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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
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    • The Voyage of the White Cloud
    • Retaking Elysium
    • The Qubit Zirconium
    • Hamlet, Prince of Robots
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    • Devi Jones’ Locker
      • Packet Trade
      • Sea Change
      • Storm Cloud
      • Floating Point
    • The Home for Wayward Parrots
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    • Year’s Best Aotearoa New Zealand Science Fiction & Fantasy, Volume 4
    • 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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    • 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.”

Read on a single page

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Primary Sidebar

Book cover for “Hamlet, Prince of Robots” by M. Darusha Wehm. A blue-green robot skull with a golden crown in the style of a neon sign, over a dark glitchy background. In the top left is a quote reading “Enormous fun and a real gift to lovers of Shakespeare or science fiction or both. Familiar and surprising, clever and moving.” From Kate Heartfield, author of Sunday Times bestseller The Embroidered Book.

Hamlet, Prince of Robots

Like Succession meets Blade Runner … an extremely compelling and satisfying read that allowed me to investigate my own place in our time of communion and interdependence with machines.

—Pip Adam, author of Acorn Prize winner The New Animals

Something is rotten in the state of cybernetics.

Elsinore Robotics is on the cusp of a breakthrough—the company is poised to create the first humanoid androids powered by true artificial intelligence. Their only rival, Norwegian Technologies, lost a publicly streamed contest between their flagship model, Fortinbras, and Elsinore’s HAM(let) v.1.

But when the first Hamlet model is found irreparably deactivated, the apparent victim of wild malware, the field of consumer cybernetics is thrown wide open.

Learn More

Free Stories

The Foreigner

I slip into the fake-leather seat, and look at my watch. I have about an hour before the shareholders' meeting, but I have to stop by the day care first, so I want to make this snappy. I've found that … Read More... about The Foreigner

Chekhov’s Phaser

I never planned to end up here. I've never planned anything, really. All my life has been like that: I see an opportunity and I take it. Sometimes that works out better than other times. So why should … Read More... about Chekhov’s Phaser

Fire. Escape. – Sample

This is a novelette that explores a different aspect of the world of the Andersson Dexter novels. You can get the complete ebook for free when you sign up to my mailing list. It all started with the … Read More... about Fire. Escape. – Sample

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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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

Elsewhere

  • Darkly Lem
  • Many Worlds
  • Mastadon

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