Inoculated by Scott Michael Decker

Release date: May 1, 2015

 Subgenre: Space opera, science fiction farce

About Inoculated: 

Orphaned on a muddy planet and reared by giant paramecia, Lydia observes with inoculated indifference as the nearby Gaean Empire crowns its new, ugly Empress. Suddenly, her life goes haywire. Pursued across the galaxy, she tries to discover why her fellow Homo sapiens have taken such a sudden dislike to her, and why her adoptive Paramecia are going to such lengths to protect her.

Excerpt:

Lydia Procopio frowned at the line ahead of her.

A couple hundred people in a queue snaked away from the Imperial Infection Control kiosk at the Helios spaceport, all of them awaiting clearance.

"What's the holdup?" she asked the person in front of her.

A rough-faced old man, his back bent from years of labor, gave her a look up and down. "Where you been livin', some backwater bayou? Outbreaks on Pyrgos Five and Cygnus Twenty, both planets under quarantine." He shook his head at her. "Ought to surf the holonet more often."

She blinked blankly at him and snorted. "Brain rot," she said. Anxious already to get Xsirh out of custody, she was tempted to raise a stink just to get past the line. She was certainly going to file multiple complaints about the rough, unwarranted treatment they'd received. "Where are you coming from?"

"Neither of those places, thank the stars."

She estimated how long she'd be standing in line, saw immediately she'd have to postpone her appointment with the CEO of Titanide Aquafoods. And who knew how long it'd take to get Xsirh released. Or if. She didn't have a lot of faith in human bureaucracy.

"Lydia." She extended her hand to the half-bent old fart in front of her.

"Nick," he said, shaking. "Short for Nikephoros. Pleased."

"Mutual," she replied. "What do you do here?"

"What else on a soupy planet like this? I fish—run a trawler for Titanide. Not much else to do either."

Lydia saw a bureaucrat making his way through the line, asking quick questions of each person he passed. "Titanide? I'm here to see Orrin."

"Runs a tight ship, he does. What's he gonna do with a pretty one like you?"

Lydia blushed and snorted. "Strictly business."

The bureaucrat pulled a man aside and led him over to an arch, where a glowing biodetector sat, its bulk twice the man's height. The man walked under the arch, alarms sounded, the arch flashed red, and a squad of armed soldiers appeared from nowhere.

"But I've been inoculated!" the man said, his voice quailing with fear.

They hauled him away.

"What'll they do with him?" Lydia asked.

"Sterilize him," Nick told her with a shrug.

"Will he be able to reproduce after that?"

"Depends on whether or not it kills him."

Lydia stared after the squad, the man in their midst struggling. "How long has it been like this?"

"Happens whenever there's an outbreak. And those quarantines may not be enough." Nick shook his head.

Lydia had read up a little on immunology and disease prevention. Her father Dorian had been a Professor of Xenobiology before he died in the shipwreck, and among his effects had been some preliminary research. The fact that they were screening people after they made planetfall seemed to her to border on incompetence.

The bureaucrat was back at it, asking people questions, passing most of them by.

"What do you suppose he's asking?"

"Whether they've been to Pyrgos Five or Cygnus Twenty in the past year."

Lydia frowned, having been to both planets multiple times on business. Pyrgos Five manufactured shipping containers, and Cygnus Twenty supplied packaging. "What's it like to fish on Theogony?"

"Terrible! Didinium are all over the place. They get in your boots, they get in the nets, they clog up the exhaust pipes, they swim up inside the sewers, and worst of all, they get mixed in with the catch. You ever see a didinium? Those slugs can grow to the size of your head."

Lydia grinned and nodded. "On Kziznvxrz, they're ferocious little beasts." In their early evolution on Xsirh's home planet, the Kziznvxrfn and Didinium had fought for preeminence across a million years, each devouring the other relentlessly, and only in the last five hundred thousand had the Kziznvxrfn waded onto dry land from the planet's primordial soup as the dominant species. And the Kziznvxrfn had never lost their liking for didinium, despite its being nearly extinct. "They're considered a delicacy. If you can catch them."

"A delicacy? They taste awful! Who in their right minds would think they're a delicacy?"

Lydia shrugged at him. "I have relatives with some pretty strange tastes."

The bureaucrat approached the old man. "Any travel to Pyrgos Five or Cygnus Twenty in the past year?"

Nick shook his head. "No, Sir, never been either place."

The head moved slightly in Lydia's direction, the bureaucrat's eyes remaining fixed to his palmcom. "Any travel to Pyrgos Five or Cygnus Twenty in the past year?"

"Several times to both," she said.

Nick instantly stepped back, as did several people around them.

"I've been inoculated," she told them all, "if that's any help." Lydia already knew nothing she could say would sway a bureaucrat, always gumming things up like didinium in the fishing nets.

"Inoculation didn't help five hundred million people on Cygnus Twenty," the bureaucrat said. "I'll have to ask you to come with me, miss. What's your name?" The bureaucrat gestured toward the glowing biodetector.

"Lydia Procopio." She followed him to the arch. Blue lights twinkled around its insides, the hum of its motors faintly audible. It soared over her, dwarfing her slight form.

"On my signal, just walk slowly through, Ms. Procopio. Don't make any sudden moves." The lights began to blink. The hum went up two octaves. "Go ahead, please."

She stepped slowly through the machine. When she reached the far side without setting off the alarms, Lydia turned to the bureaucrat. "I told you I've been inoculated."

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About Scott Michael Decker:

Scott Michael Decker, MSW, is an author by avocation and a social worker by trade. He is the author of twenty-plus novels in the Science Fiction and Fantasy genres, dabbling among the sub-genres of space opera, biopunk, spy-fi, and sword and sorcery. His biggest fantasy is wishing he were published. Asked about the MSW after his name, the author is adamant it stands for Masters in Social Work, and not "Municipal Solid Waste," which he spreads pretty thick as well. His favorite quote goes, "Scott is a social work novelist, who never had time for a life" (apologies to Billy Joel). He lives and dreams happily with his wife near Sacramento, California.

 

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Edifice Abandoned by Scott Michael Decker

Release date: March 1, 2015

Subgenre: Science fiction, space opera

About Edifice Abandoned:

 

 Inbound on an interstellar flight, Archeologist Nosuma Okande sees far more ancient sites to excavate on Achernar Tertius than the Institute has on record. Setting out to unearth these sites proves more of a challenge than she realizes, bringing her into conflict with local villages and ancient traditions—and with a shadowy force called the Madziva Mutupo, the Hippopotamus Totem.

Excerpt:

 

     Archeologist Nosuma Okande surveyed the site. A cluster of tents across the entry square looked to be the mess tent and sleeping quarters. Beyond them, atop a short stone pyramid was an awning, under it a pair of khaki-clad Caucasians gesturing toward the north rim. They were the only Caucasians, everyone else at the site of African descent, native to the planet. The site directors, Nosuma could tell, because they were the only ones not actually working.

     She headed that way, anxious about walking into Danamombe as if she owned the site. But I do own it! she told herself vehemently. It belongs to me and my people, and the ancestral spirits have given me the task of discovering why these great houses of stone had been abandoned.

     "I'll wait here," her assistant said, stopping at the pyramid foot.

     Nosuma nodded and strode up the stairs like a priestess toward a sacred ritual, looking neither left nor right, her gaze fixed to the canopy atop the structure.

     "Doctor Okande, I presume," said the man, his digs so immaculate they'd never seen the insides of a trench. "I'm Peter Tuinstra, site director, and this is my assistant, Katelyn Mulder."

     "Good morning," she said, nodding and shaking hands with each. "I see you're expecting me, Mr. Tuinstra, Ms. Mulder. I won't be here long, and I'll try to keep as low a profile as I can."

     "Quite the stir elsewhere, eh?" Tuinstra said. "But you won't find any similar artifacts here, Doctor, I assure you. I'm afraid we've already unearthed anything of major significance from Danamombe. But you're welcome to take a look. Shall I show you around?"

     "Oh, I can do that, Peter," Mulder said. "In fact, I'd be honored." Her khakis also looked as if they'd never known the gritty work of excavation. She had the breathless manner of an absolute twit.

     "Not necessary," Nosuma said, "but very kind of you both to offer. If it's all right, my assistant and I will browse the site at our leisure. I'm sure if there's anything I need, someone will know where to find you, eh?"

     "Well, if you prefer, Doctor Okande. What happened at Regina, by the way? The Hallorans arrested? For God's sake, on what charges?"

     "They tried to steal the statuettes by sedating me, my assistant, and Doctor Xironga. Fortunately, Mr. Tuinstra, I was sickened and purged most the sedative, and Doctor Xironga didn't eat much."

     "Ghastly behavior, I tell you. Never trust those English," Peter said. "Rumor is you found another totem statuette there? Given the stir the first two caused, understandable why the Institute would keep quiet about it."

     "I'm afraid I'm not able to comment on rumor, Mr. Tuinstra."

     "Prudent, that. By the way, your dissertation was wonderful, eloquently argued. No mystery why Doctor Kaonde was so eager to bring you aboard. Quite shook up the suits at headquarters too, you know, your finding that statuette on your first day. I'd love to have seen their faces."

     Nosuma gave him a quick smile. "Thank you, Mr. Tuinstra. By the way, at Regina they found an artifact, a pole sculpture, carved from bone or tusk, an ithyphallic figurine, three inches tall and a half-inch through, with a prominent phallus. Any record here at Danamombe of anything similar? Or of a female counterpart?"

     Katelyn giggled and blushed, her gaze raking Peter from head to toe.

     Nosuma wished she hadn't seen that.

     "No, not to my knowledge, Doctor Okande. If we do, I'd be happy to contact you immediately."

     "Thank you, that would be helpful," she said. "The people working here, are they all from the local clan?"

     Peter nodded. "Yes, the Fish Eagle Totem. Silly lot of rubbish, these totems. Serves a purpose if it keeps them from inbreeding, I suppose."

     "Peter!" Mulder stared at him, giving Nosuma a brief glance, as if trying to tell the site director he should watch what he was saying in front of her.

     "Well, it's a lot of bother whenever we go to break ground, all their rituals," he told his assistant. "They can do their spirit possession frolic on their own time."

     Keeping her thoughts off her face, she decided they were a perfect match for each other. "I'll stop by briefly as I'm leaving. Thank you both." And she descended from the pyramid as quickly as she could without seeming to hurry, feeling sullied.

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About Scott Michael Decker:

Scott Michael Decker, MSW, is an author by avocation and a social worker by trade. He is the author of twenty-plus novels in the Science Fiction and Fantasy genres, dabbling among the sub-genres of space opera, biopunk, spy-fi, and sword and sorcery. His biggest fantasy is wishing he were published. Asked about the MSW after his name, the author is adamant it stands for Masters in Social Work, and not "Municipal Solid Waste," which he spreads pretty thick as well. His favorite quote goes, "Scott is a social work novelist, who never had time for a life" (apologies to Billy Joel). He lives and dreams happily with his wife near Sacramento, California.

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The Gael Gates by Scott Michael Decker

Release date: January 31, 2015

Subgenre: Contemporary fantasy, science fiction

About The Gael Gates:

Portals between worlds, built by ancient Gaels, invoked by magic, now gone berserk! Three people disappear into the Gael Gates, and a forensic physicist and apostate Druid is called in to investigate. He discovers that the portal system is coming apart. Can his Science save Magic, or will his Magic save Science?

 

Excerpt:

 

Professor Ríoghan Tanguy frowned at the stand of obeliscos dominating the skyline at Las Cogotas, on Galicia in the Southern Triangle. Under a cloudy sky, smoke billowed from between the obeliscos, the natives preparing for another transit. Or another travesty, she thought.

   Although Celtiberian in extraction, she scorned the beliefs of these superstitious provincials. Give me an angstroscope and microcalipers any day! she thought. She and the local Druid, Arturo Lubri, had clashed publicly over their differences, Professor Tanguy excavating an ancient tor over the ridge, the local Druid claiming it was a sacred site abandoned by the proto-Celtiberians and therefore inviolate. Sylphs of the patron Elemental Air made their home at these sites, according to the Druid. Professor Tanguy had never seen one and scoffed at the Druid's assertions.

   Clad in her digs, dun-gray and drab, garb meant for the dirty work of excavation, Ríoghan grimaced and made her way uphill toward the obeliscos. A straggler or two also made their way toward the hilltop, the plumes of smoke like a beacon, most the villagers having already assembled.

   Druid Lubri is probably exhorting them all to dance and writhe! Ríoghan thought, greeting those who strode uphill beside her. Their lively dress, frilled cotton cloth embroidered with multicolor thread, made her look positively dumpy. She'd get no work today from the local laborers she'd hired, all of them attending the ceremony, Lubri herding his flock like an assiduous sheep dog.

   The straight streets on Galicia were somewhat at odds to the winding, narrow labyrinths common to other planets in the Southern Triangle, the constellation occupied mostly by settlers of Celtiberian extraction.

   The mechanism of transport through the Gael Gates was thought to derive from the principles of Alcubierre warp drive, and yet the Druids continued to mythologize their gate use with elaborate ritual and prestidigitation. Such sordid sortilege did little to advance a scientific understanding of the Gael Gates, hypotheses which still eluded astral and particle physicists, who posited that they operated on A-warp, in which time and distance were fundamentally the same properties, differing only in their articulation.

   An archeologist, Ríoghan cared less about the theory and more about the ignorance being perpetuated by the Druids. She'd arrived at Las Cogotas through the gates two years ago to study the ancient sites on the planet. Gamma Doradus, the double-star system of her home planet, Nemetobriga, contained very minor proto-Celtiberian sites, all of them catalogued and excavated long before.

   Each obelisco in the Henge on Galicia was etched in Celtiberian runes all the way to the top, the script still indecipherable to modern linguists, their study forbidden by both local superstition and the imperious Druid, Arturo Lubri.

   Ríoghan reached the edge of the obeliscos, an area bordered by a low rock wall, the rocks fitted by hand without mortar, encircling the hilltop and the obeliscos within, nine pillars of stone poking into the sky, two smaller sets of three pillars standing twenty-seven feet on either side of a third, larger set soaring eighty-one feet. Each set known individually as a tribelisco represented one of the three Gates sacred to Neo-Pagan Druidry—the Well, the Fire, and the Tree.

   Balderdash! Ríoghan thought.

   Druid Lubri stood in a wide stance before the largest tribelisco, waving his heavily-embroidered and -sequined cape with an elaborate flourish as he intoned in ancient Galician the incantation needed to open the gate. Villagers encircled the tribelisco, hands held as though in vigil, repeating the Druid's utterances. New arrivals were incorporated into the ring, the archeologist along with them.

   Arturo spun, flaunting his cape as though taunting a bull, his eyes glazed in ecstasy, a fine froth of spittle collecting at the corners of his mouth.

   He looks possessed! she thought, as if he had rabies. Hydrophobia occasionally cropping up in isolated places such as this, she wondered what he'd do if she threatened to throw a pail of water on him. A giggle escaped her, and the woman beside her, Doña Noba Pacem, shrank in disgust.

   Druid Arturo Lubri froze, his gaze fixed to Ríoghan. "We have an infidel in our midst! She who mocks the sylphs and desecrates our sacred sites!" His arm leapt at her, finger stabbing toward her. "Seize her!"

   Multiple villagers converged on her before she could react.

   "Bring her here," the Druid commanded. "A rope!"

   They easily overcame her struggles and dragged her into place between two of the eighty-one foot obeliscos. They tied each limb with rope, her legs three feet apart, her arms suspended at forty-five degrees overhead.

   Lubri stuck his face into hers. His breath stank of queimada. "You'll desecrate no more, Infidel! You'll meet the sylphs face to face and then you'll believe!"

   "What are you doing, Cabrón?!" she spat, seeing he was drunk.

   He backhanded her, and her head flew to the side. "Perra pequeña! Cona! Back in position, everyone! Let's send this succubus to moura encantada!" As he backed away and resumed his chants and gyrations, the villagers joined hands again.

   Her lip and cheek stung, and she tasted blood. She strained against the ropes, but none of them gave, her stretched-out arms giving her no leverage. "Dom Ontonio, help me!" she called to her lead laborer, who'd helped her recruit her dig crew.

   Belenos Ontonio kept his place in the circle, sweat on his brow and fear in his eyes.

   Lubri whipped his cape back and forth, grasped it with both hands and thrust it to the ground, kneeling at Ríoghan's feet and ululating stridently. Then he abruptly straightened and flung the cape back over his head.

   Professor Ríoghan Tanguy heard a thunderclap, and she was sucked into the gate, rope and all.

 

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About Scott Michael Decker:

Scott Michael Decker, MSW, is an author by avocation and a social worker by trade. He is the author of twenty-plus novels in the Science Fiction and Fantasy genres, dabbling among the sub-genres of space opera, biopunk, spy-fi, and sword and sorcery. His biggest fantasy is wishing he were published. Asked about the MSW after his name, the author is adamant it stands for Masters in Social Work, and not "Municipal Solid Waste," which he spreads pretty thick as well. His favorite quote goes, "Scott is a social work novelist, who never had time for a life" (apologies to Billy Joel). He lives and dreams happily with his wife near Sacramento, California.

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