Texrat
September 24th, 2007, 03:26 PM
All the talk of Science Fiction backstories got me thinking. I'm considering moving my discussion of my novel-in-progress (The Leviticus Engineers) over here. To whet your appetites, here's the latest addition (from the in-revision Chapter 1):
Tiny, cool dots of water peppered Karen as she emerged from the foliage, remnants of last night’s relentless rain. The minor shower was a fractional taste of the dousing she was about to endure.
“Back home it’s as dry as breakfast,” she grumbled, regarding the half-eaten stick of beef jerky in her left hand with distaste. “A little hotter, too.”
The rafter behind her laughed, as he did after her every gripe. The habit had started out superficially irritating and was now at the point of grating on her very bones. Not that she had anything against geeks; her ex-husband was king of their tribe. But this one, with his now-fashionable rectangle-lensed glasses and out-of-place trendy black getups was something else. During their prep session he had asked the most annoying questions, exhibited the most ineptitude, and tripped all over himself trying to gain favor with the alphas of the group. For some reason he apparently included Doctor Karen Feldman in that selection. Alpha bitch, maybe, Karen thought. But still beta human being…
The divorce had been — how long ago? Just over two years. She could not believe she had to calculate it. Maybe enough time had still not passed. Maybe men in general were still low on her list. She had not really dated since Mark left, and had barely even tried. Lately, friends had taken to calling her Doctor Feld-Nun. She chose not to let them know it had started to hurt. Karen considered herself only partially functional at this point, although any defects stopped just short of her professional life. Her boss had recognized that, and essentially ordered her to take time off. While a pathological tenacity had no effect on her patients, it was beginning to abrade against her colleagues.
Her shadow mistook the silence and offered, “Still chewing on it? Hey, I brought some dried fruit… apples, peaches. Easier to work.”
She glanced over her shoulder at the extended hand and debated accepting the proffered bag... then shook her head briefly. As much as Karen would have enjoyed the alternative, she feared opening the door wider to this insistent goof. She had made the mistake of entertaining him after introductions, when he showed excitement over their shared birthplace; his enthusiasm gushed like something Pandora had released into her personal space and made her too anxious to even breathe. The genie would not be rebottled, however. He had latched onto her like the leeches their guides warned about.
The river proved an invaluable ally. Its roar at this porting point all but drowned casual conversation. The good-looking guide ordered them to gather around and listen up; even the leech quieted and complied. Now this young man Karen could listen to. Unfortunately, she realized it was because he reminded her of Mark (damn it, doesn’t every man lately?), which meant her subconscious would automatically disapprove.
Last-minute instructions and general reminders were dispensed, gear checked and roll taken. This was Karen’s second such rafting adventure so she was more secure than before but not so complacent as to tune the ritual out, a hazard of some repetitive amateurs. In fact she noticed that her chatty shadow paid more attention to her than the lead guide. It was noticed.
“Mr. Cowley, can I safely assume you’re among us?” he asked tartly.
Karen’s ersatz companion jumped at his name. “Oh! Very sorry, Jason. Yes. Here.”
“Time to hand over cell phones,” the youthful guide continued stridently, holding high a blue plastic bag as he scanned the group of eight. “Please turn them completely off first. They will be placed in this bag and secured with my gear.” He raised his voice even higher and louder. “For the duration of this trip there will be no communication with the outside world. You will be one with the river and completely resistant to distraction. You will be expected to perform as a team. Deschutes can be the thrill of a lifetime but that means jeopardy is involved. Note that I have never lost a rafter while conducting these ventures and I don’t intend to start today. If anyone has any doubts at all, this is your last chance to bail without risk. The hike back to base camp as you know is a rough three miles. It will be a much easier trip than you are about to undertake.”
The rafters snickered knowingly at each other but not one showed any sign of forfeiting their spot.
“Okay. Let’s port.”
Two large orange rafts had already been brought in and inflated by other employees, and they now assisted the rafters in. The group was evenly divided into teams of five, with the lead guide naturally assuming control of the first raft ported and his female colleague taking the other.
Karen tried to temper her displeasure at team selection with excitement at being in the starting raft. Her prior experience, while limited, had been enough to promote her over Mike Cowley, but was not enough to keep him from riding just behind her. Fortunately Jason had been very adamant that casual conversation would only be permitted in areas of calm. The rest of the time, he owned the airwaves.
Although the river noise was thunderous here, the water was not running as rough as it would, Jason had informed them. So they started off slow and uneventful, picking up speed quickly though. At this point Jason shouted that they were about to enter a stretch of relative serenity and would be able to take in some of the surrounding beauty. Karen found herself wishing there was something like this in Texas; the Guadalupe could be breathtaking but it was nothing like what she was experiencing now. She took Jason’s advice and shrugged off recent cares, allowing the sunlight to melt tension from her face and the rippling river to massage her legs through the raft’s bottom. She squinted at the birds breaking from tree to tree in their incessant quest for tastier insects. Some called across the water, answering themselves with shrill, staccato songs echoing off the cliff to port.
I can handle this, Karen mused dreamily. Even her shadow was apparently too awestruck to interrupt her reverie.
Jason alerted them to their first run of whitewater coming up. Karen felt the change underneath even as he announced it, noticed visually the subtle but steadily increasing rate of tree passage. The itinerary was different than the one she had taken with Mark but she knew the effects and results would be the same… other than having the right person with which to share them.
Mike Cowley leaned close, exclaimed “This is it!” and dug his oar into the swirling water. Jason barked directions at his temporary crew and for the most part they responded well. Karen watched with admiration the other seasoned member of their team, a former professional hockey player (a non-fan, she could shamefully remember neither name nor team) whose prowess with the instrument of his trade translated well to a liquefied version of his former milieu. The graying athlete caught her stare, grinned, and nodded before turning back to his task. Karen reddened, ducked, and mirrored his moves.
The river’s velocity hit a decent clip. Karen felt it tug at her paddle, thrilled at the power against the angled edge. Jason was shouting adjustments, and his team responded well. The rafts buckled down an incline but there was no real danger; this one was shallow. Small rounded rocks threatened only to bruise a body part or chip a paddle. This was gravy.
“You handled that well!” Jason acknowledged in his pseudomilitary shout. “But that was just the warm-up. It’s why we put in where we did. The next one is a bit trickier. There’s another stretch of essential calm, and then we hit rapids hard and fast. It comes up almost by surprise. But I don’t like surprises. I like a prepared team. You don’t get the luxury of pebbles on this next one, either. We’re going to see some pretty jagged outcrop. Use your paddles as you’ve been instructed. There’s an obvious passage and that’s the one we take. Ready?”
He was met with the positive chorus he expected.
“Alright then! Stay prepared.”
Karen felt the floor shift and wondered why Cowley was twisting restlessly behind her. Was he afraid? That’s all we need at this point. She was about to half-turn and offer encouragement when he cried out, “Damn! My oar.”
Fortunately they were tied to the raft, but he still had to haul it in. Jason urged him to hurry; they were fast approaching the rough.
Karen felt a hard tug beneath and behind her and wondered if the idiot had let the paddle go underneath the raft or if they had maybe run over a barely-submerged rock. Cowley was still struggling to retrieve his oar but begged off the guide’s query of help. The raft shifted sickeningly as Cowley completed the task with a lurch. He hefted the paddle in victory at an unseeing audience, then sighed and went back to work.
Jason had not understated the next run of fun. This time the raft was beaten by forces from all around, and the effort to keep its aim true was exhausting. The gap in the rocks was wide enough though so the guide had surely not steered them wrong…
But something was wrong. Karen felt the raft drooping beneath her. Its very structure seemed to be losing tension. She looked back to see a troubled look cross Jason’s creased face as well.
“Hang on, gang…” he started.
And was violently interrupted. The bottom of the raft struck and caught an underwater impediment. The front of the conveyance dipped and the back came up and part way around. They were then spinning, half of the float clear and the rear half headed for a clump of stone. Jason paddled furiously, shouting out more urgent corrections this time, but there was no time. The second raft had been going too fast to completely avoid them. It struck the wayward float at midsection, vaulting Karen a foot or so into the air. That was enough to hurl her over the nearest edge. Her legs were still in the raft but her torso and head plunged into the still-chilled frothing water, and she found herself unable to straighten.
Mike Cowley leapt forward and grabbed her left arm, pulling. But he seemed to lack the strength to do anything useful. Karen was running out of air with no opportunity to grab another lungful. She pulled against Cowley, hoping her strength combined with his would do the trick.
Amazingly, he relaxed.
What the fuck??? Karen thought in fear and anger. She yanked again to get the point across but if anything he resisted even more. And damned if he was not leaning against the edge as if to force her in further!
But just as she was about to give into an expulsion of painful air, she became aware of something stabbing into the water to her right. The hockey pro had reached his oar across. She clutched it with one desperate hand, and let the man lift her out. With her left, she did the unthinkable: grabbed the back of Mike Cowley’s shirt collar and pulled down hard enough for him to tumble in.
He went under briefly, then bobbed frantically up, screaming. No one could do anything but watch in futility the bright orange life jacket cradling the soaked blond head of a doomed man, ferrying him toward a group of rocks that prefaced the final churning fury of this stretch. Cowley was sucked under again… and was not seen to emerge in the visible section of river afterward.
Later, Doctor Karen Feldman could rationalize that she was really trying to increase her odds of getting up. Although her job had her working with dead people, Karen was no killer. She could convince herself of that later.
But at the moment she was still in danger, as was the rest of the team. Jason ordered them out of the lead raft and into the second one, butted up against them. As they made for shore, the guide quickly secured the deflating raft to its intact twin. Dragging it in was tough but he insisted.
Once on dry land, Karen was helped to a patch of mossy ground. The hockey pro had found a blanket and draped it over her. The other guide, a sturdy self-described grandmother of eleven, promised a sterno stove and soon produced it. A woman Karen had not really gotten to know offered to get it lit as the grandmother joined Jason to inspect the first raft. It took scant seconds to inventory.
“God damn it, we even lost the cell phones.” Jason paced the river’s edge, tossing out an occasional swear word. But I had the bag tied down…
“Jason!” the second guide was crouched at the back of the sagging raft, curling its thick, rumpled edge over with her little fist.
The lead squatted, effortlessly balanced, and peered at the point of interest. He ran calloused fingers over the smoothest cut he had ever seen on a floatation device, growled softly, and stood. He shaded his eyes and peered downstream at the vanishing river.
“Son of a bitch didn’t worry about being caught,” he spat, kicking at the raft. “A careful saboteur would have made a ragged tear.” He mused a moment more. “I’ll bet he cut the phone bag loose first. Un-frigging-real.” Another volley of expletives followed. “I hope he dies. Yeah. I hope you fucking drown!”
The frightening curse rattled and repeated against the mountain side. Even considering the circumstances, most in the entourage flinched at its tangible malevolence. Karen just huddled, shivering from the drenching only, as the sterno can whooshed to life. She squinted at the angry young man in shadow above her, rubbed her drying hands, and tried to concern herself with the uncertain fate of a man who just may have tried to kill her. Despite her complicity, she could not. In those mere seconds it had come down to her, or him. All she could wonder was… why?
Tiny, cool dots of water peppered Karen as she emerged from the foliage, remnants of last night’s relentless rain. The minor shower was a fractional taste of the dousing she was about to endure.
“Back home it’s as dry as breakfast,” she grumbled, regarding the half-eaten stick of beef jerky in her left hand with distaste. “A little hotter, too.”
The rafter behind her laughed, as he did after her every gripe. The habit had started out superficially irritating and was now at the point of grating on her very bones. Not that she had anything against geeks; her ex-husband was king of their tribe. But this one, with his now-fashionable rectangle-lensed glasses and out-of-place trendy black getups was something else. During their prep session he had asked the most annoying questions, exhibited the most ineptitude, and tripped all over himself trying to gain favor with the alphas of the group. For some reason he apparently included Doctor Karen Feldman in that selection. Alpha bitch, maybe, Karen thought. But still beta human being…
The divorce had been — how long ago? Just over two years. She could not believe she had to calculate it. Maybe enough time had still not passed. Maybe men in general were still low on her list. She had not really dated since Mark left, and had barely even tried. Lately, friends had taken to calling her Doctor Feld-Nun. She chose not to let them know it had started to hurt. Karen considered herself only partially functional at this point, although any defects stopped just short of her professional life. Her boss had recognized that, and essentially ordered her to take time off. While a pathological tenacity had no effect on her patients, it was beginning to abrade against her colleagues.
Her shadow mistook the silence and offered, “Still chewing on it? Hey, I brought some dried fruit… apples, peaches. Easier to work.”
She glanced over her shoulder at the extended hand and debated accepting the proffered bag... then shook her head briefly. As much as Karen would have enjoyed the alternative, she feared opening the door wider to this insistent goof. She had made the mistake of entertaining him after introductions, when he showed excitement over their shared birthplace; his enthusiasm gushed like something Pandora had released into her personal space and made her too anxious to even breathe. The genie would not be rebottled, however. He had latched onto her like the leeches their guides warned about.
The river proved an invaluable ally. Its roar at this porting point all but drowned casual conversation. The good-looking guide ordered them to gather around and listen up; even the leech quieted and complied. Now this young man Karen could listen to. Unfortunately, she realized it was because he reminded her of Mark (damn it, doesn’t every man lately?), which meant her subconscious would automatically disapprove.
Last-minute instructions and general reminders were dispensed, gear checked and roll taken. This was Karen’s second such rafting adventure so she was more secure than before but not so complacent as to tune the ritual out, a hazard of some repetitive amateurs. In fact she noticed that her chatty shadow paid more attention to her than the lead guide. It was noticed.
“Mr. Cowley, can I safely assume you’re among us?” he asked tartly.
Karen’s ersatz companion jumped at his name. “Oh! Very sorry, Jason. Yes. Here.”
“Time to hand over cell phones,” the youthful guide continued stridently, holding high a blue plastic bag as he scanned the group of eight. “Please turn them completely off first. They will be placed in this bag and secured with my gear.” He raised his voice even higher and louder. “For the duration of this trip there will be no communication with the outside world. You will be one with the river and completely resistant to distraction. You will be expected to perform as a team. Deschutes can be the thrill of a lifetime but that means jeopardy is involved. Note that I have never lost a rafter while conducting these ventures and I don’t intend to start today. If anyone has any doubts at all, this is your last chance to bail without risk. The hike back to base camp as you know is a rough three miles. It will be a much easier trip than you are about to undertake.”
The rafters snickered knowingly at each other but not one showed any sign of forfeiting their spot.
“Okay. Let’s port.”
Two large orange rafts had already been brought in and inflated by other employees, and they now assisted the rafters in. The group was evenly divided into teams of five, with the lead guide naturally assuming control of the first raft ported and his female colleague taking the other.
Karen tried to temper her displeasure at team selection with excitement at being in the starting raft. Her prior experience, while limited, had been enough to promote her over Mike Cowley, but was not enough to keep him from riding just behind her. Fortunately Jason had been very adamant that casual conversation would only be permitted in areas of calm. The rest of the time, he owned the airwaves.
Although the river noise was thunderous here, the water was not running as rough as it would, Jason had informed them. So they started off slow and uneventful, picking up speed quickly though. At this point Jason shouted that they were about to enter a stretch of relative serenity and would be able to take in some of the surrounding beauty. Karen found herself wishing there was something like this in Texas; the Guadalupe could be breathtaking but it was nothing like what she was experiencing now. She took Jason’s advice and shrugged off recent cares, allowing the sunlight to melt tension from her face and the rippling river to massage her legs through the raft’s bottom. She squinted at the birds breaking from tree to tree in their incessant quest for tastier insects. Some called across the water, answering themselves with shrill, staccato songs echoing off the cliff to port.
I can handle this, Karen mused dreamily. Even her shadow was apparently too awestruck to interrupt her reverie.
Jason alerted them to their first run of whitewater coming up. Karen felt the change underneath even as he announced it, noticed visually the subtle but steadily increasing rate of tree passage. The itinerary was different than the one she had taken with Mark but she knew the effects and results would be the same… other than having the right person with which to share them.
Mike Cowley leaned close, exclaimed “This is it!” and dug his oar into the swirling water. Jason barked directions at his temporary crew and for the most part they responded well. Karen watched with admiration the other seasoned member of their team, a former professional hockey player (a non-fan, she could shamefully remember neither name nor team) whose prowess with the instrument of his trade translated well to a liquefied version of his former milieu. The graying athlete caught her stare, grinned, and nodded before turning back to his task. Karen reddened, ducked, and mirrored his moves.
The river’s velocity hit a decent clip. Karen felt it tug at her paddle, thrilled at the power against the angled edge. Jason was shouting adjustments, and his team responded well. The rafts buckled down an incline but there was no real danger; this one was shallow. Small rounded rocks threatened only to bruise a body part or chip a paddle. This was gravy.
“You handled that well!” Jason acknowledged in his pseudomilitary shout. “But that was just the warm-up. It’s why we put in where we did. The next one is a bit trickier. There’s another stretch of essential calm, and then we hit rapids hard and fast. It comes up almost by surprise. But I don’t like surprises. I like a prepared team. You don’t get the luxury of pebbles on this next one, either. We’re going to see some pretty jagged outcrop. Use your paddles as you’ve been instructed. There’s an obvious passage and that’s the one we take. Ready?”
He was met with the positive chorus he expected.
“Alright then! Stay prepared.”
Karen felt the floor shift and wondered why Cowley was twisting restlessly behind her. Was he afraid? That’s all we need at this point. She was about to half-turn and offer encouragement when he cried out, “Damn! My oar.”
Fortunately they were tied to the raft, but he still had to haul it in. Jason urged him to hurry; they were fast approaching the rough.
Karen felt a hard tug beneath and behind her and wondered if the idiot had let the paddle go underneath the raft or if they had maybe run over a barely-submerged rock. Cowley was still struggling to retrieve his oar but begged off the guide’s query of help. The raft shifted sickeningly as Cowley completed the task with a lurch. He hefted the paddle in victory at an unseeing audience, then sighed and went back to work.
Jason had not understated the next run of fun. This time the raft was beaten by forces from all around, and the effort to keep its aim true was exhausting. The gap in the rocks was wide enough though so the guide had surely not steered them wrong…
But something was wrong. Karen felt the raft drooping beneath her. Its very structure seemed to be losing tension. She looked back to see a troubled look cross Jason’s creased face as well.
“Hang on, gang…” he started.
And was violently interrupted. The bottom of the raft struck and caught an underwater impediment. The front of the conveyance dipped and the back came up and part way around. They were then spinning, half of the float clear and the rear half headed for a clump of stone. Jason paddled furiously, shouting out more urgent corrections this time, but there was no time. The second raft had been going too fast to completely avoid them. It struck the wayward float at midsection, vaulting Karen a foot or so into the air. That was enough to hurl her over the nearest edge. Her legs were still in the raft but her torso and head plunged into the still-chilled frothing water, and she found herself unable to straighten.
Mike Cowley leapt forward and grabbed her left arm, pulling. But he seemed to lack the strength to do anything useful. Karen was running out of air with no opportunity to grab another lungful. She pulled against Cowley, hoping her strength combined with his would do the trick.
Amazingly, he relaxed.
What the fuck??? Karen thought in fear and anger. She yanked again to get the point across but if anything he resisted even more. And damned if he was not leaning against the edge as if to force her in further!
But just as she was about to give into an expulsion of painful air, she became aware of something stabbing into the water to her right. The hockey pro had reached his oar across. She clutched it with one desperate hand, and let the man lift her out. With her left, she did the unthinkable: grabbed the back of Mike Cowley’s shirt collar and pulled down hard enough for him to tumble in.
He went under briefly, then bobbed frantically up, screaming. No one could do anything but watch in futility the bright orange life jacket cradling the soaked blond head of a doomed man, ferrying him toward a group of rocks that prefaced the final churning fury of this stretch. Cowley was sucked under again… and was not seen to emerge in the visible section of river afterward.
Later, Doctor Karen Feldman could rationalize that she was really trying to increase her odds of getting up. Although her job had her working with dead people, Karen was no killer. She could convince herself of that later.
But at the moment she was still in danger, as was the rest of the team. Jason ordered them out of the lead raft and into the second one, butted up against them. As they made for shore, the guide quickly secured the deflating raft to its intact twin. Dragging it in was tough but he insisted.
Once on dry land, Karen was helped to a patch of mossy ground. The hockey pro had found a blanket and draped it over her. The other guide, a sturdy self-described grandmother of eleven, promised a sterno stove and soon produced it. A woman Karen had not really gotten to know offered to get it lit as the grandmother joined Jason to inspect the first raft. It took scant seconds to inventory.
“God damn it, we even lost the cell phones.” Jason paced the river’s edge, tossing out an occasional swear word. But I had the bag tied down…
“Jason!” the second guide was crouched at the back of the sagging raft, curling its thick, rumpled edge over with her little fist.
The lead squatted, effortlessly balanced, and peered at the point of interest. He ran calloused fingers over the smoothest cut he had ever seen on a floatation device, growled softly, and stood. He shaded his eyes and peered downstream at the vanishing river.
“Son of a bitch didn’t worry about being caught,” he spat, kicking at the raft. “A careful saboteur would have made a ragged tear.” He mused a moment more. “I’ll bet he cut the phone bag loose first. Un-frigging-real.” Another volley of expletives followed. “I hope he dies. Yeah. I hope you fucking drown!”
The frightening curse rattled and repeated against the mountain side. Even considering the circumstances, most in the entourage flinched at its tangible malevolence. Karen just huddled, shivering from the drenching only, as the sterno can whooshed to life. She squinted at the angry young man in shadow above her, rubbed her drying hands, and tried to concern herself with the uncertain fate of a man who just may have tried to kill her. Despite her complicity, she could not. In those mere seconds it had come down to her, or him. All she could wonder was… why?