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M. Darusha Wehm

Explorer of Worlds Real and Imagined

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    • Bodies at Rest, Bodies in Motion
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    • The Voyage of the White Cloud
    • Retaking Elysium
    • The Qubit Zirconium
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    • Devi Jones’ Locker
      • Packet Trade
      • Sea Change
      • Storm Cloud
      • Floating Point
    • The Home for Wayward Parrots
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    • KeyForge: Tales From the Crucible
    • Trans-Galactic Bike Ride
    • Fireweed: Stories from the Revolution
    • Year’s Best Aotearoa New Zealand Science Fiction and Fantasy: Volume I
    • The Dame Was Trouble
    • Dystopia Utopia Short Stories
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    • Procyon Press Science Fiction Anthology 2016
    • Use Only As Directed
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Floating Point – Sample

Chapter One: Bumper Boats

There’s a reason why people say they are “at sea” when they are lost or confused or don’t know what’s going on. It’s not because life on a boat is inherently baffling — although I felt that way often enough. It’s because being in the middle of the ocean, with nothing to look at but your own ship and the horizon, is like being in limbo. It’s neither here nor there, you have no frame of reference other than a GPS-generated blip on a screen. What was like before there was even that? How many ancient sailors had gone mad from the sheer unknowableness of their place in the world?

We were safe in the harbour of Pago Pago in American Samoa as I ruminated on these thoughts. I could see the town ashore, the lights of other boats at anchor. I knew where I was, literally at least. But I still felt at sea in many ways.

I’d been aboard the Byte Bucket for half of a nine-month term, minding the servers carefully housed in the hold of the ship that were run by my employer, Really Remote Desktop. They ran the boat and paid for the crew to sail it around the world, keeping the location of their clients’ data safe from the prying eyes of hackers, competitors and governments. It was a strange gig, one that my professors at university told me was a coup for a co-op student to be offered, so I’d taken the job against my own better judgment. Most of the time, my profs had been right.

Today, though, I wished I’d turned it down. I couldn’t stop thinking about my family back in Canada, preparing for my grandmother’s funeral without me. Not only was I not there, helping them, grieving with them, I hadn’t even known she’d died until days after it happened. I hadn’t known because I was out sailing, having fun on a boat in the tropics with my friends.

At least, that’s how it felt.

“It’s your job, Devi.” Everyone kept telling me this — my dad, my other crew members. Even Mat, the captain of the Bucket, who had agreed to stick around in Pago Pago longer than she’d planned so I could talk to my family on the phone, told me not to feel guilty.

“It’s part of the boat life,” she’d said. “Hell, missing one thing so you can do another thing is part of everyone’s life.” I knew she was right, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the joy I’d felt in finally literally learning the ropes as we’d gone out for a fun sail and the crew had helped me learn the basics of sailing. I wondered what I’d been doing when Grandma passed away. Had I been laughing?

http://darusha.ca/floating-point-sample-full/“>Read on a single page.

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The Qubit Zirconium

Hugely imaginative, powerfully written and imbued with an innate sense of fun and enjoyment that makes everything sparkle with energy…

— The Sci-Fi and Fantasy Reviewer

Alien detectives stumble across a mystery that could tear apart their patchwork planet, the Crucible, in this riotous science fantasy novel from the smash hit game, KeyForge

Wibble & Pplimz, the Crucible’s most unusual private investigators, must set off from their office in Hub City to clear the name of a former client. Along the way, their investigation broadens from a simple accusation of theft to include a missing person, a potential murder, and a highly unusual gem.

Learn More

Free Stories

Fame

"Pupusas?" The woman's nasal voice reached Randall at the back of the bus before he saw her pushing her way down the aisle. He could smell the warm, raw meat smell of his own sweaty body, and his … Read More... about Fame

The Interview

Originally published in Podioracket Presents - Glimpses “I was working at this stim joint, a place called Ultra-Sissons. It’s not where I’m working now — I wasn’t a bartender then, just a busser. … Read More... about The Interview

Major Tom and the Lucky Lady

I was balancing a cup of tea in one hand, while hanging on to the side of the companionway hatch with the other. I climbed into the cockpit sideways, compensating for the roll of the boat. I was only … Read More... about Major Tom and the Lucky Lady

Publications

  • . ….. ..story .. time
  • A Most Elegant Solution
  • A Most Elegant Solution (audio)
  • A Thorn in Your Memory
  • A Wish and a Hope and a Dream
  • Alexander Systems
  • Fear of Lying
  • Force Nine
  • Good Hunting
  • Home Sick
  • Home Sick (audio)
  • Homecoming
  • I Open My Eyes
  • if ink could flow backward
  • Microfiction @Thaumatrope
  • Modern Love
  • Modern Love (audio)
  • Preventative Maintenance
  • recursion
  • Reflections on a Life Story
  • Showing the Colours (audio)
  • The Care and Feeding of Mammalian Bipeds, v. 2.1
  • The Interview
  • The Stars Above Eos
  • War Profiteering
  • War Profiteering (audio)
  • we are all energy

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Other Writing

Poetry

  • . ….. ..story .. time
  • 140 and Counting
  • creation myth
  • Force Nine
  • how to make time
  • if ink could flow backward
  • recursion
  • the chrononaut
  • we are all energy

Non-fiction

  • 90ways.com

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