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M. Darusha Wehm

Explorer of Worlds Real and Imagined

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    • Bodies at Rest, Bodies in Motion
    • Fire. Escape. – Sample
    • The Foreigner
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    • Beautiful Red
    • Children of Arkadia
    • Andersson Dexter
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      • Act of Will
      • The Beauty of Our Weapons
      • Pixels and Flesh
    • Modern Love and other stories
    • The Voyage of the White Cloud
    • Retaking Elysium
    • The Qubit Zirconium
  • Mainstream Fiction
    • Devi Jones’ Locker
      • Packet Trade
      • Sea Change
      • Storm Cloud
      • Floating Point
    • The Home for Wayward Parrots
  • Anthologies
    • 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
    • Science Fiction Short Stories
    • Procyon Press Science Fiction Anthology 2016
    • Use Only As Directed
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    • The Martian Job
    • Alexander Systems
    • You Do You
    • if ink could flow backward
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Sea Change – Sample

Chapter One: Fair Winds and Following Seas

The island slowly shrank as we sailed away. I couldn’t see anything happening when I looked right at it, but when I went down below for a while, then came back, it was shocking to see how far we’d come. It was unnerving to watch something disappear incrementally.

I’d only spent a few days at Isla Isabela, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was leaving home. I’d come to know my way around the place; I knew the best route to get from the lagoon to town on foot, I knew which grocery store carried the good cheese, I had a favourite restaurant. And I already missed the bakery that made raisin bread in old coffee cans so it came out as a ridged cylinder.

I was nostalgic for a place I’d only visited, but it was just a way of covering up my nervousness. The longest ocean passage I’d ever been on was four days and that had seemed monumental at the time. Now I knew the Byte Bucket would be at sea for weeks, possibly close to to a month, of total isolation. I wasn’t afraid, exactly — I trusted the captain and the rest of the crew completely, and they’d demonstrated that they knew what they were doing — but it was daunting nonetheless. So I focussed on the island and tried to see it recede into the distance of space and time.

Jim “Call Me Jimmy” Houghton, ship’s cook and resident old salt popped his head out of the companionway. “Anyone mind if I load up the tunes?”

Heads shook and the captain said, “Go for it.” Jimmy disappeared and a few seconds later the opening notes of “Rock the Casbah” boomed out of speakers cleverly built into the sides of the bench seats in the cockpit. Mat, the captain, grinned at me. “We don’t stand on ceremony much on this boat, but the first day at sea is usually a dance party night.”

I frowned. “We didn’t do this on our last passage.”

Mat tossed her head, dreadlocks swaying. “We didn’t want to spook you. Besides, that was only a couple of days. This is the real thing. We ought to celebrate. Come on, Devi, let’s dance!” With that, she grabbed my hand and began to dance around the cockpit. The other crew members joined us, filling the spacious area. Tulia and Martin, the two junior sailors, danced nearby but not together in that tried and true method of high-schoolers who like each other. They were pretending that there was nothing between them, but we all knew better. I grinned at Martin and watched him blush and avoid my eyes. Tulia had been jealous of my friendship with him at first, but after she found out about my ex-girlfriend, she’d warmed up to me. And here I’d been worried that she’d be nervous about sharing a bunk room with a queer girl.

Mat and I shared an incredulous look as Jimmy appeared out of nowhere and tried to get a mosh going with Christine, the mechanic, and the mate, Isaac. They were probably half his age, but at times you’d never know it.

It was a better ride than I’d been expecting. The wind wasn’t very strong and we were on what I’d learned was called a beam reach — where the wind is blowing over the side of the boat. Isaac, the ship’s mate, had told me that it was the fastest point of sail, though it could often be uncomfortable because the ocean waves hit the boat broadside. However, today we were lucky — the swell was astern even though the wind was abeam; a perfect sail.

“Fair winds and following seas,” I said, echoing the phrase I’d heard sailors say when they wished each other well.

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” Mat said, twirling around with her arms in the air. “The one truth about the weather is that it will change.”

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Retaking Elysium cover

Retaking Elysium

Mars is good place to reinvent yourself, isn’t it?

Jules Morales’s life has always been a state of contact change. When the opportunity comes up, why not take a trip to Mars to work on the platinum mining operation—and make a load of money? But what if there is more to Mars than just a payday and an adventure?

The woman now calling herself Lisa Marie has spent her whole life trapped by the struggle to make ends meet, and sometimes held hostage by her own memories. On Mars she might finally find financial security, but will she also find something to care about today, and maybe even for the future?

Learn More

Free Stories

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Career Opportunities

Jo-Lynn had always laughed at Charlotte, her stupid sister-in-law, who believed the crap in those so-called newspapers she bought at the supermarket every week. It was no wonder that her no-good … Read More... about Career Opportunities

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

Publications

  • . ….. ..story .. time
  • A Most Elegant Solution
  • A Most Elegant Solution (audio)
  • 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
  • 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
  • if ink could flow backward
  • recursion
  • we are all energy

Non-fiction

  • 90ways.com

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