Hello dearest readers, I'm just adding a note here to say that I'm taking a bit of a winter vacation. I'll be back in the new year with more Critical Future's stories, but in the mean time, visit tychoish.com and be well. -- tycho garen

Returning #4

A Knowing Mars story, by tycho garen
on 6th November 2008. (commentary)

I hope you enjoyed last week’s Trailing Edge story. We’re back with another installment of the Knowing Mars story. This installment, in 8 parts, covers the remainder of Chapter 4. You can catch up on part one, part two, and part three of “Returning” as you like, and I hope you enjoy.

Kyp and Kalian both felt Taban think something along the lines of “grumble snipe” from the kitchen. They laughed harder, but a moment later a faint chime interrupted them.

“That’s not the door, is it?” Kalian asked regaining some composure and looking around for the source of the noise.

“No, I think it’s my portable,” Kyp said, checking his pockets for the device. “I put it in my bag when we were prepping, is it in the office?” Kyp stood and moved toward the office door.

“No, I think it’s by the door,” Kalian suggested.

“Right, thanks,” Kyp said, reaching his bag only after the chime had stopped. He doubted the call was real-time anyway: the people he knew on Mars–save Taban and Kalian–so rarely used the system, Earth was too far away, and he couldn’t fathom why anyone in orbit of the planet would be placing a call.

Sure enough, it was a message. “It’s from Gus calling from Earth.” Kyp reported, still standing over his bag while he drilled through a couple of menus to unlock the device and access the message. “And he cut the transmission time way down. That’s pretty impressive.”

“What’s he got to say? He’s well, right?” Kalian remembered that Kyp and Gus had a pretty complex communication schedule worked out to minimize the lag, and make sure that any data transmissions could make it effectively between them and two planets.

“I think so, at least as of last week he was fine, but give me a second,” Kyp said. He was a little concerned, this was an odd time for a call, and this seemed almost of out of character for Gus “Here goes,” Kyp said, activating the message.

permalink • • one comment
tagged: • • • •

One Comment »

  1. [...] installment covers the remainder of Chapter 4. You can catch up on part one, part two, part three, part four, and part five of “Returning” as you like, and I hope you [...]

    Pingback by Critical Futures: a next wave science fiction review — 11 November 2008 @ 9:54 am

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment