“Where do you live?” He asked the wet, begrimed face of the surprisingly tall oldster.

The man’s face was lined and drawn from age and, Jason guessed, from whatever had befallen him. His hair was grey and scraggly, falling limply in a sodden tangle around his head. His eyes appeared glazed and unseeing, or perhaps seeing somewhere Jason couldn’t see. Concussion was a strong possibility, Jason thought, looking into the man’s eyes, which weren’t entirely tracking.

“Where do you live?” he said again, a little more urgently, giving the man a small shake.

The man’s eyes seemed to focus on his face for a moment. Perhaps he’d fallen and hit his head, Jason thought, studying the disheveled figure in front of him. The cosplay-style clothes meant he wasn’t one of the city’s many homeless, so concussion or mugging seemed the likely cause of the fellow’s condition.

“Shhcathor.” He muttered bleakly, his voice slightly slurred.

“Where?” Jason replied, not understanding what the figure before him had said.

The old face stared at him for a moment, then lost focus as he mumbled something unintelligible, his body starting to shake in cold or shock, perhaps both. Perhaps he was just a drunken bum after all. Every city had them, Jason knew, so maybe he’d stolen the fancy clothes he was wearing under the dirt-smeared coat.

“No home, huh? What about I take you to one of the homeless shelters.” He suggested.

He had a vague idea there was one a few blocks over, not that far beyond where he’d parked his car in the basement car park of his friend’s unit complex. It was handy that Joe did not have a car at the moment and didn’t mind Jason using his allocated parking spot whenever Jason needed to come into the city proper.

The fellow shook his head, then seemed to focus, but as he did so, he became agitated, muttering something. He then grabbed Jason’s arm in a surprisingly strong grip and jabbed Jason in the chest with his finger saying something Jason couldn’t understand as he did so. The language sort of sounded like Greek or maybe Jewish? What was certain was that Jason had no idea what the fellow was trying to tell him, except he didn’t seem keen on the Shelter thing.

“All right, no shelter.” And the fellow lost some of his agitation but then jabbed Jason in the chest with his finger a couple more times, accompanied by some grunting words

“Oh. No way, man, not taking you home with me!” He spluttered as he finally realized what the old man was trying to get across to him.

The man wobbled, jabbed Jason’s chest feebly a couple more times, and then the oldster’s eyes rolled up, and he slumped limply against a surprised Jason, who somehow managed to hold on to the fellow rather than dropping him on the ground.

“Oh hell,” Jason muttered, desperately holding the old fellow up.

He maneuvered himself into a position where he could get an arm around the relatively thin old man and hold him up by having him half lean against Jason. A quick glance around showed a couple of unsavory-looking types a bit further down the road, but, fortunately, they were on the other side of the street and seemed content to stay there. He found he couldn’t bring himself to abandon the old man in his current state, so Jason began hobbling up the road towards where his car was parked while supporting the old man, who sometimes helped and other times dragged, making it slow work getting his car.

NOTE: This story needs to be edited and there are changes that need to be made before it is published.

Chapter 1

Strange encounter

An old man was feebly moving his arms and legs while lying in the dirty little alcove where the Convention Centre ended, and the next building started. The sprawled figure appeared to be cold, worn, wet, and disorientated.  Jason Lerner paused in the cold, wet sleet for reasons that would be hard to explain. Afterward, he decided it was the fact his great-grandfather had frozen to death in Boston just after the war that had motivated him to stop, although, at the time, this reason did not consciously register. In truth, it was simply the sight of an old man who appeared to be in trouble that brought out feelings of benevolence towards his fellow man. Plus, the fact he looked to be dressed like one of the cosplay participants at the convention may well have had something to do with it. There was practically no one else in sight this late, and the traffic swishing past in the wet conditions had declined to merely a steady trickle rather than the daytime charging herd.

“Hey, man. You been mugged or just slipped over in the wet?” He asked, moving to the huddled figure and bending down to lend the moving and, therefore, not yet dead oldster a hand.

The huddled figure tried to brush his hand away rather weekly and muttered something doleful Jason couldn’t catch.

“Come on, old man. You can’t stay here. You’ll freeze to death by morning!” He said loudly and took firm hold of the huddled form.

Still muttering, the old man relented enough to allow himself to be pulled up with the sodden and battered-looking coat he was wearing falling open to reveal black trousers made of some shiny synthetic-looking material that was obviously expensive but now rather begrimed, plus he had on dark, elaborate leather boots. His shirt was some silken material, a dark grey with silver flecks forming some sort of pattern that was too hard to make out in the dim light afforded by the street light a little further along the boulevard. The silver filigree, or whatever it was, almost seemed to writhe on its own as if it was alive. Must have been at the convention for sure, Jason said to himself, seeing the rich and strange clothing underneath.

ARCon wasn’t one of the real big conventions, but it was one of the better ones, or at least Jason thought it was. It was one of the few literary-themed conventions still running these days, rather than being movie franchise or pop culture based. Or at least it had been. The comic book superhero juggernaut was slowly overwhelming the more traditional literary aspects of the convention, which he supposed was to be expected in this day and age, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. With the recent changes to its coverage, it now attracted a more diverse crowd, and the cosplay people could be anything from a hobbit to a Marvel character to something really obscure.

Wishing all a happy Christmas or Happy Holidays as preferred.
Going away early this year and won’t be back until January – may do some work while I’m lounging about in beautiful Yamba NSW – or I may not….

I will begin serializing another unpublished book on Monday.
It is waiting for me to edit it as there are several inconsistencies with later books int he series
Only the first book is “finished” so far – but there are 4 more in various stages of completeness as well.
I have been holding onto to this series to be used as my into to “real” publishing but I never seem to get around to searching for an agent so I thought I’d give you people a taste of it.

writing progresses on Taroniah at Sea
due to an extended holiday this year (From 21st instead of 27th) Taroniah at Sea may not be released before the end of January – we’ll see.
Kyron the Conqueror will foll Taroniah.

I have no other complete new book to serialize so I am thinking of serializing my first book On The Rocks

any other suggestion are more than welcome though

Peter

“The ones that raided the train in India? Yes, my father was actually there helping mop up.”

“Well, here, one of the super soldiers ran the other way to all his fellows and managed to get away. He lived in India for many years before finally moving to Ostraya. He is my grandfather on the other side.”

“That would explain how strong you are.” The man shook his head. “Damn. Well, we have other Earths represented on Embassy with similar histories to your world, although in most, the genetic engineering was aborted or the subjects were sterilized. Generally, the ones that had a nuclear war had all the genetic engineering wiped out completely. I suppose you had better take me to your leader, as the saying goes.” He grinned at Andrew and then turned back to the other two. “You two had better go back. Can you tell Lon that you’ve discovered another Earthbook world and that I’m making diplomatic contact? He won’t panic too much, I assure you.”

Bonus scene

Andrew just managed to catch Jess as she was about to board the plane back to Nuzeeland. They had managed one glorious weekend away together since the end of the war. Most of the time, they had both been too busy with mopping up and then all the carry-on with Disco.

“Hey.” He said, smiling.

“Hi. Come to see me off?”

“Yes. Well, um, I came to see if you would come back.” He paused. “Permanently.”

She looked puzzled for a moment, then startled as he sank onto one knee.

“Will you marry me, Jess?”

“Um. God, I hadn’t even thought about that. Um. Yes!” He jumped up and hugged her, and then they kissed before she finally broke them apart. “I’ll need to go home, talk to my parents, and sort stuff out. And see what the Army thinks. They may not want to lose me just yet.”

“If they’re not keen on letting go, tell them to assign you to me, and I’ll give you advanced mentalist training. It’s not like they have anybody over there that can train you, given the way you Kiwis have been suppressing magic users for centuries.”

“I, well, I’ll try that if I have to. Actually, that’s not a bad idea, except I think I can maybe talk them into assigning me over here undercover to get lessons from you. Hmm, yes. If I have to, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll most likely use the need for training to act as one of the people assigned to Embassy, though. All those people with heaps of magic power or mentalist abilities.”

“Good.” They kissed again. “My only worry is that you’re a close relative. Do you know where you got your mentalist talent?”

“Oh. No, but I think it’s at least three or four generations back, so at worst, we’d be third or fourth cousins.” She frowned. “I will investigate once I get home.”

He smiled. “I love you.”

“I love you too, you lunatic.” She looked around. “I’ve got to go now. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

A quick kiss and she was gone. Andrew hoped soon was really soon.

Sorry – late again ….. busy start to the week

At that moment, it occurred to Andrew where he knew the name Wolfgang Oldham from. It was in his grandmother’s journal. Then the girl returned, and if he thought she was tall, the man who came with a was even taller.

“Hi. I’m Xen Wolfson from the Department of Interdimensional Security and Cooperation, Disco for short. Destiny tells me you’ve had problems with an invasion from one of the Japanese worlds from the Alliance, yes?”

“Yes, Tier Four Tomkya out of Tier Three Natori. Tomkya thought they could just move in and take over after the Plague hit their own world, and then later, Natori joined them when their Tier 2 was rendered incommunicado, and they were suffering from both the plague and the zivvy dissolver. We destroyed one gate early, leaving them with only one working gate. This limited the number of troops they could push through, and in any case, Tomkya didn’t have that large a population to start with. I gather the Japanese worlds are a lot harsher with local inhabitants when they take over?”

“Yes. Not that the Germans or the Russians are that much better, but we generally didn’t slaughter them completely, as happened on a lot of the Japanese worlds.” Roland answered when Andrew looked in his direction.

“Anyway, we killed a lot of them, thousands and thousands. They were using office workers and gardeners on the front lines as their losses mounted. It didn’t help that our mentalists were generally better than theirs once they got a bit of experience.”

“Destiny said you had mentalists, and I can tell you’re quite powerful.”

“Yes. There was a lot of genetic engineering going on before our nuclear war. In fact, some historians blame genetic engineering for the war. The first strike on American territory was at the Transworld travel complex, where they were using the tellies to power the first interdimensional gates. There are no surviving records of how far they got. In fact, there are very few records at all, but my grandmother left a journal where she mentioned a few details about what was happening when the war started. She had been injured and was in a hospital just far enough from the complex that she survived the nuclear strike.”

He saw the tall man and the girl following his account closely.

“That was about eight hundred years ago. My grandmother made her way through various countries and parts of the world until she finished up in Ostraya. She apparently died when I was young. I say apparently because she had faked her own death on numerous occasions over the centuries. In her journal, she mentions Wolfgang Oldham as being one of the other tellies working with the early transdimensional gates. Yes, I thought you would find that interesting.”

“This is another Earthbook world, Uncle Xen,” Destiny said, looking all excited.

Uncle Xen was looking thoughtful. “Do you know what your grandmother’s original name was?”

“AnnaKarina.”

“Oh, shit. Another one.” Uncle Xen said, looking alarmed.

“Have you heard of the Russian super soldiers?”

After the dramatic events of the Battle of New Earth where their new technology proved its worth, the Terrans are feeling a lot more confident about the future and their place in the galaxy. The Taxons come begging for peace, with Crown Prince Frogar leading the mission mostly due to his previous experience with the Terrans. The Hareccans, realizing the odds are now in their favor beef up their offensive against the Taxons. Signing a peace treaty with the Terrans has now become a top priority as the Taxons need their experienced crews, or at least those that survived the battle of New Earth, back. Meanwhile, the Troodons continue to be a pain in the you-know-where, and the Hareccans are upset with the Terrans for pulling out of the Alliance and are sounding bellicose. Adding to the fun, one of the Terran warships that was out exploring finds three quite interesting humans who are not from the Terran’s original universe.
 

Andrew shook his head. “Well, perhaps you had best come and talk to someone a bit higher up the chain of command than a mere Lieutenant.”

The young couple looked at each other before turning back to the assembled Ostrayans.

“Actually, I should go and see if Uncle Xen is available. We are not any sort of official contract mission or anything. I was just practicing my gate-making. I’ll go and see if he is available. Can you stay here, Roly?”

“Um, sure, I guess.” The young man didn’t look like he was that certain her running off and leaving him there was a good idea. “Is that all right with you guys?”

Andrew glanced at Simpson, who shrugged slightly, indicating she was leaving it up to him. Great.

“Yeah, sure. Go ahead.”

The girl nodded and turned to the young man. “The gate’s been open so long I’m surprised Mother hasn’t turned up. I’ll just go and check if Uncle Xen is available and pop straight back.”

The young man nodded, and she turned and disappeared into the little hut and stepped through the slowly turning whirlpool.

“So, are you people still fighting the Japanese off?” Roland asked.

“No. The initial invasion caught us by surprise, coming as it did in the middle of our capital. All our best troops are up in the north, and it took a while for them to reposition down here, not that we had a big army anyway. The government launched a big recruitment drive, especially looking for people with mentalist talent like me, as they discovered the Japanese invaders had many powerful mentalists. There weren’t that many to be found because mentalist talents had been frowned on in the immediate aftermath of the nuclear war, and many had been killed.”

He shrugged. “Anyway, the Japs advanced fifty to sixty kilometers in most directions, more along the south coast. They reached the radioactive remains of the former capital, Melborn, to the northeast and worked their way north from there while we got our act together.”

He eyed the young man. “We matched their mentalists with our mentalists, and I personally found having a sniper with a high-powered rifle handy meant that I could attack their mentalists with energy and mental spells, although you probably call them impressions, yes?” The young man nodded. “So while I was attacking them with those sorts of impressions, my sniper would take them down if they were too strong for me.”

The young man nodded, looking thoughtful, and Andrew continued. “We received some help from our neighboring countries as well, which made a difference, and as they ran out of mentalists, between our experienced northern troops, our allies, and all the new recruits, we just rolled them up. In the end, they were using women and children carrying grenades, but a mental shield pushed to cover the women and children released their mental control, and most of the women and children threw the grenades away and ran for our lines as instructed.”

“Women and children,” Roland said, shaking his head and looking distressed.

“So we finished up with thirteen gods that represented the concentrated subconscious expectations of the various archetypes. We had the Gods of Virtue, Vice, Art, Mercy, Peace, Logic, and so on. Some have since died or have otherwise gone missing. My grandfather was known for his martial arts and served in the army for a period before the exile, and the collective subconscious decided he was the God of War. Like his son, my Uncle Xen, he can be summoned by someone who believes. These days we have several others that are termed baby Gods, like Uncle Xen, who’s the God of Spies. Teleportation was developed from analyzing what happened when my grandfather was summoned.”

The young man, Roland, looked at her in surprise.

“Really? I didn’t realize that. I knew it wasn’t something dimensional because I saw Ra’d do it, but I didn’t know that it originated on Comet Fall.”

“Comet Fall?” Andrew asked.

Destiny nodded. “That is what my home world is called these days because it is regularly subject to strikes from comets. We started out with a relatively advanced society, electric cars, and so forth straight after the exile, but then we took a comet hit around four hundred years after the exile, and the population was decimated. I was told that only a hundred thousand people survived. These days, I understand we’re over five hundred million and climbing. Because our founding population had a high instance of genetic engineering, plus some of the thirteen gods were around after the comet, the survivors relied on magic for many things that technology does on other worlds.”

“When we were rudely brought back into the multi-verse by the Empire of the One and the Earth attempting to conquer us practically simultaneously, we were still using horses and carts, and our most modern industry was a few steam engines. We still mostly use horses and carts, not having found any reason to change. Corridors enable transportation from one side of the planet to the other instantaneously.”

“Corridors?” Andrew was definitely at the boggled stage now.

“Yes. They’re made from bubbles. When you look at the blue, can you see those semitransparent bubble things?” Andrew nodded. “Bubbles have a natural time dilation of thirty thousand to one. If you’re careful, you can catch one and poke a hole in it without it bursting. You can then store almost anything there as they are not part of this universe. People normally attach them to something,”

At this point, Roland held up what looked like a strip of aluminum, which he pulled apart, revealing a bronzy-colored surface between the two strips of metal that expanded as he pulled them apart. Destiny nodded at them as he closed them back up.

“That is a sort of standard design for handles, although they can be anything. Anyway, another use is if you attach one to a wall, for argument’s sake, and stretch it to wherever you want the other end. Around the corner, cross to the other side of the city, or halfway around the planet. Then you put a hole in it and attach it there, stretch a few bits out, and attach them, and then you have a doorway at the other end. Comet Fall is covered in them. Several other worlds are now becoming increasingly covered in them as well.”