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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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    • Beautiful Red
    • Children of Arkadia
    • Andersson Dexter
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      • Act of Will
      • The Beauty of Our Weapons
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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
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      • 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
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    • Procyon Press Science Fiction Anthology 2016
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Storm Cloud – Sample

Chapter One: Predictions

They say that sunset in the tropics is instant. One moment it’s daylight and then it’s dark. If you’re lucky, in between you can see the “green flash.” I’m convinced that the so-called green flash is a myth based on the way the light appears at sunset some nights. And as for instant — hardly. Sure, twilight doesn’t last forever like it does in a Canadian summer, but it happens. I know it does, because there I was, sitting on the beach in Mo’orea, watching the sunset’s colours illuminate the few clouds dotting the sky out to sea.

The party was in full swing behind me, people laughing and eating, the twang of a guitar as someone started up a song.

“I was wondering where you’d gone to.” That non-existent twilight managed to cast a shadow over me as Isaac settled into the sand next to me. He wasn’t even ten years older than me, but he felt like a kindly uncle. As the mate on the ship I served aboard, Isaac kept both the boat and the people working.

I smiled at him. “I’m fine,” I said, “just enjoying the view.”

“Hmm,” he said, “it is beautiful.” I could just make out him gesturing back to the party. “They sure know how to have a good time.”

He wasn’t referring to our shipmates, although the sentiment applied to them as well. We were enjoying our last night in the area, which was often an excuse for a party. But this time it was especially worth noting, as our hosts were Tulia’s extended family.

She was one of the deckhands and Mo’orea was her home. When we’d arrived two weeks previously, they’d tried to convince her to stay. It had been touch and go for a while, but she’d eventually convinced them that she wasn’t ready to quit sailing yet. The captain, Mat, had agreed to stay in the area longer than usual to let them spend a little time together, but we had to get moving. At least, that was what she said. I didn’t completely understand our schedule, but I did understand that Mat got squirrelly if we stayed in one place too long. At first I thought it was part of our business model but now I wonder if it had more to do with the captain’s personality.

“They’re going to miss her,” I said.

“They will,” Isaac agreed. “I’m going for another plate of ham. You coming?” He stood, brushing sand off his butt. I watched as the dying colours deepened in the sky.

“Sure.”

Rainui Laille, Tulia’s brother, had laid in a proper Polynesian spread for the party, including a whole roast pig. I wasn’t a vegetarian or anything, but honestly it put me off. I tried not to look it in the face as I took a plate. I stood next to a young Polynesian woman, one of Tulia’s cousins, waiting for my turn at the salads. She was tall, with long wavy hair that fell almost to her hips, and even in the dim light I could make out the swirl of a tattoo on her upper arm. She caught my eye, and said in accented English, “You sail with Tulia?”

I said I did and introduced myself. “I’m Devi.”

“I’m Marie. Nice to meet you.” She scooped a large helping of something that looked like coleslaw onto her plate, then gestured to me. I nodded and she gave me an equally generous portion. “How long have you been sailing?”

“I joined the crew…” I had to mentally count the days, “… a couple of months ago.”

“Oh. And before?”

Before I was on the boat I was a regular university student in Vancouver, and I’d ended up on board the Byte Bucket as my internship working for a company that offers clients untraceable, remote data storage. Explaining cloud data storage was hard enough; explaining that I administered servers installed on a boat that most of the time was sailing in some of the remotest parts of the world, when even I didn’t really understand why we did what we did — well, it wasn’t exactly easy small talk for me.

“This is my first time on a boat.” I left it at that, and she seemed surprised but accepted what I’d said without question. We took our plates to a nearby table and sat.

After we’d each had a mouthful, she said, “There are a lot of ladies on your boat, no?”

I couldn’t help myself and I laughed. “Yup.”

“I work with Rainui at the company.” Tulia’s brother and his wife ran a local tourist charter firm; they’d just added a float plane to their fleet of jeeps. “We see many of the cruising yachts. There are not so many ladies on other boats, I think?”

I nodded. “We are unusual, it’s true. There are lots of couples, a few families. The big, fancy boats have crew; they’re mainly guys.”

She nodded, thinking it over. “It’s good,” she said, finally. “It’s hard to be the only lady.”

“It is.” I knew it wasn’t as bad as it used to be in computer science, but I’d still had plenty of experience being the only woman in the room. “What do you do?”

“I’m the pilot,” she said, grinning. I grinned back.

“Awesome.”

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

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

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

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

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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