thing I could find to remember him by.”

She looked at me sadly and said, simply, “What is in it, besides cold memories?”

“Vodka, brewed in zero gee,” I replied quietly, as though not to break the spell that she had cast over us with the phrase, cold memories. My skin prickled, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood of their own accord.

She fairly punched me on the shoulder and practically shouted in my ear.

“Then we must DRINK to his name, yes?” Now she was grinning from ear to ear, like the Cheshire cat himself. I found myself smiling in spite of myself. I slowly unscrewed the cap of the old flask and raised it just a bit—I didn’t want the stewardess to return and take it from me at this critical juncture.

“To an old friend, lost along the way.” I tipped it back. Vodka had never tasted sweeter, nor the warmth that it brought me at that moment had ever seemed so amiable, so desired. Without further comment, I passed the flask to my new friend.

“To Rosaviakosmos, and its fine sailors,” she rejoined. Taking a tentative swallow, she turned to me and—grin still creeping around the edges of her mouth—Kisa shyly added, “This isn’t very good, is it?”

For the first time in what seemed like weeks, I laughed aloud. It felt good, it was an honest laugh that I didn’t expect myself to have. I shook my head no even as I reached for the old Russian’s flask.

“No. It isn’t,” I said, still grinning, “but right now, it’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”

The Nombril stood silently at the edge of the chasm, seeming to stare mindlessly into the dark oblivion below. Just below it, a great crisscrossing of bridges and tunnels splayed a spider-web of paths and walkways across the yawning depths of the chasm. Grand Crossing was noted for the number of subterranean races that used its maze of walkways and bridges to move from one area of The Deep to another. Sometimes, traders stopped for a while to vend to those that passed by. Sometimes they were assaulted by the not-so­friendly races that used the pass, other times they plied their trade unmolested. Races of all type used the Grand Crossing during their travels in The Deep, as they had done so for hundreds of years. No one had ever solved the mystery of who had built Grand Crossing. Although many races claimed it was their work, most claims had holes large enough to march an army through. No one in all that time had ever seen the Nombril as it stood there hidden in its heights. Its silent vigil went unnoticed for over three hundred years, and the denizens of the deep had no idea how lucky they had been until the moment the Nombril went into motion. It had not created this place, but its purpose was served by observing this place, so that is what it did.

The Nombril at rest was a seven foot high statue of a humanoid. It had a non-descript appearance that was only offset by the fact that it was carved entirely from a single piece of obsidian. Its rough-hewn features could have been those of any number of humanoid races. Mostly it looked human, except for the slightly abnormal length of its arms. Its massively carved arms reached nearly to its knees, despite its usually rigid upright posture. The representation was almost devoid of garment, save the modest loincloth covering its groin. The Nombril most closely resembled humans, but it was not a human creation. It was much more than just a statue carved from obsidian, as well. It was “The Nombril,” the Vessel of Souls. Theologians and historians nicknamed it “The Eater of Souls” due to its alleged behavior. The combination of the souls which it consumed made it much more than the sum of its parts. It was a creature of unspeakable power, hidden in the relatively innocuous guise of a statue. It was a creature of inscrutable goals, an enigma to all those who observed its actions. The Nombril was seemingly impervious to outside persuasion. It leaped into action without pretense and, seemingly, without explanation. In legend, it had slain both good and evil indiscriminately, and it had been named a horror in the legends of places all over-and beneath-the world.

In its current location, it had come to rest in an odd position, bent deeply onto one knee with both hands splayed out to its sides, looking down into the chasm, as if silently observing the traffic below. Its position seemed tense, strained, as though it was about to spring into action at any moment, and yet it had been in exactly that spot, in exactly that position, for 298 years without moving…

A pair of Tolakian traders came by one of the Grand Crossing’s lower entrances. They were not heavily laden, but their cargo was quite precious. They were carrying an ancient jewel encrusted greataxe and a pair of equally over­decorated gauntlets in small packs, affixed to their belts. The axe and gauntlets were to be a gift-bribe to a neighboring
Dwarven kingdom, in exchange for being overlooked, and for having their caves unmolested, at least by Dwarves. The Tolakians were generally a peaceful race. Their motley and brilliantly colored scale hides gave away their reptilian ancestry; they resembled nothing so much as a pair of large bipedal Tokay Geckos. They were wrapped with long belts that circled their lithe bodies several times, but wore no other adornment. Dwelling as deep beneath the surface as they did, they seldom found the need for clothing, and disdained it unless painfully cold. The belts were dotted with pouches and small charms of all types and sizes, and their bodies were heavily bedecked with rings and necklaces of arcane power, the ‘tell’ to their sorcerous natures. Most wanderers of The Deep would and did avoid this pair of travelers, for as benevolent as they were, they were not to be trifled with. Many other races had lost entire platoons of warriors to a single angry Tolakian Sorcerer.

Although it was not apparent to most travelers, one of the Tolakians was female. Her name was Negaerion. She was traveling with Belectholdil, a younger male and a student of hers. Their journey was expected to be brief, but it would be cut much shorter than either of them suspected. Negaerion announced to Belectholdil that they were going to take a quick short-cut that another traveler had suggested they might be able to take advantage of. It was a path that most people of The Deep could not take without climbing equipment, but Negaerion knew that it would be easy for them, and would also cut a full day off of their journey. They dropped to all fours in unison and began to climb the treacherous walls of Grand Crossing. Their movement along the walls of the great chasm was more fluid and surer than when they walked upright as other races. Their heritage was clear as they passed by several crossing bridges and walkways, to the startled surprise of many other passersby. Light jingling from the pair of small packs on their backs could be heard over the din of small rocks and pebbles that were kicked loose by the Tolakians as they rose up through the chasm, completely unaware of the danger they were rapidly approaching.

The Nombril sensed the imminent approach of the two Tolakians. Both were exceedingly young from its point of view, but he sensed immense power coming from the leader of the pair. Her aura was easily visible to him, and it was rich with intelligence and command over arcane powers that he had not seen here in the crossing for many decades. It rose soundlessly to its feet and took a single step back, satisfied for the moment with the knowledge that this time at least, its prey would be coming straight to it.

Negaerion and Belectholdil continued climbing, barely even winded, until they were well beyond the highest of the heavily traveled bridgeworks of Grand Crossing. They kept their large golden eyes firmly locked on their goal. They were well acquainted with the heights in which they were working, as most Tolakian dwellings were made in vertical, rather than horizontal, caves in The Deep, so neither was much concerned with falling. Their goal, a narrow ledge, loomed larger in their field of view. Pale shadows were thrown by the dim lights of travelers below into garishly exaggerated pinwheels of shadow above the pair, but their large eyes were piercing the veil of darkness, and they could see the ledge clearly. Belectholdil reached it a split second before Negaerion did, and he halted, upright on his hind legs, while Negaerion finished the climb.

In the Tolakian tongue, he softly began to chide his teacher for her slow climb, but his admonishments were cut short by a black form that rushed between them, even before either of the speedy reptilians could reply. Belectholdil was snatched up by the neck by The Nombril, as Negaerion watched on in horror, unable to act. With seeming disdain, The Nombril backhandedly flung the young Tolakian out into the open space of the chasm, where there was nothing to grab and slow his fall. To the honor of his family, Belectholdil fell soundlessly to his death, facing it boldly rather than crying out in fear. He took the magnificent axe with him to the bottom, the only weapon that either of them carried on their journey.

The realization of what had happened snapped like the crack of a whip into Negaerion’s mind, and she erupted into action, rolling backwards along the ledge, while simultaneously chanting words of power and reaching into one of her pouches for spell components. With her left hand she flung dust, and with her right hand she drew arcane sigils into the air, all the while clutching a lodestone and chanting her words of power. The Nombril seemed to understand the words of power, because it took a step backwards at the sight of the small reptilian chanting the powerful words. It quickly decided a path of action that would provide it with the greatest chance of success in catching his prey. It knew that the spell Negaerion was about to cast would harm it, perhaps even grievously, but it had to secure her from escape before it could neutralize her threat of magic.

Negaerion’s spell blasted out of the air in front of her, and the sigils, now visible in the air between them, slammed into The Nombril with a force that surprised them both. The statue froze in the middle of its own spell casting response, but only just for a split second. During that split second, however, immense cracks and flakes of obsidian shot through The Nombril, and his footsteps tread lighter afterwards. Negaerion’s spell of Disintegration was quite effective, and her best defense against a target of immense size. Unfortunately, the damage was not even sufficient to distract the creature from its spell and after uttering some words of power in a hideous language that Negaerion had never heard before, it gestured to her with its lengthy arms, and a beam of bright green light issued forth from its hand, striking Negaerion full in the chest before she could react. It spread out over her form, engulfing her in a greenish light that felt like a thousand ants crawling over her bare hide. Unaware of the effects of the spell, she began to prepare for her next act, which, under the circumstances, seemed to be best served in flight from this dangerous and powerful foe. This time she needed no components, and turned away from The Nombril, gesturing out over the ledge into thin air. The Nombril knew what she was attempting, the words of power being familiar to its hearing, and it also knew the danger that Negaerion was about to place herself in. The Nombril was not interested in any of that. However, if Negaerion was allowed to attempt what it believed she was doing-generating a dimensional gap, or doorway, for her to leap through-then she would fall to her death, as its spell had anchored her soul to this dimension, and such travel was forbidden to her until its ward was removed. It quickly paced forward, ash and dust falling from the plethora of cracks along the length of its body, silent testimony to the power that she had just unleashed on The Nombril.

Just as her voice died on her scaled lips, a shimmering black sheet of pure energy, roughly oval and approximately the height of the Tolakian, appeared just inches over the edge of the abyss, and she lunged forward into it. The Nombril reached behind the sheet of energy and she fell through the doorway untouched by its power. She fell, surprised, right into the considerable grip of The Nombril. It yanked her back over the safety of the ledge, in case its own grip failed and the creature in its clutches decided to rob it of its prize. Negaerion struggled uselessly, her strength being only a fraction of the massive construct that held her. She knew that her options were few, and chose to go fully offensive, seeing it as her last option, now that flight from the battle seemed unlikely.

Negaerion fell back on her memory for a powerful spell that didn’t require her to reach for components, since she was firmly clutched by the strange black creature. She began chanting, and waves of energy began to flow between her hands. The Nombril, unaware of the effects of this spell, decides to put an end to the battle once and for all. While still clutching its prey, The Nombril reached out with its many consciousnesses and began to bore into the psyche of Negaerion, using all of its power to launch a psionic attack of incredible force. Negaerion was completely unprepared for such an onslaught, though her mind had never been opened to such forces, her natural defenses peeled back quickly like the layers of an onion wilting away from the direct blast of a dragon’s breath.

Suddenly, Negaerion’s vision went dark, and she sensed that a shift of some kind had occurred, but was not able to pinpoint the sensation. She could no longer feel her limbs, or move or speak aloud. She could hear nothing, smell nothing. It was as if her senses had all been instantly snapped shut. With an immense force of will, she attempted to push past the veil of senselessness to see or hear anything she could. What she saw shattered her mind utterly, and although she would never be alone with her thoughts, the other souls trapped within The Nombril would avoid hers, as much out of fear as out of respect. Her vision blurred to a dark shadow, and spirals of shadow and light whirled across her field of view. In the distance, she could hear a guttural, choking sound, and as her vision continued to clear, she saw a stout green and yellow reptilian, heavily adorned with gems and jewelry, not unlike her, being choked to death at the end of an immense and crack-riddled pair of arms. The sudden realization that she was witnessing her own demise from within the body of the statue was too much for her, and the will and focus that had been her greatest strength was consumed in an instant by The Nombril, even as it choked the last gasping breath from the soulless Tolakian at the end of its great arms.

Its prey was secured, and its feeding completed. The Nombril slowly digested the knowledge carried by the powerful little Tolakian, and searched her memories for something very specific, a hint at its purpose that lay dormant in the mind of each of its prey that drove it closer to its final goal.

Deep below the Grand Crossing, another day in the life of the Ota was about to be interrupted. The peaceful agrarians had become used to the constant rain of dirt, rocks, and other debris that fell from the “sky” above them. They were no longer truly surprised by anything that fell. Occasionally, a humanoid or unlucky animal would burst in out of the darkness above them to rain death down onto their small village. Only once had an Ota been killed by the fall of another being, since that day, the Ota had changed their roofs to the narrow, high peaked roofs more common to those dwelling high on the backs of mountains, rather than deep within them. The Ota were practical, often to the point of indifference, or so their neighbors thought. Their neighbors seldom understood the behavior of the Ota at all. This could have been for many reasons, but mainly it was because most of the Ota’s neighbors did not understand that Ota were actually vegetable, not animal, in nature. Their likes, dislikes, and motivations were similar enough to most humanoids to prevent outright dislike, but alien enough to give the Ota more than their fair share of ridicule and misunderstanding.

Geremy, being a typical Ota, was not particularly surprised when a dead Tolakian “appeared” in his garden, his impact destroying several rows and uprooting or crushing about thirty plants altogether. Geremy’s real name was an unpronounceable series of amino acids that he would excrete through the plant fibers at the ends of his fingers when he made physical contact with other Ota. Only Ota could “read” this language, and it had no spoken equivalent, so when he had first met another race, and was inevitably asked his name, he replied simply “Could you please give me one?” The adventuring human he met was amused by the young Ota, and was happy to comply. Geremy was not aware of his good fortune at his first meeting with another race. His name didn’t have the amusing qualities that many of his friends’ names did. There was Elfnose Warthead, a childhood friend that had been named by a Gnome, and his next door neighbor was simply called ‘Gruud’ (Molbur-speak for “not very dirty”) by a Molbur that was passing through their region of The Deep. Of course, most Ota overlooked these lingual oddities and used their own language to identify each other in private company.

Geremy observed the destruction for several moments, assessing the damage and determining the most logical course of action. Geremy then set to the work at hand, which consisted primarily of removing the non-biodegradable components of the corpse from the garden, and then turning the body under the soil, both enriching it and providing a makeshift burial for the recently destroyed Belectholdil. Fortunately for Geremy, the long mossy shag on his head only provided him with breathable air, and not a sense of smell. The warm air of The Deep was quickly making Belectholdil into something quite unripe. Geremy gathered the metal items and any other heavy pieces of bone or wood or other large pieces and set them aside for cleaning and consideration later.

Later, when the foul deed was completed, and Geremy had taken nourishment from some of the destroyed plants and replanted those that had survived their exhumation, he dug through the pile of Belectholdil’s belongings. His head, which was mostly intact, was placed carefully into a sack to be shown to the Elder Ota, and Geremy wiped his hands onto his tunic as he sat down to look at the other items of interest that came from the recently fallen Tolakian. Geremy had seen Tolakians before, and was aware that they often had great magical power, but was mostly interested in returning the head to the nearest Tolakians as a gesture of respect, so that the deceased’s family could mourn him. The head was still adorned with a small golden ring through its nose, though no other jewelry was present. The Ota did not observe such behavior themselves, but understood that it was common practice for other humanoids. He figured that the commune would agree, and studied the rest of the belongings, noting that many were likely to be magical. He decided at last that most of the belongings needed to be seen by the Elder Ota, an ancient druid that was called ‘Brambles.’ He was more likely to know about these magical belongings than simple Geremy was.

Geremy called out to the elder Brambles when he reached the edge of Brambles’ mushroom field (which was only a few hundred yards from his own little garden). As far as his vision held clear, Geremy could see the shoulder high fungi spread out through the chasm floor. Brambles kept a great deal of growth around his domicile, and when he was home it was nearly impossible to navigate through the great caps without irritating Elder Brambles. Ota farmers are very particular about their crops, and Brambles was no exception. He seldom left, and usually it was to run political errands with neighboring Dwarves, or to look after the other Ota. He often took the forms of the creatures of The Deep when he wandered, just to keep an eye on the Ota’s neighbors without drawing undue attention to himself.

Brambles was wandering his fields this day in search of food. He was hoping to find a nice tasty blind rat or some delicious little salamanders to eat, since his current form was ideally suited to eating such things. His snake body slithered silently between the great fungus stalks. Today, he was an impressive subterranean version of the anaconda nearly 14 feet in length and weighing nearly 150 pounds. He noted the presence of an Ota at the edge of his senses, the warm signature of the Ota’s body cleanly differentiated from the background coolness by the snake body’s incredible infrared senses. Distracted from his hunt by Geremy, he assumed his natural form, that of the Ota, a few feet away from Geremy.

Unsurprised by the sudden appearance of his leader, Geremy simply reached out his right hand, the normal Ota gesture of introducing communication. The Elder Ota responded in kind with his off-hand, and Geremy shared all that had transpired that day with the Elder. The elder turned to walk back to his domicile, still maintaining the light grip that they shared as they conversed. Geremy followed, more mindful of where he was going than of looking at the Elder. It was always this way when Ota conversed. Their touch communicated everything an Ota needed to understand, and was completely inscrutable to outsiders. In fact, a casual observer might mistake the two Ota walking and talking for two lovers lost in thought, silently walking along and holding hands. This of course, would have been a gross misconception, Ota being nothing like most humanoids.

Ota were, for starters, asexual. They looked like humanoids well enough, with their bilaterally symmetrical approximations of bipeds. Their bodies were comprised of dozens of symbiotic colonies of plant matter that worked together to approximate humanoid form in order to communicate with others, to work, and to find food and safety. This gave them a very humanoid appearance, but a very non-humanoid mentality. They were in fact quite well known for the misconception that they didn’t have a single mind, but instead had a group mind that simply thought of itself as “I” for simplicity’s sake. It was certainly a matter of fact that mind-altering effects did little to keep an Ota from fleeing or defending itself. Most Ota appeared more male than female, but most Ota considered themselves to be neither, although most outsiders referred to Ota as ‘he’ or ‘him’ in conversation.

Geremy related the tale of the fallen Tolakian to Brambles, who was very interested in the possessions of the late Belectholdil. Brambles was very aware of the powers of sorcery that the Tolakians wielded, and was concerned that the Ota he nurtured in the belly of the chasm might somehow be blamed for this accidental death. It was a possibility with very bad outcome for the Ota, if he was right about it. As they reached Brambles’ home (which was really nothing more than a smaller cave) he decided what must be done. Brambles would have to take the belongings back to the Tolakians. It would be a long journey, but it was safer than having angry Tolakians bearing down on his commune. (Brambles did not pretend to understand Tolakians very well, and had no idea that they were almost as non-aggressive as his own people. It was a common mistake that most people held against the Tolakians, due to their kinship with other reptilian races.)

Brambles said his farewells to Geremy, who returned to his farming. Geremy was a good person, but was not really interested in the affairs of the world. He was more than happy to hand off the responsibility of returning the Tolakian’s possessions to Brambles. He decided that going through Dwarven territory with so much magic might be awkward for the Dwarves, who were uncomfortable with arcane arts. It would be more dangerous, but he would take the old ways inhabited by the Khazini. Their self discipline and strict adherence to the formality of contracts should ensure his safe passage through the region. He could think of no reason for the Khazini to bar his passage. He would simply flow through their area like nutrients through a root.

Khazini territory was not loosely defined. Its borders in The Deep were very well defined, and very well guarded. Most races avoided the Khazini as much as possible. Of course, that was mostly due to the well-earned reputation the Khazini had concerning the value of life. A typical Khazin would not bother a wanderer, unless it had a contract out on said wanderer. In that case, the wanderer would probably be bothered to death by the Khazin. Brambles was counting on this to get him through their territory with a minimum of hassles. The alternative, moving through the Lizardfolk’s territory, was unthinkable to Brambles. They were-by comparison to the Khazin-mindlessly violent, with little in the way of discipline or rules, and there was a good chance that anything walking through their territory would end up in a stew-pot, animal or vegetable!

The Khazini were very well disciplined, both within their borders and without. They were known for their affiliations with various monastic sects, and though the disciplines that were taught were often very violent in nature, they were also designed to instill order among the Khazini. Khazini were an unusual race of humanoid, resembling humans for the most part, except for their thicker necks…and their huge, gaping, mouthfuls of teeth…and their penchant for swallowing little animals whole…and…well, you get the idea. They are frightening to look upon, especially the first time one sees a Khazin with her mouth agape. Khazini culture was matriarchal, and mostly their females traveled from home. Males generally didn’t travel unless they were exiled. A Khazin was only exiled for grievous transgressions of Khazini law. They despised those that could not keep their word, and those that behaved erratically. Females seldom fell to that sort of behavior, so mostly males in exile wandered The Deep, usually working for Drow, or sometimes being hired by races like the Tolakians as defenders or messengers.

Brambles had just entered Khazini territory when he was stopped by an advance patrol of three of the humanoids.
“What is your business here, Ota?” growled the leader, a large female with a dark, almost purple hide.

“I seek passage through your territory, Mistress,” replied Brambles.

“Can you pay the tax, I wonder?” returned the dark Khazin. She leered at the dark bundle tucked under Brambles’ arm. The outline seemed a little unfriendly, and the bloody sack at his hip seemed no less suspicious.

“I am returning a lost soul to his people,” Brambles offered, declining to respond to the blatant request for a bribe. “This Tolakian fell, and I am returning his head to his people.”

With that, he released the ties that held the bloody sack to his waist, and opened it for the Khazini to see. They all leaned in towards the Ota’s grisly prize. They seemed eager, almost exited, to see the dead Tolakian’s head. The lead Khazin reached out for the head, and snatched the golden ring from the late Tolakian’s nose.

“This will do fine, Ota wanderer. You may pass unhindered into Khazini territory. Be aware of the restricted areas, there are signs to ward unwelcome creatures from them. You can see, eh wanderer?”

“Of course,” said Brambles, returning the head to its sack, pleased that the bribe did not cost him personally, as he had little worth anything to offer the Khazin. He walked past the now-indifferent patrol, and journeyed deep into Khazini territory. He avoided the ‘restricted’ areas with ease. There’s nothing like a head on a pike to get your attention, after all.

The Nombril dropped the lifeless body of Negaerion to the ledge, and immediately went into a rigidly upright posture. An observer might have thought it truly to be a statue at that moment, but the moment did not last for long. The image of a gem-encrusted axe swirled slowly before the mind’s eye of the creature, and it contemplated its own unfair existence at the realization of the missed opportunity. It had thrown away a tool that could have greatly reduced the time it would need to prepare for its mission. It set out on foot to the nearest cavern leading away from its ledge, a place that it had come in through some 300 years earlier. It stalked away with purposeful strides, leaving the body of Negaerion to the scavengers of The Deep.

Brambles had been traveling The Deep for more than two days. He decided that he would be less bothered by the Khazini if he traveled and rested in his own form, rather than taking animal forms, since there was a good chance he would be mistaken for food by a Khazin that happened upon him in the dark. He had grown restless in his natural form and was beginning to contemplate the dangers of at least traveling in animal form, when for the first time in two days, he happened upon a lone Khazin. The Khazin was wandering the caverns almost absentmindedly. It was a warning sign that Brambles immediately noted, and began to consider his options for flight away from the lone Khazin.

The Khazin male, Gulan, wasn’t really interested in causing havoc to Brambles specifically. He just wanted to start his exile in a style befitting his newfound love of random violence. His exile had become the price of his choice to forego the monastic training and seek a life of chaotic violence. He had originally planned to kill a patrol or two on his way out, but seeing this lone Ota really gave him a charge. He was truly hungry for some of the old ultra-violent, and this wanderer was going to be the recipient of his gift of brutality. He altered course so that he would end up precisely in the path of the Ota, and when the Ota reached him, it stopped.

“Whatcha carrying, bean-man?” snarled Gulan, hoping his insults would jibe the Ota into some kind of reaction that he could use as an excuse.

“Only the remains of a fallen Tolakian,” replied Brambles, hoping that the sight of the head would diffuse the situation. He reached for the ties to his sack again, but the Khazin quickly shot a hand out to stop him.

“I’m more interested in what you have under your other branch, there, bush-head.”

“Insults will not endear me to your questions, young Khazin,” responded Brambles, now irritated at the insolence of the obviously young and impertinent Khazin. This was exactly what Gulan was hoping for, and he spat on the ground at Brambles’ feet, saying “You’ll pay for your attitude this day, little walking tuber!”

The Khazin erupted into motion, long before Brambles had realized that this was the Khazin’s preface to a fight. He began to shift into a fighting stance too late, as the Khazin’s fists and feet blurred before his eyes. He had been struck several times before he could even consider his alternatives. Hoping that the Khazin was as young an inexperienced as he seemed, Brambles called out a quick little spell of transmutation. His plan was to simply remove himself from the fight, and force the Khazin to look elsewhere for his trouble. As he was gesturing, though, the Khazin’s amazing reflexes gave it the time to reach out and deftly pluck the bundled axe from beneath the arm of Brambles. Too late to change his mind, Brambles completed the spell and sidestepped away from the Khazin, right into the solid rock wall of the cavern. The Khazin roared in frustration, exposing the great chasm of its throat, and forcing Brambles to cower in his stony retreat, despite his relative safety.

Flushed with newfound rage, Gulan tore at the package, ripping the beautiful greataxe free of its trappings. A moment’s hesitation as he marveled at the craftsmanship of the weapon was all he gave it; the rush of his heated blood was flushing all coherent thoughts from his mind. With a second horrible scream, he flung himself at the wall with the axe in hand, and began carving great gashes in the stone with the heavily enchanted axe. He had no idea how much the axe could take, he only knew the joys of his first barbarian rage, and was exulting in the strength that it had infused into his limbs. He felt as though he could actually carve the lousy Ota free of his rocky hideaway.

It took a while for the rage to pass, and Brambles began to seriously doubt the stone’s ability to keep him concealed safely, but the entire passage was carved by time and water out of stone, and he was in no danger of being ejected from the stone by the scratches of the axe-wielding Khazin, no matter how deep. Frustrated and now winded, the Khazin turned dejectedly towards a side passage, and stomped off into the darkness, still clutching the greataxe in his hand. Brambles, with great discretion, decided that the prudent course of action would be to wait as long as possible for the unruly Khazin to get as far as possible before leaving the safety of his rock wall. Nearly an hour later, he stepped free of the wall and continued on his previous course, determined at least to return what he could, and to report the theft of the axe to the Tolakians. It would be their problem, not his, to recover it if they wished.

Gulan stomped off towards the center of the Khazini territory. The axe felt quite good in his hands. It almost made him feel satisfied, but not quite. He decided that he would risk being seen by his people one last time, and travel upwards to the Dwarven kingdom. It was closer to the surface, and he would have a greater chance of running into stupid adventurers upon which he could recklessly mete out injury. As an added bonus, he would happen to be going through Scalemin territory. He recalled that the Scalemin were not as warlike as their Lizardman cousins, and hoped that he would get to try a few of them out on the end of his new axe before the journey was done.

He passed through the center of his former territory unhindered. Most of the Khazini were attending a matriarchal ascension. They happened whenever an elder matriarch died, and her position was taken by a new female. Gulan had sped that ascension himself, by slaying the elder matriarch for the female that was taking her position on this day. For that reason, and because of his disinterest in following the tenets of the Khazini lifestyle, Gulan had been exiled. He quickly climbed the columns and ladders to the higher levels above the home of his people. “Never again will I set foot in that hell,” thought Gulan, as he made the final climb out of his old territory into a no-man’s land between their caverns and those of the Lizardmen.

He stalked the Lizardman territory for several days…completely unaware of the danger that lurked just behind him at nearly every step. The Nombril was closing on its prey. Gulan had no idea anything was hunting him, or he might have fled. He killed Lizardmen as he found them, often without them even getting a chance to counterattack or even to react at all.

“This greataxe is clearly of a superior quality. It must be heavily enchanted,” muttered Gulan. To his extreme surprise, the axe actually responded. It was just a sensation, not a verbal or even telepathic response, but it was a definitive “YES.” Gulan’s hairless hide prickled, the tiny shark-like scales stiffened in an imitation of goose bumps. Intrigued, Gulan decided to pursue the thought further. /You must be ancient, to be so powerful,/ thought Gulan, still not convinced enough to even whisper aloud the thought. “YES,” was the immediate reply from the greataxe. This time, there was no mistaking it as a fluke or as an errant artifact of his own mind. Gulan nearly dropped the axe with the shock of realization that this gaudy, overdressed greataxe was addressing his questions directly even when he only thought them to himself!

Would you like to kill again?, thought Gulan, now thoroughly entranced by the “talking” greataxe.

“YES”

“Okay then,” thought Gulan aloud, “who’s next?” There was no reply from the weapon. Gulan decided that the weapon simply didn’t care who was next.

Gulan had wandered through Lizardman territory leaving a path of corpses that was easily readable by all but the most simple of creatures. The Lizardmen had finally been alerted to the menacing Khazin that was randomly killing their brothers, and had created a full search party to wipe out the intruder. When they discovered that he had passed on through their territory into the regions occupied by Dwarves, they decided instead to let the murderous Khazin go. They were uninterested in explaining their losses to the Dwarves, who would be eager to take advantage of a weakened Lizardman tribe. They chalked up the deaths to the cost of living near Khazini zealots and went home dejectedly.

The Nombril stood over the lifeless body of the Ota, Brambles. It had been even more difficult than killing the Sorceress, but The Nombril had prevailed once again. It had used more of its power reserves than it thought prudent in order to destroy the Druid, but a Druid would never have left The Nombril alone, once discovered. It was too much of an abomination to nature, no lover of nature would willingly ignore its presence. Fortunately, the Ota Druid had a great reserve of spells, which The Nombril had now added to its own repertoire. This was one aspect of The Nombril that historians had gotten right.

“It appears that most knowledge from a slain subject becomes temporarily accessible to the creature. This only takes place if the creature has the opportunity to contact the victim psychically during the encounter, and when faced with multiple targets, The Nombril unerringly seeks out those with arcane, divine, or metaphysical (psionic) powers, and attempts to usurp those powers from that victim before moving on to destroy others, often using spells stolen from the mind of the slain individual.” –excerpt from The Book of Constructs, by Uriah Paumborter, Artificer

Gulan’s grin went wide with glee as he spied the small band of Scalemin. He had unknowingly passed through the edge of Dwarven territory and back out into the wilds of The Deep. The Scalemin were particularly distasteful to the anarchic Khazin. He once again felt his blood boil in his head, and his arms grew light. The greataxe seemed to gleam with joy at the possibility of drawing the life from another creature. It buzzed positively in Gulan’s grip, and he tightened his fingers on the well-worn haft as he grimly strode forward into the field of view of the Scalemin.

It never occurred to Gulan that he might be quite close to the surface at this point in his travels. Ever since he had attacked the cavern wall that the sneaky Ota had hidden in, he had been overwhelmed with a desire to kill and spread chaos. It was overriding his natural inclinations to self-preservation, and driving him much closer to the sun that he had ever been before.

The leader of the small band of Scalemin’s eyes bulged even more than they naturally did, impossibly huge. The other two members of his foraging troupe were watching him with curiosity and apprehension. He immediately hissed to them to take cover, but it was too late. The obviously enraged Khazin had spotted them and was stalking right towards them. There was little chance that they could outrun this creature, trained as the Khazin often were to run with great strides that usually outstripped most evenly sized creatures. Cassimi, the Scalemin leader, contemplated the situation for a split second, and decided that although his education was centered on defense and skillful negotiation of hazards, that they might have to fight clear of this menace. He stepped into the open and whispered in his native tongue to his followers. “Draw your weapons, but keep them from his sight, unless he attacks me.” The low hissing whispers carried well in the cavernous chamber, and although Cassimi knew the Khazin might hear him, he doubted the thing had bothered to learn the Scalemin tongue. He dropped his torch onto a small rock outcropping to leave his hands free.

Gulan saw the weakling Scalemin dive for cover, but took no heed. There was still one standing, obviously brave enough to face him down. He took in the odd features of the Scalemin ranger as he approached. He noted the fine ridge of horns that started somewhere out of sight near the base of the Scalemin’s spine and culminated in a prominently displayed horn just above the reptilian’s nose. Gulan thought to himself that he had better watch out for that horn, but the twin pair of sickles at the Scalemin’s hip took more of his notice. Gulan strode purposefully across the cavern floor. If necessary, he would carve the other Scalemin out of their rocky hiding places, just as he had tried to do with the devil-plant Ota. First he was going to dispatch this brave little Scalemin, though.

“Come out, little scaly-men, I won’t hurt you,” he growled. His evil grin gave away his intent though. The smile of a Khazin is not lightly observed. It is perhaps one of the most terrible images that a humanoid face can configure itself into. Cassimi’s knees began to quiver, and he silently thanked his Gods that the others did not see that, or else he might have been facing the wicked Khazin alone. Gulan’s lips stretched nearly from ear to ear, revealing multiple rows of teeth on each jaw, and when Gulan opened his mouth to speak, the gap of his open throat looked like a bottomless chasm to the poor Scalemin leader. Even though Cassimi knew that he was too large to be swallowed by the frightful Khazin, it still shook him to his bones to gaze upon the face of the terrible killer.
Cassimi was counting on his followers’ native ability to blend in with the background while he engaged the Khazin. As Gulan closed with the smaller Scalemin Cassimi, he felt himself fly into the now-familiar rage that seemed to make him incredibly strong and nearly invulnerable. Cassimi braced himself and drew his twin sickles. They seemed impossibly small compared to the deadly greataxe that the horrible Khazin was wielding. Cassimi decided that a defensive stance would buy him more time to draw the Khazin into a position where his followers could more easily come to the Scalemin’s aid. Cassimi took a step back, his long thin tail feeling the ground behind him for trip hazards. Gulan stomped forward and slashed into a sweeping attack, overextending his reach just as Cassimi stepped into his space and slashed out with a sickle, opening a fine gash on the Khazin’s chest. This only seemed to further enrage the young raging Khazin, and he launched into a furious rain of blows that Cassimi could only barely keep up with, his twin sickles curved away from Gulan as the Scalemin concentrated on deflecting the incoming blows. Cassimi’s companions saw that he would tire quickly. Fortunately, during the Khazin’s onslaught, he had allowed Cassimi to lure him backwards past the lurking companions. Gulan knew they were there, but for the moment was completely preoccupied with killing the impetuous little Scalemin.

“Your companions have deserted you little worm,” spat the outraged Khazin, his axe flying wildly at the small reptilian as if to punctuate his statement.

“And your wits seem to have deserted you, along with any hope of finding rapture,” replied the smaller Scalemin, deftly averting the down stroke of the gleaming greataxe. As he spoke, his two companions, a pair of young Scalemin that he was trying to teach, moved in unison to the sides of the Khazin, and almost as one, they flicked their wrists, sending their curved weapons into the muscled torso of the flailing Khazin. He howled with rage and fear as the kukri knives slid easily into his hide. One of the blows had struck something vital, and as he fell to his knees, he managed one last swipe with the greataxe, cleanly cleaving the surprised young Scalemin that had dealt him the death blow neatly in two. The axe thrummed with power even as it slipped from Gulan’s bloody fingers. He collapsed into darkness, and was gone.

The Nombril reached into its memory looking for a recent gift from the Ota he had slain. The plant-creature was not particularly powerful, but it had known a particular spell that was quite rare, and that would be very useful just now. The Nombril released the spell and touched a small rock outcropping that had recently been burned by a tar-like substance. A brief flurry of images were cast across The Nombril’s consciousness like a silent film on a screen of black glass, and it turned on its heels and walked over between the two corpses.

The Nombril knelt in a dried pool of blood, Khazin blood mixed with Scalemin to form a blackened sheet of death on the cavern floor. It beckoned a nearly forgotten spell from his memory, the spell would allow it to communicate with the dead Khazin, albeit briefly. Aware of the limitations of the spell, The Nombril was forced to also attempt to speak aloud for this. It had always had the ability, but rarely devoted the time to bother, preferring to communicate telepathically. Unfortunately, the dead could not speak in this manner, nor were they likely to respond to its questions if posed in that manner.

The horrible wounds inflicted on the dead Scalemin to its side were now distorted beyond recognition; several days’ worth of animal and insect feedings had all but hidden the clean cuts that had severed the body. The Nombril was not fooled though, it knew that the Khazini possessed the strength for such blows, and there was no weapon present. It knew that it must be getting closer to its goal. The Khazin, still nearly whole in spite of the scavengers of The Deep, lay in the dried pool of blood, its still-open eyes clouded with death, and its death’s head grin gaping. The Nombril’s voice croaked out of its long-unused mouth experimentally, saying:

“I am…The Nombril…you…will answer…my…questions.” With that, he released the spell that he had carried with him for more than two hundred years, and a foul sputtering intake of breath made a hissing sound as the dead flesh took in air to respond to the questions.

Gulan the corpse spoke. His voice too was weak and raspy, though not exactly from disuse, “Yes…God?”

Cassimi mourned the loss of his student briefly. The Deep was a harsh teacher, though, and they had both been warned. Class was over for the day, so Cassimi and his remaining student-a young female thief turned nature-lover named Jasixa-headed for the surface, the horrible greataxe safely wrapped and tucked into Cassimi’s belt.

Several days later, Cassimi and Jasixa, now on the surface, were wandering through a swamp in the foothills near the cavern entrance they had come from. They were foraging on the surface, not something they commonly did, but Cassimi knew there were valuable things to learn from surface-dwelling creatures and plants, just as there was from The Deep. They had been wandering for several days, never far from the entrance, thanks to the innate sense of direction that the experienced Cassimi possessed. They had found a multitude of edible plants and insects to feed on, and Jasixa was extremely exited about the feeling of being in the open, with no stone overhead.

Cassimi had known for some time that they were being watched, but whatever was spying on them was either very elusive, or simply in his imagination. Not being one to believe in dismissing his perception, he assumed the former, and stayed very alert, even while Jasixa slept, he did not. The sensations were worse during the night, so Cassimi dozed lightly during the hottest parts of the day while Jasixa watched over him. She was aware that something was bothering him, but her eyes were not trained as his to see every movement of the fens, and so she was largely unaware of the threat. Cassimi’s warnings to her to stay close and to be alert when he slept seemed to her more like a leash than a necessity. Her heart was well disciplined, though, by the recent loss of her partner and friend, Gissi. His death at the hands of the Khazin deserter kept her mindful of the dangers of the world. Cassimi had laid the murderous greataxe at his side. Jasixa decided to herself that no harm could come from a simple inspection of the weapon. It looked quite valuable to her; it was clearly not of Dwarven make, at least to her eyes. She had some experience with valuing items quickly, and had initially assessed the value of the axe to be well over anything she had ever seen before. She quietly stole over to Cassimi’s sleeping form, and reached for the weapon. The buzzing flies of the swamp were the only sounds to be heard, but her heart beat in her chest so loudly that she was sure that Cassimi could hear it.

Her heartbeat was audible, but not to Cassimi. His sleep had passed from a natural drowse into a magic-bolstered heavy slumber. The Nombril had crept through the muck and the mud of the swamp ever so slowly. It did not need to breath, eat, or sleep, and its quiet approach had taken days to engineer, but finally it was within reach of the source of its desire.

It watched the cagey movements of the younger Scalemin, her tail swishing in the air to balance her as she reached down to grasp the haft of the greataxe. She was so close to The Nombril that it could make out the fine rise and fall of her narrow chest, and the rush of blood that came with the adrenalin pumping through her small form was visible in the arteries close to the surface of her scaled hide on her neck. She never saw the chipped and flaked form of The Nombril, caked as it was with muck and submerged in the water just inches from her hand. Her hand closed around the weapon’s finely polished handle just as the great arm of The Nombril edged out of the water and grasped her arm firmly. She cried out, but to no avail. Cassimi slept as soundly as a young hatchling. Jasixa quickly brought her kukri to bear on the arm that was crushing all sensation out of hers, but the blade bounced harmlessly off of the creature’s arm. The impenetrable stone arm inexorably crushed first the muscles and then the bones of her arm, rendering it useless. The greataxe dropped soundlessly into the mud at The Nombril’s feet, as it rose out of the muck. Still clutching the useless arm in one hand, it reached for her slender neck with the other. She struggled uselessly, trying over and over to stab the obsidian horror with her kukri and screaming Scalemin obscenities. Finally The Nombril closed a stony fist around her throat, forever silencing her shrill cries.

The lifeless body fell to the ground next to Cassimi just as he was coming out of his torpor. The spell’s duration had expired just as the life was being squeezed from poor Jasixa, and Cassimi reached for the greataxe as he rolled to his feet to face the threat. He was wholly unprepared to face a mud-covered seven foot obsidian statue that appeared, initially, to be of a human male. He was further unprepared for it to thrust out its right hand, palm outward and blast him with several bolts of pure energy. The magic missiles followed Cassimi unerringly through his defensive roll, and struck him squarely in the chest as he rose to his feet within reach of the obsidian monstrosity. He staggered back a half-step, and then stepped forward, bearing down with all of his might on the greataxe, now uncovered. It bit deep into the stony form, and The Nombril roared. It was a horrible sound, the sound of great stones splitting and cracking in two mixed with the screams of dying animals.

Cassimi decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and spun on his bare reptilian heels, taking off at a dead run across the tufts of grass and low mounds of the fens. He heard the splashing of the abominable construct as it followed him, but he was not interested in trying to fight, he only wanted to escape the thing. He ran so hard and so long, that he did not even notice that he had moved from swamps back into the foothills. Nor did he notice the plethora of small, recently dug holes that dotted the area until he fell face first into one as he ran looking backwards on his pursuer.
The Molburs had recently moved into this territory to dig, having heard both that it was mostly uninhabited, and that it was rich in mineral deposits and food sources. All three rumors had turned out to be true, a stroke of luck that the Molburs seldom had in life. Their squat forms and furry hides made them look like large balls of hair to most other races, but for the Molbur, these compact and well-insulated forms made the digging of shallow earth quite a simple task. TeGran ab Red Hills was the digger of the hole that Cassimi had stumbled into. Word of the chase had reached TeGran through the Drum-Speak that all Molbur practiced by stomping on the packed earth of their tunnels. They had also passed on word of The Nombril. The Molburs had a strong tradition of oral history, and most of them knew the stories of The Nombril and its inscrutable questing and trails of destruction and mayhem. TeGran flexed his long, heavy claws involuntarily as the Scalemin ranger tumbled headlong into the tunnel.

Cassimi had been running for over 12 hours, putting greater and greater distance between himself and the obsidian entity. He knew instinctively that the thing was still following him though. Unfortunately he never made the connection to the creature’s true passion, so The Nombril /was/ following, much more slowly than the running ranger could travel, but Cassimi had no chance of completely evading him while he held the greataxe. When he stopped tumbling at last, he lay there gasping for air. His scales were hot and dry, and his heart was pounding in his chest. He had long ago reached the point of exhaustion, and wasn’t thinking anymore, instead acting purely on instinct.

“You are in my burrow, runner.” said the Molbur in impeccable common. Fortunately the Scalemin was a traveler, and knew the tongue of Man.

“There is a thing following me-”

“It is The Nombril.” TeGran interrupted the winded reptilian. As he said the words aloud his claws flexed again. The dim moonlight from outside cast only deep shadows into the little den. Cassimi clambered to his feet, the greataxe still clutched in one hand loosely. TeGran pointed to the axe with one of his heavy claws.

“That is what The Nombril seeks. You have brought it to us, and made our lives forfeit, because we must give them to ensure that the creature does not obtain this weapon.” Cassimi looked at the little furry Molbur with incredulity as he hefted the axe.

“This thing?” he croaked. It slipped from his fingertips and bit into the packed earth of the Molbur’s burrow entrance.

“That…thing…is the Greataxe of Malun-Khul. Please pick it up and follow me.” Without any further delay, the little Molbur turned on his furred heels and walked deeper into the burrow.

“Who are you, and how do you know about this axe?” asked Cassimi, plucking it gingerly from the dirt.

“I am called TeGran.” He replied, not bothering to answer the second question.

“I cannot see in the dark,” was the belated reply from Cassimi, as he stumbled after the waddling pile of fur.

From the darkness ahead came a glimmer of alchemical light. The creature had struck a hardened rod against his own thigh, and now it was emitting a soft but bright glow, like muted sunshine. The rod cast odd shadows from the claw-dug walls of the low tunnel. Cassimi put the Greataxe across his chest and ruminated to himself quietly about the Molbur in front of him as he quickly caught up with him. Was he being helped by the furry little humanoid, or was this another trap to be avoided. His wanderings had never taken him this far from swampy areas before, so he had no experience with their race, but is initial meeting with the Molbur seemed encouraging.

The Nombril quietly seethed with rage at being so close to the weapon only to have it snatched from him once again. If the enemies of the great Malun-Khul discovered what that weapon was before he could obtain it, the entire cycle of frustrated hunting would have to begin all over again. The Nombril easily followed the little reptilian’s tracks. The iguana-like reptilian was running flat out, and leaving very obvious tracks that even a novice hunter could have followed without difficulty.

When the tracks ended at the entrance to a small burrow, The Nombril permitted itself to experience a small grim feeling of success. It had seen these burrows before, and unless a great deal had changed, these little burrowing humanoids would be easy pickings for The Nombril. It crouched down onto all fours and began to crawl down the little tunnel effortlessly. It picked up the trail again easily, and was pleased that it saw also the Molbur’s tracks. It hoped that it would be able to slaughter some of the meddlers before it found the Greataxe of Malun-Khul. It hoped against dreaming that it would find a great number of them /after/ it had recovered the powerful weapon. Its purpose and that of The Nombril were so alike that a near-symbiotic relationship would probably assert if the two were ever joined, to the detriment of all living things.

“Stupid fool, you have doomed us all with this thing!” shouted the Duggan leader of the Molburs. It was normally his duty to lead the Molburs from site to site, and to act as the representative of their tribe when dealing with outsiders. He was not actually angry with TeGran, he was only upset that TeGran would probably not relinquish his right to be the Glumug leader while they had the axe. This tribe was huge, over a hundred strong, and its tunnels extensive and spread over several miles of land. Such responsibility was not lightly handed off to some young Molbur, regardless of his battle-prowess.
The others in the congregational chamber were not fooled by the Duggan’s inane outburst. They did share some of the sentiment of the statement though, and were visibly upset at the appearance of TeGran and the Scalemin ranger Cassimi.

They weren’t bothered by the Scalemin himself, they knew of the iguana-kin and knew they needn’t fear him. It was what he carried that bothered them so. The Greataxe of Malun-Khul had returned to the Molburs after three hundred years of peace and quiet. Over five generations of Molburs had passed down through their oral traditions the stories of what havoc had been wreaked on the world by the Greataxe of Malun-Khul and by those that sought it for their own use.

The meeting was quickly organized by TeGran, who did not relinquish his right to be Glumug leader, just as the Duggan had feared. Fortunately for all involved, TeGran appeared to be a very competent young Molbur. His insights into the problem seemed well thought out, and after the meet was over, many Molburs asked him about it and discovered that he had in fact thought about the situation a great deal for most of his adult life. Fate had driven the Scalemin into the one burrow being watched by the one Molbur who had the greatest chance of succeeding in solving their problem.
It was quickly agreed upon that the axe could not stay with the Molburs. Though it was currently safe, the Molburs hadn’t the true power needed to thwart The Nombril, of which they knew a great deal. Without powerful magic, there was little chance that the Molburs could keep The Nombril away from its prized possession. It had been created for the sole purpose of recovering the weapon by Malun-Khul’s followers. Once recovered, The Nombril would set out on a ferocious killing spree in honor of the elder god that created the axe, Malun-Khul. It would then only answer to the most devout and powerful of Malun-Khul’s priests.

No sapient creature would be foolish enough to allow that to happen, so the Molburs plotted quickly and quietly to determine their path. It was decided that they would travel to the land of elves, deep into the Menerwerdhil Woods, and give the Greataxe of Malun-Khul to them for safekeeping. They were not the only race the Molburs knew of that were powerful enough to protect the axe, but they were more trustworthy than humans, their second choice. It might have been a closer journey to travel to the human kingdom, but the foolish and superstitious humans would probably have rejected the Molburs’ request out-of-hand.

So the journey began, with TeGran and the Scalemin ranger, and a small band of burly Molburs, all proven warriors with a good sense of direction. They began to dig a path in the direction of the Menerwerdhil Woods, with their intuition and their powerful claws keeping them on the right road to salvation, or at least to purgatory.
The Nombril surveyed the damage. It had been a horrible bloody fight, but The Nombril had entered it almost gleefully. It had been surprised at how much stronger the little Molburs had grown in a few generations. Clearly they were breeding for strength now, rather than for speed as they had in times past. They had seemed almost awkward, but they were incredibly strong. Many of their mundane weapons had actually bitten into its stony hide, leaving long gashes and cracks in its body. Even their claws sometimes found purchase in its form, a fact that astonished and even concerned the ancient construct. What if it had become more vulnerable as time had passed?

It dismissed the thought even as it climbed up a small packed-earth tunnel. Clearly the little burrowers had simply bred themselves to be more powerful, and although they had actually caused concern to The Nombril over its own continued existence, they still fell in great numbers before finally fleeing. Enough remained for The Nombril to glean where the axe was being taken, though.

It crawled to the surface, covered nearly from head to toe in the filth of dead Molburs. It didn’t care for cleanliness, though. It still had mud from the swamps it had crawled through stuck to its back. It was completely consumed by its desire to get the axe.

Nothing else in its existence was even worthy of note. It began walking in the direction of the Menerwerdhil Woods. Its steady, measured stride was constant, never increasing or decreasing. It did not require sleep, or any form of rest. As it walked the gashes and cracks from the battle with the Molburs slowly began to close, just as every other time before. By the time it reached the edge of the wood two weeks later, the body was once again pristine.

It stomped past the edge of the wood with stern anticipation. It bounced back, a surprised look came over its glassy obsidian face. It reached out and tried to push past the invisible barrier, but to no avail. Nothing in its memory seemed likely to be useful…wait, it remembered that it had taken the power to cross great distances instantaneously from a human mind bender many long years ago. It had never used that power, preferring to save it for a special occasion. Now was the time. The Nombril stood upright and erect, as always, and concentrated on breaching the barrier and looked as far ahead of him as the forest’s limited field of view would allow. It released the psionic energy, and felt itself being thrust through time and space. Instantaneously, The Nombril ceased to exist at the edge of the wood, and began to exist in his new location. Each place was graced with a loud “POP!” as the air around the construct rushed in to fill the suddenly emptied air and was just as suddenly forced out of the location of its arrival.

It looked around and surveyed its location. It was not where it had intended to go. In fact, it was nowhere near where it wanted to be. It was not really quite sure where it was at all. A quick introspection revealed that it was still on its native plane of existence. It looked around for some visual stimulus to connect with. Everywhere it looked, there was nothing but blinding white. It felt solid beneath the construct, so The Nombril took a tentative step forward. On the edge of its peripheral vision it saw now that there was a small rock outcropping sticking out of the icy glacial wasteland. It focused on the outcropping and began to walk…

Coming soon: D&D 4.0 stats for the creatures described here in this work of fiction.

This booth is made from readily available materials. You should be able to buy the metal corner pieces and bungees at a local swap meet. The rest should be available at any local hardware and lumber store.

THE EQUIPMENT

• 4 closet poles 7 foot long, for uprights
  (Standard closet pole is 1½ inch diameter. I do not recommend using anything smaller.)
• 3 closet poles 9′ 9″ or 11′9″ (for 12′ width) for cross-beams
• 4 closet poles 5′ 5″ or 6′ 5″ (for 12′ depth) for arches
  
• 4 metal corner pieces
• 2 metal roof arch pieces
  
• 1 blue tarp (preferrably heavy duty type with a silver coat on interior and reinforced corners) 10′x10′ or 12′x12′ (alternately, you can get a rectangle with an additional 5-10′ of length, to make a water-shedding back wall, but you will definitely need to buy an additional 10′x10′ or 10′x12′ tarp to hide it from the public.
• 1 canvas drop cloth, no grommets required. 8 or 10 oz. canvas minimum. You can treat yourself with UV/water sealant, if you like. Try to get one at least the same size as your blue tarp. Preferrably get one that is one foot larger on both dimensions.
  
• 50′ sisal rope
  
• ball of twine
• 4-8 ten inch landscaping spikes (shown here with a standard tent spike, for size reference)
• 4-8 1½ inch washers with ½ inch inside diameter, for landscaping spikes
  
• A BUNCH of ball-capture bungees (like, 30 or more).
  

THE PROCEDURE

1. Taper ends of all closet poles, using sandpaper, wood plane, belt sander, palm sander…whatever you have and can use. Only one end of the 7′ poles needs to be tapered. The other end will rest on the ground, and should be left unaltered.
   When done, you want the ends to look something like this:
   
2. Connect the roof frame together. Be sure to make the three long parallel poles from the 9′9″ (11′9″) poles, and the four arch beams from the 5′5″ (6′5″). The four remaining 7′ poles are your uprights, or legs. Be sure to screw in the wing screws nice and tight (most come with eye screws now, which make nice places to hang things from…). When you’re done, it should be resting on the ground, and look something like this:
   
3. Attach the tarp. If you got a good heavy duty type, put the silver side down (if both sides are silver, then do what pleases you). You can attach them like this:
   
   …or wrap the poles double to make it tighter (pays off when it rains).If you have a rectangle, be sure to dangle the excess off of the side you will make into your back wall. When you’re done, it should look like this:
   
4. Cover the tarp with canvas drop cloth. Let a bit hang from front and rear — and sides, if possible. Using 3-4 foot lengths of sisal rope, securely wrap and tie the corners of the tarp to the metal corner pieces, wrapping any excess rope downward along bottom part of metal corner. Use twine to secure ends of sisal rope by whipping. To see whipping procedure, click here. If you’re just not handy with twine, you can tape the rope (any tape) about an inch from the end, dip your rope ends into Elmer’s glue or melted hot glue, and let them dry overnight…I’d do this before you hit the festival grounds, though, or you’ll be working all day around gooey glue covered rope ends. Remove the tape when your glue is dry. Viola!
   
5. At this point, you need to raise the roof on one side, and insert two legs into that side (remember, the upright poles need to be tapered too, but only at one end).
6. Then raise the other side, and insert the last two legs. Your roof will be upright, but somewhat unstable as-is, and should look something like this:
   
7. At this point, you can easily stabilize this shape, by running about 9′ of rope from each upright corner down to the ground about 18-24 inches from the corner pole’s foot. Drive a landscaping spike into the ground like a big tent stake and tie that baby off. If you don’t know how to tie a non-slip knot, buy a Bluejacket’s Manual at an Army-Navy Surplus. Every knot you’ll ever need is in there, plus a few you’ll never need. It’d be a good idea to put up a back wall, too, especially if your roof tarp was really long, to hide it and provide a stash spot behind the wall for things like coolers. Your finished booth should look something like this:
   

You should be able to figure out how to hang walls, etc. on your own from here. I’d recommend buying enough tarps to make four walls, just for security’s sake, but this should still be very close to my $200 mark. Most of all: enjoy!

If you don’t mind spending a bit more, I found a kit online that has the corners, bungees, and a tarp. You only have to buy canvas, poles, and tie-down hardware after that. They have a bunch of sizes and start at 10′x10′ for about $55 plus S/H. Click on the kit below to be whisked away to their website:

I’m not really known for being a very sentimental guy. If anything, I probably come off as a bit remote, to most people. Opening up about how I feel about something isnt’ really my cup of tea.

The news of the passing of Gary Gygax hit me HARD. It took some time for me to sort out these feelings. I couldn’t figure out why the hell the death of some old gaming dude was bothering me so much. I mean, he’s only half of the duo responsible for Dungeons and Dragons, anyways, right?

That may be true, but he was certainly the only half that anyone ever heard about. Without reading the news articles today, I doubt most gamers, even hardcore long-term gamers like myself, could name the other half (it’s Dave Arneson, in case you wondered).

And after some careful consideration over my perplexing emotional state, this is what I have concluded:

1. I am a ninny.
2. My earliest and fondest memories are of playing D&D, and role-playing games, most notably D&D, have been a fundamental element of my life.

I care more about this silly game than I do almost anything else (except the wife and kids…). Even when I was at my deepest depressions, or my sickest mania, I have always had time and patience for gaming.

I started playing D&D almost as it was being marketed for the first time (as D&D…I never played Chainmail). Hell, I played from the very first editions, and have played every version in between, and have bought the core books so many times over I can’t count them all. Even the ones that sucked (read: Skills and Powers).

Through it all, I have never lost sight of the fact that the root of all current popular role-playing gaming can be distilled down to the work of one E. Gary Gygax (and that other guy). Sure, there were a lot of table-top war games that contributed to the RPG industry. None have ever had or continue to have the powerful impact and immense following that D&D have, though. And nobody has been considered more the voice of gaming than one Ernest Gary Gygax. None of you (damn) kids would ever be playing Warcraft, or even Doom, for that matter, had it not been for the explosive popularity of role playing games like D&D (and you kids keep off my lawn).

But I never met him. Never shook his hand, or got to thank him personally. Never even got an autograph. So why is his death so directly affecting me? Because it’s the death of a symbol. In my life, there have been precious few symbols that stand the test of time. My parents gave me nothing to hang from, in that regard, except perhaps a disregard for parent-child relationships. My time served in the United States Navy gave me many things, but nothing with the lasting power of a symbol. Aren’t I a true patriot? Certainly, but not a flag-waving zealot, to be sure. My current life is wonderful, too, and filled with pleasures that only my own hard work and perserverance have afforded me. I’m blessed to be able to share it with a wonderful woman, and look forward to passing on my good fortune to my children. But I see nothing in any of these things that carries the power of a symbol, not this symbol. Not for me, at least.

This. This…stupid, silly book:

That, to me, is a SYMBOL. A symbol with the subtitle, “by Gary Gygax.”

It’s a symbol of the eternality of the child that lives behind these eyes. It’s a symbol of the joy of having a hobby that lets me make friends anywhere, at any time. It is, above all, a symbol of happiness. It gives me the breath to laugh in the face of death, and the temerity to dive headlong over precipice of oblivion, and after all that, I can have a glass of soda, eat a few cookies, and relax with a few good friends. How is that not powerful? How is that not a symbol?

There is one thing that I have done more than any other thing in my life, and that is play D&D. More than doing schoolwork, degrees notwithstanding. Certainly more than any job or career I have had. It has been more compelling to me at times than my own life (and there are those who would call this unhealthy, but look at me now, Jack Chick, and suck it). Frankly, there were times when I was so poor, that playing D&D was the only release I could afford (it helps if you have the books already…this was before WotC started revising the goddamn game every 18 months and fishing in your pockets). In all of my nearly thirty nine years on this planet, only eight of them were not haunted by those lovely little funny-looking dice, and those murderously heavy books.

Losing Gary Gygax weakens my perception of the immortality of this game. It puts my faith in its perpetuity at risk. It challenges my own mortality, too, of course. If Gygax can die, then what of my beloved game? Where in this fluid world will I be able to cast my childhood anchor? But the logical side of my brain takes over just in time, reminding me that the game is in other hands now, for better or worse, and is in no danger of slipping away (as long as WotC doesn’t screw the pooch). Frankly, as long as the old books are still available in used book shelves, the game is always just a store run away.

So, it’s with a heavy weight on my soul, that I say a final farewell to an idol of my childhood. My heart goes out to his family and friends, for they have lost a truly great man, faults and all. By comparison, all that I have lost is an icon of my youth, but that still makes me very sad, as silly as it may sound to you. Rest in peace, Gary. May all your hit rolls come up natural 20.

WHY EBOOK READERS?

I’m fascinated by emerging technology. Ebook readers aren’t exactly new, or even newsworthy, but I had an opportunity recently to paw at some of the best offerings available to mankind at the moment, and thought I’d share my thoughts on the whole experience. They offer a lot of convenience (carry an entire library of books in one book’s space), and a lot of new qualities (e-ink, which looks almost exactly like printed words on paper, and requires power only when refreshing/changing the page), but it remains to be seen, a) which is better, and b) why I would bother with either one.

HARDWARE

Over all, I preferred the look and feel of the Sony. I enjoyed the “smug factor” of waving a Kindle under the noses of friends and family and watching them salivate and “Oooh” at it, though…at least until I explained it was on loan and wasn’t really mine.

Kindle 1

Kindle 1’s greatest criticisms stem from its hardware. Its page buttons are enormous, and sit right at the device edges, where any stray thumb, finger, or stray bump in your sweater will cause a page turn (heh, heh…”The Sweater Bumps” is the name of my new band). This quickly became a nuisance that wasn’t soon forgiven or forgotten. The keyboard is larger than I expected to need on an ebook reader…it’s not a text machine or an email device, so why the huge keyboard, Amazon? Typing on the keyboard still isn’t very comfortable, in spite of the largeness (too big for thumbing like a smart phone, too small to use like a laptop), so surfing for book titles or looking things up wasn’t really all that much fun. The scroll-wheel and “magic” chrome LCD sidebar are cute, but ultimately not very compelling.

The styling has been described many ways (most amusing was that it was being called the “snow-speeder” after the Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back vehicle of the same name). It’s a bit goofy-looking, and feels cheap and chunky. As it turns out, my initial opinion of the hardware turned out to be dead right. Not only did I manage to break the screen by dropping the device (and the “book cover” was no help at all, since it doesn’t lock properly to the device), but Amazon has just released a complete redesign of the hardware. By the way, that drop was totally accidental.

Sony PRS 500

Although I preferred this device’s look and feel over the Kindle’s, it had its faults as well. Again with the large, clunky keyboard. This device had several options for page turning, none of which interfered with reading in any way, or caused any inadvertent page turning. I know it sounds like I’m harping on this, but 1) page turning is what drains the batteries on these devices, and 2) it’s a nuisance to keep finding yourself on a page you’ve either already read, or have no idea how you got there. Its “book cover” was locked solidly to the device’s rear cover, and required an alarming amount of force to remove (I was concerned I would break it before it gave and released normally). Mog smash.

The styling was sleek, and understated, as you’d expect from an experienced gadget company like Sony. It feels slightly heavy for its size (like every piece of fruit or vegetable you were ever told was ready to eat), which projects a sense of quality and resilience. Although this device was dropped, too (not by me, thankfully), I managed to break it a different way, so read on. Also, the white case on the Kindle makes the displayseem to be brighter than the Sony. It’s a total illusion, as it turns out, because both use identical e-ink displays, right down to their dimensions.

SOFTWARE

Kindle 1

The Kindle has a few advantages here, and they are big ones. First, the Kindle has a greater range of font sizes than the PRS 500.  Next, the Kindle’s biggest advantage: no leash. Wireless access not only to obtain more books, but for a number of web-based products like wikis, RSS feeds, and even subscription-based newspaper and magazine websites. Its use of Sprint’s Data Network (Amazon calls this “WhisperNet”) gives its users a dramatic range of freedom.

You can also manually load files to the device via USB-to-MicroUSB connection from any computer (no software required), but file type is a serious restriction here. Only its proprietary format and technically one other (.prc/.mobi, but only unprotected ones) can be read by the device, although I was able to find third party software that could make conversions from most other document formats. This is ironic, considering how web-friendly it is otherwise. No .html or .txt books? On the plus side, you can send documents to Amazon, who will (experimentally) reformat them and send them to your Kindle for a modest fee.

Sony PRS 500

Unlike the Kindle, you have to plan ahead with this device, and load everything you think you might want to read before you walk away from a computer. It’s got plenty of storage space, and like the Kindle 1, it has an SD card slot for expanding memory. Unlike the Kindle, and to my pleasant surprise, it reads a startling number of formats, including .pdf and .txt files. This makes dumping your own material on the device quite easy. Be warned with pdfs, though, if they are not resized to a smaller page size, reading them will require a lot of extra manipulation. If you have Acrobat Pro, this isn’t a problem, but not everyone can or will do this. The fact that it accepts a much wider range of formats (.lrf, .pdf, .txt, .rtf, ePub) makes it a good fit for people seeking to carry/convert their own works. Book purchases must be done via USB-to-MicroUSB, however, and software must be installed on the host computer before any transactions can be done (think iTunes and iPod).

So how did I break the Sony, you ask? I know you’re paying attention, so here goes: I just ran it dead. My loaner didn’t come with a wall-mounted charger, nor did it come with a warning like “Don’t drain it dead or it’ll never work for you again, dumb ass.” Sadly, that’s exactly what I did. Once it went back to its owner, who had the charger, it was easily enough recovered, but if I had been using that thing on travel without its charger, I’d have been one sad sack!

FOR PIRATES ONLY

I was able to quickly and quietly find a rather large supply of books to read via my friendly neighborhood bit-torrent website. It goes without saying that this was a) illegal, and b) fun as all hell. I took my ill-gotten gains (mostly in pdf and/or rtf formats), and downloaded some free software to convert them for both devices. Although the Sony takes .pdf and .rtf, I found I disliked the look/feel of those documents in the Sony, unless I converted them. Needless to say, none of the stuff I downloaded contained DRM, so there were no problems installing anything I downloaded.

As an additional experiment, I obtained a DRM-encrypted book from an associate (we’ll call her “Unwitting Accomplice” to preserve her anonymity). That content was formatted for Kindle, and was copied into the Kindle via manual cable connection, and played just as well as paid-for content and my DRM-free pirated content, so the pundits who cry foul at not being able to pass along books, once read, can bite me. Not true, simply put.

CONCLUSIONS

At the end of the day, I’m still not convinced I need any kind of eBook reader. It is novelty alone that would compel me to buy one at all, and at a nominal price of $200 for the Sony PRS 500, even it isn’t in my disposable income range. That means the Kindle, with it’s massive $360 price tag, is right the hell out. When you add to that cost the fact that books for either device still cost in the $10 average range (which is still more than an average paperback novel), it’s not a very convincing sales pitch.

I believe where this technology will find its niche is in replacing horrifically expensive printed textbooks and other educational materials, but only when the devices are capable of rendering higher resolution graphics (black and white is totally acceptable, but grainy charts and formulas are not!).

As of this writing, Kindle is in its second hardware iteration, having overcome a lot of its initial releases hardware shortcomings (no word yet on how easily Kindle 2 is destroyed, when dropped. If I get my hands on one, I’ll let you know). It looks slick, is reportedly much thinner and lighter, and probably makes the person holding one feel even more smug, when waving it under a peer’s nose. Cost is the same as Kindle 1, for those keeping score.

Sony hasn’t been idle, either. They released a PRS 505 with a few minor tweaks (slightly faster pagination, more memory, batteries that don’t stay dead when you run them dead, even if you don’t have a wall charger from your friend who forgot to mention, “Oh, by the way, don’t run it dead.”), and a sweet PRS 700 model that includes, among other improvements, annotation (apparently Kindle already had this…like I cared/noticed?), touch screen (sweet!) with gesture-based page turning, and a battery-draining backlight for reading in the dark (also sweet!). These features come with a hefty $399 price tag, though. I hear the downside of the touch screen is that the screen is now more glare-sensitive than standard e-ink screens. Watch for the tech guys to find a way to overcome that hurdle, or else say bye-bye to the touch screen yet again. I think most buyers will decide glare is more annoying than the touch screen is attractive.

Incidentally, I have a pocket eBook reader installed in my smart phone (freeware, duh), and guess what? I don’t read books on that thing, either! Surprise! ::sigh:: I guess I’m not the bibliophile everyone thinks I am.

I really enjoy the portability of flash drives, and I get the most bang for the buck on these by carrying not just music, or data files,  but my computing life!

• Server Simulators: As a growing web designer, I find I need to constantly flex my brain, and that means more or less constantly working on a web site, domain, or server. Unfortunately, that isn’t always possible. My work (like many, I’d bet) has a hideous firewall, behind which I am unable to access most administrative tools that are server-side. So I found MoWeS Portable ( MoWeS Portable, from CH Software). This is a true wonder! With this loaded on my flash drive (it takes on average about 100MB if you add extras, and why wouldn’t you? I’ll warn you, the installation can be a bit hinkey, but once done, it works just like a real server, only it’s running on your flash drive!  WOS also offers to sell you flash drives, but I’ve no idea whether they are good deals or not. My recommendation is to look for the fastest, rather than the largest flash drive. This will greatly improve your portable application performance. I personally loaded my portables to a micro HDD USB device, and although it’s not as hardy as flash, it doesn’t suffer flash’s shorter lifespan problems or speed issues. Of course, being a HDD, it died pretty quickly, so I bought a regular flash drive with the highest available write speed, for good measure. Go to WOS CH Software website, and it will custom-build you an installation package that includes any or all of the following:
  • Apache Server
  • MySQL Database Support
  • PHP support
  • Nearly a dozen other server-side installations, including content management systems like Joomla/Mambo, Wiki installations, Bulletin Boards, and more!
• PortableApps.com: The coders at PortableApps.com are committing acts of genius. They take open source and free software, convert them to flash-friendly (no registry writes needed to operate) software that can be easily installed to your flash drive, making it a portable workstation! Everything from Open Office (see Application Replacements above) to portable antivirus and anti-malware kits can turn your little thumb drive into a professional computer debugging kit and “anywhere” workstation. Imagine not carrying your laptop with you on vacation! Just find yourself an internet cafe, plug in the flash drive, and viola, your browser, complete with your favorites, your saved passwords, your office programs configured the way you like them. And when you pull the plug, nothing personal is left behind (oh, sure, browsing history is accessible, but who cares? Use an encrypted browser like xB Browser, and it won’t matter). Most of the freeware described on this page can be had in portable format, either from PortableApps.com or from other websites (see Links page for more sources).
• Toolkits: I recommend trying an Italian kit called winPenPack (English/Italian switch in upper right corner of page) that provides everything but the web server in a monstrous installation of over 150 different applications. Download it along with the English language pack, and you can run a super-kit without having to do setup yourself, if you like. This is a really big download, and unpacked can take up a GB of memory, so this is not for you “week-ender” flash owners with only 512MB! I recommend using drives with at least 2GB and preferrably 4GB, just to save room for your work, a few tv episodes, and a little music to listen to while working.This is really worth it, though! Alternately, you can “DIY” by getting yourself a little program called PStart (short for Portable Start), and put it on your flash drive. Then add all your other apps to its menu, and create an autorun.ini file to run the program at startup, and what do you get? A personalized operations menu running in the system tray of whatever computer you plug the drive into, that’s what!

The real charm of portable software is being able to use familiar programs that retain your setting preferences even in unfamiliar settings. I hope you find this at least as interesting as I do, and I look forward to reading your responses to my findings.

logo used without permission ...ain't I a stinker?

• It must be extremely light on RAM and ROM, at least when compared to other applications of its kind. This is especially important for programs that replace existing WinMo applications (and they must do the job a LOT better to be considered a true replacement).
• I prefer that it be a multi-tasker. Things that only do one thing must do it EXTREMELY well to be considered.
• It’s got to add something to the usefulness of the device. I’ve played some really fine games on my WinMobile device, but that’s a subject for its own page. Games are not considered part of usefulness in this article.

QuickMenu

Site Link

Lets you navigate your programs and settings menus just like a windows desktop machine. No more closing 6 folders after you’ve run your program. Menus are highly configurable, and can include or ignore currently open programs. Latest version has exclusion rules for always-on programs. Also has built in battery/memory indicators, and can make X button close programs or minimize, at your preference (with opposite action happening on long-tap of X button). Also has built in hibernate feature to recover RAM loss issues. Does so many things, and looks so clean and professional, I can’t resist. This is my #1 WinMo App!

Total Commander CE

Site Link

Vastly superior to the default file explorer in every WinMo version I have ever used. Manage & explore files and folders, create shortcuts, has built-in registry editor, built in FTP manager, built-in LAN manager, built-in ASCII editor. All around superior tool.

Mortplayer

Site Link

For those who use their mobile as a music player. Kills the screen and sets buttons to act like just a media player to save power while listening, has great skinning capabilities, and is very feature rich. It even has a timeout feature to play as you go to sleep and then “put itself to bed.” Also is compatible with most BT Stereo headset playback controls, which not many audio players can claim. Plays mp3 and ogg formats only, but skins, controls, and “player” modes are worth this limitation. This is a one-trick pony, but oh, what a trick!

iContact

Site Link

Replaces the default contacts manager, and does so with class. I was a long-time fan of PocketCM contact manager, but it just became too bloated and slow to continue recommending it. Although iContact does not manage SMS threading like PocketCM does, I found that I don’t really miss it that much. Skinnable, to a certain degree, but it’s main benefit is that it already looks 100 times better than the Windows default contact manager, and is finger friendly, unlike the default.

ClearTemp

Site Link
One of the few single use items on this list, but only because it performs a critical function that I haven’t seen done half as well by any multi-tasker (including SKTools). Cleans out your mobile’s temp files, strips dead links, clears unused registry entries, and generally makes your mobile a more hospitable environment for your files. Does it quickly and safely.

TCPMP

Site Link

The Core Pocket Media Player does for Windows Mobile what Windows Media Player did for PCs, but never could do for mobile devices. Simply a superior tool. Plays nearly any media format, and has easy to use controls and playlist management. Not my first choice for using my WinMo phone as an MP3 player, though, as was previously noted. Much better for video playback, and even other audio formats.

Schap’s Advanced Configuration Tool

Site Link

This amazing tool helps you modify a LOT of registry settings that would otherwise represent a tedious manual task. Saves me a TON of time on customizing after I flash a new OS to my phone, and lets me adjust things as needed. Just remember to close any open work before using this, as the last step is always a reboot.

Google Maps for Mobile

Site Link
Puts navigation tools on your mobile. Even those without GPS can use it, and it will use radio triangulation to guess your current location! Those with GPS have better accuracy, but the same full features. Needs no other explanation, really. Simply the “go-to” program for finding things on the go. Now has additional search capabilities for finding nearby businesses, etc. just like Live Search…which renders Live Search useless to me, yet again.

Opera Mini Browser

Site Link

The Pocket IE browser is, well, lame. It’s about as good as any other WAP browser, which isn’t saying much. If you want an iPhone-like web experience with your WinMo phone, try this browser. Yes, it’s by far the largest app I’ve ever recommended, but the heavy download comes with the functionality of a full browser. The only thing that would make this app perfect would be the ability to switch between full screen (default) and seeing my taskbar, so I could watch the clock and/or battery strength while surfing, and pull up notifications. Very smart surfing, considering the screen size.

UPX4PPC

Site Link

File sizes of applications and their libraries getting you down? Well, bring them down, in file size, I mean. This little application will make all of your uncompressed .exe files and .dll files much smaller (sometimes as much as 40% smaller!), leaving you with more memory space to add more applications!

MyMobiler

Site Link

Technically, this is a PC application, but it’s made for use with your mobile. Does the one thing ActiveSync should have done, but never did, lets you see and operate your mobile from your PC monitor! Allows for typing, touch actions, and can even be used to drag-n-drop files. Must-have for anyone who works from their mobile a lot while synchronized with a PC.

This list of freeware has been compiled over time, and only includes applications that I have personally tried out. I know that some would complain that this is a Windows-centric collection, and they would be right. I have no experience working with MAC machines, and hardly any with Linux. That’s not to say that I haven’t found some things that should work for MAC or Linux users, though; I have. So, enjoy the freebie-fest ! …and I apologize in advance if I get to rambling. I get really excited about some of these offerings.

Virus Protection

• Constant Protection: For a long time now, I have advocated AVG free personal antivirus, and while it is still around, I have come to hate the latest version. It is much more intrusive, its definition updates fail regularly, and are accompanied by alarming and persistent warning messages, and I frankly don’t trust it because of this. As my new first choice, I have appointed Clamwin Free Antivirus. First, its open source architecture means more hands-on development by people who care (i.e. hackers), second, it just f-ing works, and it doesn’t irritate me while it’s doing it. It has one failing, in that it does not scan real-time. Considering it’s free, I’m willing to deal with that. Third, it has a portable version you can pack onto a thumb drive and carry with you. I regularly scan my downloads before unpacking or installing them anyways, and if they are the least bit suspect (say…pirated, for example), I run them in a sandbox first (see below). Coming in a close second is Avast! AVG and Avast! don’t score as well as many paid-for programs, but that’s kind of the point. If you’re too cheap or too poor to afford good antivirus, you settle for what you can afford. These are reasonable alternatives to a good paid-for program. If you’re willing to pay for the best, you don’t have to pay the most, either. For paid antivirus (I know, this is a freeware list, but if you’re running a business, even a home office, you should be using something like this), I recommend Nod32, which uses the Kaspersky AV model, over all others. Simply scores the highest on all tests I have reviewed, and is cheaper than many at $39 per year. The link takes you to register for a free 30 day trial. After that, you’re on your own, but you could do a lot worse.

• On-Demand Scanning: For on-demand scanning, I like using AOL Active Virus Shield (requires an email address for activation) which is another Kaspersky-based AV. Unfortunately, it isn’t a great constant-protection provider, so it ranks better as an on-demand scanner. If you’re like me and are a little gun-shy about all things AOL, though, you can try out BitDefender. Like AOL, BitDefender requires an email to register, though the spam quotient is decidedly smaller than AOL’s. Again, it doesn’t make the best all-around scanner, but it does a great job as an on-demand scanner.

• Web-Based Scanning: Maybe you’re not too trusting of your installed antivirus tools. GOOD. In that case, you can always visit one of these friendly web-based offerings: Kaspersky Lab’s Virus Scan, and Trend Micro’s House Call are both free server-side (web-based) anti-virus scanners. As you might have already noticed, I’m a big fan of all things Kaspersky, so I recommend the former as a first try. Just click the “Online Scanner” button when you get there. Both also work with Firefox, to my relief.

• Sandbox: If you plan on doing web-surfing that will guarantee you catch a virus (get your red-hot p0rn!), or if you have a download that you just don’t trust (say, half of everything bittorrent can get you), running it in a sandbox is a good way to limit its ability to infect your system. Sandboxie provides this ability to you in a simple to use application. Just run the questionable content sandboxed (right click menu option after installation and configuration, or run your web browser sandboxed), and when you’re done, sandbox just deletes the whole session, and any viral activity is tricked and deleted along with it. These kinds of tools are NOT foolproof, and have a moderate learning curve, but if you do a lot of file sharing or spend your evenings trying to crack pay-for software, you should consider learning to use a sandbox…if for no other reason than to prevent yourself from becoming yet another source of infection to your law-abiding friends.

Malware Protection

• Firewalls: Netveda’s Safety.net is an outstanding free firewall application. Much smaller and more obscure than the Sygates and Zone Alarms of the world, it is also more effective, in my opinion. Free, but registration is required. Running a close second is the Kerio Personal Firewall, which requires no registration, but has a bit more naggy interface. Although Kerio is a paid firewall, you can continue to use it after the trial period, with some of its extra features disabled. Not a big fan of firewall software myself (I find it too naggy), so I just use a good router with a built-in firewall.

• Browser Fixes: Doing double duty as a protector of browser registries and working as an innoculation program, I cannot say enough good things about SpywareBlaster. Running a close second place is the Google Toolbar, whose pop-up blocking and search engine incorporation into Internet Explorer make it a particularly valuable tool.

• Spyware Defenders: I’m just as surprised as you will be by this recommendation, but believe it! A newcomer to this list, Windows Defender has shown phenominal skill in catching malware before it is installed, so it gets double billing as a spyware defender and innoculation program. If you run an older, pre-XP machine, you can’t use Defender, so you’ll want to look into Spyware Terminator. It’s slower and uses more memory than Defender, but it scores higher than Windows Defender against intrusions, and it works in pre-XP Windows versions.

• Rootkit Defenders: F-Secure BlackLight was by far the easiest to use, but I am told is no longer a freeware. Frown Instead, I must recommend an alternative in Panda Anti-Rootkit, which is nearly as easy to use, but not quite as impressive in overall scores. Combine it with SysInternals RootkitRevealer, though (it looks at things slightly differently, and catches some things Panda doesn’t), and you have robust rootkit ferreting at your fingertips. If you have no idea what the hell I’m talking about, then here’s an extremely technical article explaining what rootkit viruses are and how they hurt us.

• Innoculation Programs: SpywareBlaster has been on my list of “fix my friend’s computer” installations seemingly forever. It’s just an excellent multitasking application that doesn’t have to run actively to do its job, which is protecting your most accessible programs, namely your web browsers, from attacks. Combined with the excellent properties of Windows Defender (which is also an excellent malware detector), you have excellent prophylactic protection for free!

Spamware

• Outlook/OE Users: If you’d rather not download the spam at all, or if you have a pretty slow connection to the Internet, I strongly recommend Mailwasher. It allows users to preview their email subject line and “from” categories for each message via a web browser, so that you can delete any unwanted items before downloading them to an offline mail client like Outlook Express or Thunderbird. For the dedicated Outlook or Outlook Express user, the outstanding Spambayes plugin provides bayesian mail filtering which catches between 95% and 99% of my spam. It is a learning filter, so if you have a ton of spam saved up, you can teach it pretty quickly.

• Other eMail Program Users: POPFile—the nice things about POPFile include: it’s one of the oldest and most reliable of the bayesian spam filters, and it works with any email client, because it gets the mail before you do, so to speak. The only hazard of using it is that because it is old, support for the app may disappear. Of course that can really be said about anything software, so…meh.

System Utilities

• File Managers: I’m not really a big fan of these apps, but I have tried them out, and of these kind of tools, xplorer², and XYplorer floated to the top of the messy heap. Both have similar characteristics, and one key aspect of both is the ability to explore multiple file paths simultaneously. This is really only useful if you do a lot of moving around files, though, as far as I can tell.

• Text Editors: I instantly fell in love with EditPad Lite. Small, powerful, elegant. It’s a Notepad replacement, but with tabbed reading and other minor details added, it’s a steal. If you’re more interested in a text editor that is code-friendly, check out PSPad. This little gem supports a variety of tagging and color-coding syntax, as does Notepad++.

• Archivers: If you want the Swiss Army Knife of archiving tools, you want IZArch, which can work in nearly 50 formats, including iso and img files! If you’re like the rest of us, and only usually see the most common formats, you want 7-Zip, whose name aptly indicates the number of commonly used archive formats that it will open. Use 7-Zip on its highest compression setting to get amazing compression on things like documents. Slow, but incredible compression.

• File Renaming: When it comes to renaming files in batches, I really like 1-4a Rename, but especially in “Expert Mode” it may be overly technical for some users, so if you want something with slightly less functionality, Lupas Rename 2000 or THE Rename (sic) are equally good alternatives to the powerful 1-4a Rename.

• Cleaners: CCleaner (formerly Crap Cleaner), is simply incredible. It can find literally gigabytes of dead data that’s just sitting on your computer hogging up useful space! It cleans out cookies, temp files, cached websites, old dead installation files, and even scrubs registry entries to speed operation! Another great application for housecleaning is CloneSpy. This program sniffs out duplicate files on your computer and can compare them using a number of criteria, including file name, last-modified, and even a check-sum function that detects duplicates with different names! The application allows for on-demand erasure of duplicates, and lets the user pick which duplicates to destroy. Run both of these before running Eraser (below) and you’ll have the cleanest hard drive in town!

• File Removal/Erasure: If you really want to get rid of something, there’s a certain satisfaction in knowing that you can easily run a military grade erase on your computer. Eraser is the undisputable king of this. It can be scheduled to scrub your unused sections of hard drive (this is a great preclude to a defrag) at regular intervals, and it also features an on-demand shredder that shows up in your context menus. Both the scheduled and on-demand erasures are highly configurable, from a simple single pass of zeroes to a multiple pass random character insertion that even the Feds couldn’t easily recover. For those of you who want a file back from the great beyond, look into Restoration. It cannot retrieve files that have been erased using programs like Eraser, but for things that just went from your trashcan to being “deleted” it offers a simple but elegant recovery tool. Note: Restoration requires you to copy the recovered file to a second drive letter to prevent accidental overwriting of the deleted file during recovery. Thankfully it’s a small no-installation-required application that runs easily from a thumb-drive, which is usually a good place to recover files like that. Also, be aware that the more time that passes between deletion from the trashcan and attempted restoration, the less likely that you will recover the file intact.

• Timekeeping: If you’d really like more information in your clock, along with syncronization against atomic clocks, try TClock Light. The author of this little beauty is Chinese, so there’ll be lots of unfamiliar characters on his site, but don’t be intimidated, the download is easy to find, and they offer an English help file (not the best, but it’s English, technically). TClockEx is a very similar offering, but also assists you in modifying the appearance of your tray and toolbar, even causing transparency! For those that simply want clock syncronization and don’t care for changing the look of the thing, then Dimension 4 v5.0 is your baby. The best thing about this app, is you can use it even at work behind thick firewalls, since the coder has provided an HTTP source for the sync signal. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, just take my word for it, it works great, you’ll love it.

Application Replacements

• Office Programs: OpenOffice. The name that could kill Microsoft Office, if properly marketed. This is a cross-platform (yes, something for you MAC and LINUX users, finally!), open source, java-based suite of software for office computing from Sun Microsystems, whose lot in life seems to be just pissing off Microsoft. More power to them. Although the applications in OpenOffice mimic MS Office’s pretty closely, an expert user of Word, Excel, etc. will note some reduced functionality of OpenOffice compared to MS Office. The remaining 98% of users will find OpenOffice just as easy (or difficult) as their counterparts to use, and just as feature rich as they need to be . Writer (pseudo-Word), Impress (pseudo-PowerPoint), Math (pseudo-Equation Editor), Draw (pseudo Paint…I like Paint.net better, though…see below), Calc (pseudo-Excel), and Base (pseudo-Access) come in the packaged download. All apps are file-compatible with their MS Office counterparts, though any seriously complex formatting might not carry over…again, not an issue for 98% of the world. The only disappointment is that you apparently cannot download the individual programs. It’s the whole suite, or none at al. If bandwidth is a problem for you, and you’re a bittorrent user, you might be better off finding a torrent instead of hitting the website directly, as this is a major installation that is several hundred MB to download at once, and most bittorrent clients allow for stopping and starting downloads a little better than your browser can. If you’re on dial-up, or downloading it simply isn’t a possibility, Sun will mail you a CD for the cost of the disk and shipping (around $3 US, if I recall correctly), or they have a list of distributers on theiir website, US and abroad, where you can get a copy locally. You can get a free copy sent to you, packaged with the Ubuntu Linux, from the bright folks at Ubuntu. I did this; they sent me five disks for free, which I gave four of to my tech-geek pals. You can run Ubuntu from the CD, by the way! It’s a great way to introduce yourself to Linux.

• PDF Tool Replacements: There aren’t a lot of applications that will output to pdf (Portable Data Format). Those days are over now. PDF Writer is a simple pseudo-printer driver that outputs a pdf format file from just about any source application. If you can print from it, it’ll make a pdf for you. Thanks, Sourceforge guys! Maybe you’re a total rebel with one red shoe, and you don’t even want to use that slow, bloated Adobe Reader. Maybe you should look at Foxit Reader, a small-footprint executable that can even print to pdf format just like PDF Writer does!

• eMail Clients: If you’ve been living under a rock for a while, you may not have heard of Mozilla. The boys from Netscape basically rolled over their stuff to Mozilla, and they’re keepin’ the dream alive. Mozilla Thunderbird is their free full featured email and newsgroup client. As an email client, it is second only to Outlook in features, and second to none in spam detection; as a news reader, not so much, but at least it has the capability. Throw in a couple hundred excellent add-ons available for free, and you really can’t beat it. If you like the underdog, though, you might want to check out Foxmail . It’s not related to Firefox or Mozilla; don’t let the name fool you. It is, however, an excellent email client. Not the best, but a good alternative to Thunderbird, if for some reason you don’t like or won’t use that program.

• Image Editing Programs: The more I work with Paint.net, the more I like. Being open-source, a new tool or plug-in gets produced at least once a week, making this application the Worlds Most Obvious ® replacement for MS Paint (lame-o grande!), and it’s starting to approach the likes of Paint Shop Pro (my long-time favorite image workshop) in functionality! For those that prefer a Photoshop-like experience, check out GIMP. I’ve little experience with it, other than to agree that its interface is quite similar to Photoshop’s, which should make the learning curve shallow for you PS-lovers.

• Web Design Programs: Man, was this a nice surprise. I used to be a big fan of EvrSoft’s 1st Page 2000, back before I learned the joys of Dreamweaver. EvrSoft finally released an update late last year, called EvrSoft’s 1st Page 2006, but it’s full of nags to buy the thing, and I HATE nagware. you can still get 1st Page 2000, thankfully. I use 1st Page 2000 and Nvu when I’m away from my own computer, and I can do just about anything I would do with Dreamweaver at home. Nvu is an open-source, cross-platform compatible (yay, another score for MAC/Linux users!) WYSIWYG/source/tag view editor. Although Nvu has “template support” it doesn’t appear to recognize my Dreamweaver template editable areas or protect the non-editable ones. That’s okay, though. These are still excellent tools for anyone that is already familiar with web design. Newbies should stick with Nvu. Experienced users will like the increased toolset in the new Evrsoft 1st Page 2006. Designers like me will appreciate having both. Oh, and an honorable mention goes to CSS Tab Designer 2, for making excellent CSS-styled menus, and saving me tons of time.I should also give proper credit to online content management systems like Mambo/Joomla, without which this site would be less than spectacular.

Goodie Bag

• Sidebars and Widget Racks: I don’t know how I got hooked on using these things, but man, I cannot live without my sidebars any more. My favorite is Desktop Sidebar, because it is nearly infinitely customizable, has hundreds of plug-ins and skinning themes available, and it’s entirely open-source, therefore free. To hell with Windows Vista Sidebar. DS was here first, and until I buy a new computer, Vista is off my map. Honorable mention goes to Google Desktop Search, which comes with a gadget sidebar. it has far less customization ability, but fans of the desktop search capability will probably appreciate the integration, if they’re already looking for a sidebar anyway, and it mimics DS and Vista SB pretty closely in appearance. If you just want widgets with no sidebar, look at Yahoo! Widgets. They claim thousands of widgets, though most of them are clocks and rss readers, I think… I was disappointed by how much RAM the widgets used, too, but if you’re running more than 1GB RAM, that might not be an issue for you.

• Instant Messaging: Both of my choices in this category far outstrip their single-format brethren because they aren’t limited to one format, and because they have smaller space requirements and use less RAM while running, to boot. First choice for multi-IM access is Miranda, for sheer accessibility and economy of memory; some may prefer the friendlier user interface of GAIM, though. GAIM is also cross-platform compatible with Windows, MAC and Linux, whereas Miranda is strictly Windows-compatible. I have yet to find an IM multi-platform that works through my firewall at work, though.

• Bittorrent Clients: Maybe I’m showing my Windows-centricity with this, but I really do prefer the user interface and memory usage of µTorrent to that of cross-platform Azureus. Try them both. Decide for yourself. One last note, µTorrent is the smallest, most lightweight bittorrent client I have found, to date.

• P2P Clients: It’s practically passé, with the onset of bittorrents, but some still swear by peer to peer (P2P) file sharing. For those who do, I suggest Limewire, which hits a multitude of networks (recently including bittorrent capability, but I haven’t tried it yet), and has a relatively low-key nag when first opened. On the other hand, I have much greater use for specific P2P sharing. In other words, using GigaTribe with a friend, we can browse each other’s shared files remotely, and download stuff we like from each other’s computers. Completely private and allegedly secure encrypted transmission between peers. You must each register independently, and identify each other by screen name in order to share, and the application only works when deliberately activated. Slow to open, but works fairly well.

• Screen Captures: I’m a technical writer, so capturing tons of software screen images is sometimes a high priority for me. Doing ALT+PrintScreen and CTRL+V into paint seems kind of tedious, eh? (Well try doing it about 200 times, once, before you argue.) One of my favorite tools towards this end is Gadwin PrintScreen. It runs subtly in your system tray, and can be configured to automatically format, sequentially name, and save screen captures on the fly, as well as forcing them into an editor of your choice, if you like. It can even hide itself during captures. Good range of formats and compression ratios make this an excellent still shot on-screen camera. I love loading this baby on a thumb drive before I hit a bank of servers to capture configuration screens!

• CD/DVD Burning: For every day burn jobs, I really like the simple straightforward interface of CDBurnerXP Pro, however, when it comes to burning high-volume jobs like iso images, I really prefer the improved reliability of Burn4Free over CDBurnerXP Pro. Both have iso and img handling capabilities, and both can burn most formats of CD or DVD, even doing audio conversion on the fly for mp3 to cda burns.

• Microsoft “PowerToys”: TweakUI gives you power over XP’s user interface…at least some of it, anyway. Powercalculator is a nice replacement for calc.exe, the default Windows calculator. You can see a bunch of other Windows XP powertoys here, but a quick word of warning, they are not bug-free. Frankly, I recommend that you avoid the Alt-Tab replacement and the Synctoy altogether. Alt-Tab doesn’t work properly, creating ghosts of open windows that aren’t really there, and Synctoy will leave you accidentally deleting whole volumes of useful info with an incautious click. I’ve also tracked down two awesome lists: Windows XP Goodies, and Microsoft Office/Application Freebies.

• Music Players: I truly love Foobar2000. It has a clunky interface that is allegedly customizable (beyond my laziness, though), and has a ton of free plug-ins and CSS-type skinning appliques (which appeal to my laziness), and the best part is it has a really small memory usage (it’s tiny, compared to things like Windows Media Player), as well as being one of the acoustically top-ranked audio players, for you digital audiophiles. Running a distant second place: Winamp Media Player (because, at least it’s not Windows Media Player).

• Application Launch Docks: Okay, you’re a Windows user, but you’re a little jealous of the MAC guy’s cutesy little application launching toolbar. So? Get your own, with RocketDock. With animation, skinning, and easy customization, you can make it look the way you like, and your desktop will be way cooler than it ever was before. If you want something that I consider even more powerful, though, take a look at Launchy. Just press ALT + Spacebar to open the bar from anywhere, type the name of the program you want, and click RETURN. Very fast, very intuitive, and highly reliable.

• Content Management Systems: My personal favorite is Mambo Open Source (MOS), but you may also like Joomla! which is based on a MOS engine. Once upon a time, my go-to learning curriculum management tool was Moodle. these days there is a much easier-to-use and more visually friendly (think “web 2.0-esque”) learning/curriculum management system. Both are web-based, and both require basic knowledge of managing SQL databases but only Moodle is commonly available to most web administrators via their control panel (CPanel, etc.). Those seeking more technical and complex systems should consider Drupal or Typo3, but be warned, these are not simple systems, and the learning curve is steep for those not well-heeled in php development or CMS. Plone is an interesting offering, but has very specific and uncommon database requirements that are a big put-off for most lower-level webmasters.

• Project Management Software: Holy Craptastic, Batman! I though OpenOffice had shown me the best that open source had to offer the working stiff. Check this out: OpenWorkBench. It’s a complete project management tool. Did I say complete? Yes. Complete. Resource-driven (not task-driven like MS Project) project management includes Gantt charts, PERT models, Critical Path schedule views, tracking by dependencies, and even user-based schedule views. Use this to track your project, and you’re well on your way to becoming an Evil Overlord™, now, my leige!

• Bug Tracking/Change Management: Got a home or small business project that you need change or bug tracking capabilities for? Try JitterBug, a now-defunct project that developed some outstanding free bug/change tracking software. I hope someone picks up their project, because it has a ton of promise.

This list is just scratching the surface of what’s out there. These are all just applications that I’ve personally tried. For even more complete listings, check out these sites:

• Tech Support Alert
  (Recently combined forces with Windows Secrets…can’t wait to see what that results in!)

• eConsultant Open Source
  (Awesome site! Packed with excellent suggestions, though a bit spartan in layout, and virtually no details.)

• Freeware Home
  (Enormous, but does have a search function, thank goodness!)

• The Free Geek
  (101 free and shareware offerings, many redundancies with other lists here, but worth a mention…not updated in a while now, either.)

See more links to stuff.

If you have a suggestion, let me know, and I’ll try it out. Impress me, and I’ll add it above.

My resume for senior technical trainer and/or curriculum developer:

SUMMARY

• Veteran classroom and laboratory instruction.
• Fast, accurate curriculum development, and practiced delivery of training courses.
• Experienced with both “train-the-trainer” and traditional trainer/trainee curriculum.
• Very skilled at self-paced curriculum development and computer-based-training solutions.
• Converts complex engineering data into lay-language for user and maintainer documentation.

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Literature, User Documentation, and Training Course Development

• Reads and interprets complex engineering documentation, informal notes and revisions, and engineering drawings (including schematics and blueprints), eliminating the need for third party interpretation.

• Translates engineering jargon and technical information into layman’s terms for inclusion into user documentation or business to business communications, as needed.

• Develops and updates business to business literature, user manuals, and training courses, including multimedia presentations and testing criteria designed to conform to existing testing requirements and documentation plans set forth by the company and customer.

• Co-authored Style Guides and Manuals of Style for Cubic Transportation Systems resulting in significant savings on all subsequent documentation development.

• Authored Style Guide for BearingPoint’s IPTS (Integrated Property Tax System) project.

Classroom Instruction

• Conducts total course re-writes to include current technology in presentations and tests.

• Teaches adults using various lecturing and multimedia-supported techniques, and follows well-established instructional methods, following Instructional System Design (ISD) principles.

• Laboratory Instruction Instructs students through hands-on laboratory projects involving basic electronic theory, troubleshooting, uses of test equipment, and repair skills.

• Standardizes test and training equipment maintenance and repair schedules to minimize impact on training times.

Technical Background

• Performs maintenance, troubleshooting and repair techniques in high-stress settings.

• Assists research and development projects to design test equipment for specific circuitry, and to develop new technology for commercial use.

• Performs “real time” failure analysis for production environment, where time limits are highly emphasized and extensive record keeping is mandatory.

WORK EXPERIENCE

QUALCOMM
2007 – Present
Senior Training Specialist

BEARINGPOINT, INC.
2006 – 2007
Senior Training Specialist

CUBIC TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS, INC.
2003 – 2006
Senior Training Specialist

SMS TECHNOLOGIES
2002 – 2002
Test Technician IV (short-term contract)

SONTEK/YSI
2001 – 2002
Test Technician Specialist III

KYOCERA WIRELESS, INC.
2001 – 2001
Sr. Engineering Technician (voluntary force reduction)

OVERLAND STORAGE, INC.
1999 – 2001
Test Technician Specialist III

WELCH-ALLYN
1998 – 1998
Engineering Laboratory Technical Specialist (short-term contract)

GREENLAND CORP.
1997 – 1998
Senior Technician/Associate Engineer

US NAVY, Active Duty
1988 – 1997
Senior Repair/Maintenance Technician
Workgroup Supervisor
Student Supervisor

EDUCATION / ACCREDITATION

• US Navy Certified Technician
• US Navy Certified Classroom and Laboratory Instructor (NEC 9502)
• Associates in Arts for English Composition, Mesa Community College
• Bachelor’s in Arts for Business Management, Webster University

Complete resume, Word 98 Format
Short resume, Word 98 Format
full_resume.txt
cover_letter.txt