We cast our words out upon the wide digital sea not knowing where the ebb and flow of electrons may take them. The words we write maybe forgotten or they might bring a smile to brighten another’s day. Standing by the sea, I wonder if I will ever know. Soon I’ll wander back to my worn keyboard, for there are more stories yet to be told. For now I am content to walk the sands, looking for signs of others that have tossed their own words upon the ocean waves trusting in fate and surf to wash them to the furthest shore.
--Me!
Disclaimer: This is fiction. All the characters and events portrayed here are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely accidental and unintentional. I as the author reserves all rights. A big thanks goes out to Cathy who proofed and generally make this readable. Any remaining errors, or mistakes are mine! Special thanks to Sarah Lynn Morgan who gave me permission to use parts of her most excellent “The Unicorn’s Gift” Enjoy!
We cast our words out upon the wide digital sea not knowing where the ebb and flow of electrons may take them. The words we write maybe forgotten or they might bring a smile to brighten another’s day. Standing by the sea, I wonder if I will ever know. Soon I’ll wander back to my worn keyboard, for there are more stories yet to be told. For now I am content to walk the sands, looking for signs of others that have tossed their own words upon the ocean waves trusting in fate and surf to wash them to the furthest shore.
--Me!
Maya Zhu-Smith flittered about the seashore archeological site careful not to disturb any of the fragile evidence of a civilization long gone. This find had only been recently reclaimed from the Pacifica Ocean. The old concrete and steel rebar building of the ancients had proved to be no match for the rising sea levels and its unfortunate location in a seismically active area.
Her work-skin’s AG kept her floating above the age old tumbled ruins. The body hugging Uber-brainy fabric was laboring hard at keeping her cool and comfortable in the steamy tropical environment. Looking up from where the excavation was progressing, it was hard to believe that a few thousand centurns ago this had been a temperate area.
Sweeping the area with her hazel eyes, vegetation grew wild covering the landscape next to the beach in a lush carpet of green. All around her, life hummed with clicks, whistles, and chirps of insects, birds and others hidden by the thick growth of the jungle.
“Qbie” she asked, “Any signs of Boogies out there?”
Her Queen Bee AI controlling her personal hive of micro and nano-sized workers, data-sorters, and other tools of the trade, answered from Virt-world. “No, Maya. The Preserve bees were most efficient in preparing the area for our dig.”
Maya nodded. The vicinity had been swept for hostile nanite altered life-forms that had managed to survive from the old wars of the ancients, but it always paid to be cautious. Besides, she had special plans for tonight. Generally Maya preferred, working in her male seeming. Ease of sanitation, and having some extra bulk were always useful out in the field, but she liked socializing as fem. Particular with a marc as attractive as the one Pat made. Just thinking of him and of their last rendezvous made her smile.
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However, because her battered little work-hauler was so slow, she just wouldn’t have time to shower and change before her big date. The dingy blue flyer could barely make it to the Luna high-space transport sphere in less than two centares. So for today, she had to suffer as fem out in the wilds.
She sighed. That was what she got for majoring in archeology and working out in the hind end of the boondocks. However, once Maya had heard about the possibilities of the find, she couldn’t stay away. The Preserve’s caretaker bees had notified Ares University when in the course of their duties they had found ruins dating back to the legendary “Big One,” the disastrous seismic event that had forever altered the old Merican Empire. This could be a potential archeological bonanza.
The Home-world Biological Preserve was a work in progress. The busy AI’s and their hives of bees persevered to restore and care for humanity’s old home. Maya found it hard to believe just how much the old planet had been mistreated. Old nuke craters, nanitie spills, and toxic waste contamination were everywhere it seemed. Not to mention the great big hulking piles of ruins they called cities. What a mess!
The only saving grace was the treasures could be found within those places. Like here she thought, as her hive worked to expose buried chambers that hadn’t seen the light of day in millenniums.
Her hive updated her on its efforts. “Maya,” it said in even modulated tones. “We have reached an interesting strata. The weakened structure has been shored up and treated to prevent further deterioration. Do you want to take a look or should we continue?”
“Thanks Qbie. I’ll take it from here,” she told it, sliding her consciousness fully into the virt-world simulation the AI had constructed of the site.
Taking personal control of the work, Maya sent in her specialized data-miner bees. It was a good thing that many primitive pre-Enlightened civilizations overbuilt their archives to ridiculous extremes. Without that, few records of those bygone times would have survived for modern culture to find.
One by one Maya carefully wormed streams of her tools into the decayed materials. Time hadn’t treated the plastics and metals gently, but modern recovery methods at her disposal working at quantum and sub-atomic levels carefully rebuilt each one in the memory of her hive’s work space.
Her excitement grew as she began to see the full scope of her find. Not just business records and accounts in this one but, this one was full of data from archaic blogs, forum records, and all the other cultural clues that set scientists like her, hands itching in anticipation. Those other records were important to the overall picture, but to read the accounts and thoughts of people who had lived so long ago were a true prize.
Maya had to school herself to patience. This could be as big as the WOW find a Decturn ago! That had set the entire civilized Sphere on its ear. Virt-world dramas based on those long ago records were still some of the most poplar in the Sphere.
She was seeing actual records of conversations here! Plus there some sort of achieves here as well. A vast one according to what her prowling bees told her. She put Qbie to begin translating the indexes as she carefully surveyed the best way to preserve the records.
A respectful chime let her know that its first efforts were completed. As expected, most were in the ancient Merican dialect, but there were some in Nglish, as well as a few in other languages! Maya felt her excitement growing as she read the first couple of lines, a fiction site! However, what kind of stories would be hosted by someplace named after a large closet?
Her confusion grew as she looked at the author list: New author, AB Zorro, Aardvark and others followed in alphabetical order. Were her translation protocols working correctly? What did people who went by such names write?
Maya impatiently waited for her busy worker bee’s to reconstruct, the title index. Peering into her Virt-Portal, scattered names of stories long lost flickered into being: For a Girl, Winter’s Night Dream, Mistress of the Rings, Lucky, and near the bottom, Unicorn’s Gift.
Unicorns? She recalled that it was a mythological creature of the ancient’s worshiped by young fems. Curious she directed her hive’s attention to that one’s recovery. A few moments later, Maya opened the very old file as Qbie still labored at reconstructing the rest of its bits and bytes.
She translated the first lines of the poem that served as its prelude.
always rare, too few,
few are found among those
That people say are true.
Maya had fallen into her chosen profession because of a great love of hunting and finding great treasures. Not of rare elements or other valuables that even people of her Enlightened Age still sought, but of knowledge and words long overlooked or forgotten. These words written and hidden for so long spoke to her. Judging it was safe to let Qbie handle the reclamation, and not being able to help herself, she settled down to begin reading.
Centurns later:
Maya basked in the attention of her peers as they celebrated the premier of the Virt-world drama. Her discovery had been bigger than even she had dreamed. Her professor and mentor had guided her, throwing in the resources of the university into the recovery of those priceless records.
Although she had read this particular story many times before, it still had the power to cause her to weep. The information hungry Sphere had been just as amazed as she at the materials hidden in that long buried vault.
Although there were meca-tons of cultural data from the Home-world, much of it was nearly incomprehensible to the modern society of the Sphere. Able to change their forms and gender at will, made the narrow-minded brittle point of view of the primitives very strange to them.
Enlightened humans mentally more flexible and adaptable had left the Home-world to seek their fortunes among the stars. After their less advanced ancestors had killed themselves off despite offers of aid, they had returned to lovingly restore their birthplace to its natural grandeur.
Maya felt a tear flow down her cheek. The power of these old stories spoke to the people of the Sphere with a rare power. This was something they could sympathize with, unlike many of the other ancient stories. That wasn’t to say there weren’t gems of wisdom among them. Nor that among this most recent trove there wasn’t those titles that was just plain out and out bizarre, but it was so unlike those other older chronicles.
Just like centurns before when she had first read those last closing words, among the hot humid remains from a long age, they once more moved her to tears.
as your gift has been one too.
But many more can see the light
Now all because of you.”
Syna’s Song
— Aida
S.L.M.
The End
Syna’s Song from “The Unicorn’ Gift” by Sarah Lynn Morgan
Comments
When you begin to quote yourself...
"When you begin to quote yourself, you had better make sure you're actually quoting something half-decent." - me.
^_^ Great as always, Grover. Nice, interesting meta-TG-meta-story. While I'd love to see the future this is set in expanded, the same could be said of every book, story, blog, and label I read.
~ Compulsive online gamer, supernerd, and geek at your service ~
Oh Grover
Wonderful! I don't know whether to laugh or cry or both at the same time,
Joanne
I'm doing both.
The Unicorn's Gift is one of my favorite stories of all time, and the thought of it being rediscovered by our far distant descendants and given the recognition it deserves is wonderful. This is a delightful little experiment, and while referential, is in the right place for just that reference. Thank you for a very good read! d(*⌒▽⌒*)b
-Liz
Successor to the LToC
Formerly known as "momonoimoto"
Furthest Shore
Thanks to everyone who commented :) This was one of those ideas that came to me while chatting with another author. Our stories aren't mainstream, but what would have to change so they would have more acceptance? That got me thinking about the sci-fi angle and led me to the dig on that far away shore. Picking the story, that is the focal point was much harder. I considered using one of mine, but I'm not quite that egotistical. I made a list of my favorites as well as asking others what their was. Then I read the opening and closing lines looking for just the right feeling. I think that Sarah's story is just about perfect for what I needed. Besides, I'm a big fan of The Unicorn's Gift as well as her other stories.
I think it works very well and it brings me to tears every time I read it. I truly feel that last paragraph from Syn'a Song applies to all of us who does our best with our scribbles from our hearts.
Hugs!
grover
Grover, Careful,
Or you can give Sarah a swelled head. :)
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
Well !
Grover, I first have to say that it’s a good story. Science Fiction has always been my guilty pleasure, but one from which I draw so many truisms for, and examples of the things I hold most dear. Courage, Loyalty, and a love of adventure and new knowledge, certainly, but more often, the simple stamina it takes to only imagine ‘what if?’ in spite of the multitude who can only see value in ‘why bother?’ That is what Science and reason are all about, and the exquisite 'reason' that I say that my mind is my playground.
It’s a good story, Grover, one that has all those qualities, and more; and, one that I am only too happy to cast a vote and to offer a Comment for.
As for the fiction part… Well. I don’t think that there is any danger of a swelled head here. I am way too grateful, and far too humbled for so base an emotion to intrude. It is mostly with horror, and with all humility that I could ever consider future races examining anything of mine for merit; and at the same time, an overwhelming gratitude for the confidence and complement you’ve given my writing today. LOL. A fiction in it’s truest sense, surely, but an awesomely flattering complement as well.
Thank you, most kindly. Both for the honorable mention, and for a cracking good Scifi story.
Sarah Lynn Morgan
Beautiful Future for the TG
Having people of the future relating so well to our stories doesn't sound much like science fiction to me. It's only the technology and portrayal of our civilization that gives the game away.
Thanks for a wonderful story, Grover.
- Terry
writing for the ages
Suddenly this t.g. fiction stuff is serious business. The idea of our stuff being discovered all those millennea from now makes me want to write a better grade of story, delete my lamer efforts. I see you read a lot of SF of the Bear, Benford, Brin variety, you're so comfortable in the genre. Your stories have a lot of heart, Grover, & a chewy moral center. Yum!
~~~hugs, Laika
What borders on stupidity?
Canada and Mexico.
.
A little science in my fiction.
I must admit I do like a little science in my Sci-fi. One of my biggest complaints about the so-called Sci-fi channel is that there is damn little science in it. Yes, guilty as accused. Bear, Benford, and you might recognized some early Varley as well. Of course growing up, it was another group with names like Simak, Bova, Asimov, Clarke and so on.
Just promise me you won't delete a thing! You are one of the treasures here, with your way at looking at things upside down and sideways. I love reading authors earlier stuff because often you can see how they went from one work to another. It's very Kool to see that development as they refine themselves.
I seem to remember from somewhere, that someone said (Yes I have one of the world's worse memories!) That if you want to change the world, the pen is the best tool for the job. Maybe we're not changing anything here, but I do know bits and pieces leak out to the mainstream. Perhaps I'm just deluding myself, but I do have hope that one day things will be better.
Again, Thanks to everyone who have read as well as commented! Salute! :)
hugs!
grover
Although...
...A little nod, at least, is due to Fantasy in the (accidental?, though if so not inappropriate) reference to Le Guin. (^__^)
For Science in your SF, you might try Peter Watts. Not very "nice" stories, but >very< well-written and well conceived ideas based on a fair amount of research (he tends to include references to some of his source material at the end of each volume).
-Liz
Successor to the LToC
Formerly known as "momonoimoto"
Science in Science Fiction
Asimov once won, as he put it, a Hugo for nothing. He relates it very well (and humorously) in The Hugo Winners (I don't recall which one.) The award was for "Putting the Science in Science Fiction."
I used to read only fact-type books -- science, of course. I was in junior high before I discovered science fiction. I was hooked forever.
I, too, like a little (or a lot) of science in my fiction -- what Asimov refers to as 'hard SF.' Even with fantasy, I want everything to make sense and be internally consistent. I don't mind things that are way out there. It just has to make sense and not blatantly contradict what is already known. That's why I enjoy the MORFS and Whateley universes so much.
Ray Drouillard
Wonderful story!
... And you couldn't have picked a better story to honor. The Unicorn's Gift somehow has that indefinable quality of being timeless. People are going to be able to relate to it for centuries to come. It has a dreamy quality, and yet is still somehow very down-to-earth.
The Furthest Shore does a very good job of giving us a glimpse into the probable future. People are still people, even with all the new technology.
It has been said that short stories are the most difficult to write because it's difficult to develop a character in such a short time.
That makes a short SF story doubly difficult. You have to not only develop the characters, but build the story universe.
You did a great job on all of that. You developed the characters, the universe, and even the culture; and left me wanting to see more.
But even if you never touch that universe again, the story is finished and self-contained.
Ray Drouillard
this is great
A very nice little story. the hardest part about writing about a very different culture is how to make it different while making it understandable, and you have done a good job of straddling that line.
Awesome!
A worthy paragraph to put into signatures :D
I can only say that this is a very beautiful and sad story at once. On one hand there is the enlightened humanity that searches the ruins of its ancestors to rescue some of their culture. On the other hand that very ancestors denied any help and chose to wipe themselves out. At least they remained of humanity.
I kind of wonder how a normal everyday person would react if thrown into that future by a time rift or something. Beeing frozen in an experiment and then forgotten. The culture is interesting and would be a great topic to explore.
I hope humanity will be really like that one day.
Thank you for writing this awesome story, I can't wait to see your next story :D
*hugs*
Beyogi