“How many languages do you know, Dion?”
“Foreign languages? Well ... none really.”
“Oh, really? How many computer languages do you know?”
DION IS IN LOVE WITH ALYSON -- WILL CO-WORKER SWEND BETRAY HIM?
Sample Chapter--
He could hear the surf and smelled salt. He smiled as it reminded him of home. More steps led to a museum building, “A working model of the heavy instrument-carrying balloons sent over Alioth, at the founding of the colony. The plains to the north have the most ideal ballooning conditions on Alioth.”
The first pre-Dome settlements were on this spot. The island he had seen was the site of the Starcaster, their only subspace transmitter.
Humming, he walked inland north of the Dome. The granite rock changed to quartzite. The brown grasses gave way to oak trees and then to pine trees.. The quartzite would not support farmland.
The terrain became more and more solid rock. A rock wall about ten feet high had been blasted out to create an open shelf. A path led up to it, The white sun was still high.
Something behind him hissed. He took another step, crunched a pine cone, then suddenly glanced over his shoulder. He saw nothing and he smelled nothing but pine needles.
His pulse jumped and he could feel his heart racing, but since he was an athlete it returned to normal quickly.
Looking carefully around the perimeter of the trees, he stepped away from the cluster of pine debris to an empty patch of grass under a tree. He was deadly silent, arms out, hands open, in a wrestler’s stance; his breathing was soundless. Still he heard nothing. Maybe there had been nothing.
Glancing up at the tree, he quickly took a step out from under it. Gracefully in one fluid motion he did a half-turn but still saw nothing, not even a bird or an Aliothan equivalent.
A high bough of the tree flexed and pine needles shuddered but it might have been the wind. At the roots of the tree, grasses were flattened.
Then the invisible animal launched itself at Dion. The heavy attacker knocked him off his feet on to his back. The beast growled and Dion found himself struggling with something that had two forelegs, two back legs and a tail. It was not playing, and it wasn't an intangible hologram.
Sharp claws dug into the flesh beneath Dion’s neck. The young engineer grunted from the pain and tried to find the creatures’ neck. He was handicapped by the animal’s weight.
The brown-haired GT manager flexed his shoulders in an attempt to roll over and throw the beast off him.
“Hold still!” commanded a female voice that was at once firm and controlled.
A tall, blond woman stood there, with graceful bone structure, dressed in silk with an unadorned computer band on her wrist. Her aura of confidence and authority made her look older than her twenty-four years. Her eyes were red-brown, tinted by eye shields against the intensely bright sun. She also wore a shoulder holster and held a pistol in front of her with both hands. She fired one and only one photon burst.
All at once the beast came out of the infra-red projection field. It was a real Indian tiger... wearing a harness with a big round red patch. Alyson fired a second time at the patch.
The tiger leaped from Dion’s chest, landing seven feet away, sprang forward two more steps, then collapsed.
Suddenly relieved of the weight, Dion sat up.
Alyson asked, “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” He started to stand and winced at the sting from the claw marks. “That animal—?”
“It’s stunned. This is a hunting range and the animals are invisible except by infrared binoculars until you hit their harness. They play but they rarely attack a human. I’m Alyson Dahlia Forbs.”
“I’m Dion, Operations Manager of the GT Teleporter Project, Earth.”
E-book. w/ NONFICTION APPENDIX.
Sibling Rivalry -- competitive or friendly? Dion would do anything to get out of his older brother Michael's' shadow. But when he tries to find competitor's industrial spies he gets into more trouble than he could ever imagine!
“Foreign languages? Well ... none really.”
“Oh, really? How many computer languages do you know?”
DION IS IN LOVE WITH ALYSON -- WILL CO-WORKER SWEND BETRAY HIM?
Sample Chapter--
He could hear the surf and smelled salt. He smiled as it reminded him of home. More steps led to a museum building, “A working model of the heavy instrument-carrying balloons sent over Alioth, at the founding of the colony. The plains to the north have the most ideal ballooning conditions on Alioth.”
The first pre-Dome settlements were on this spot. The island he had seen was the site of the Starcaster, their only subspace transmitter.
Humming, he walked inland north of the Dome. The granite rock changed to quartzite. The brown grasses gave way to oak trees and then to pine trees.. The quartzite would not support farmland.
The terrain became more and more solid rock. A rock wall about ten feet high had been blasted out to create an open shelf. A path led up to it, The white sun was still high.
Something behind him hissed. He took another step, crunched a pine cone, then suddenly glanced over his shoulder. He saw nothing and he smelled nothing but pine needles.
His pulse jumped and he could feel his heart racing, but since he was an athlete it returned to normal quickly.
Looking carefully around the perimeter of the trees, he stepped away from the cluster of pine debris to an empty patch of grass under a tree. He was deadly silent, arms out, hands open, in a wrestler’s stance; his breathing was soundless. Still he heard nothing. Maybe there had been nothing.
Glancing up at the tree, he quickly took a step out from under it. Gracefully in one fluid motion he did a half-turn but still saw nothing, not even a bird or an Aliothan equivalent.
A high bough of the tree flexed and pine needles shuddered but it might have been the wind. At the roots of the tree, grasses were flattened.
Then the invisible animal launched itself at Dion. The heavy attacker knocked him off his feet on to his back. The beast growled and Dion found himself struggling with something that had two forelegs, two back legs and a tail. It was not playing, and it wasn't an intangible hologram.
Sharp claws dug into the flesh beneath Dion’s neck. The young engineer grunted from the pain and tried to find the creatures’ neck. He was handicapped by the animal’s weight.
The brown-haired GT manager flexed his shoulders in an attempt to roll over and throw the beast off him.
“Hold still!” commanded a female voice that was at once firm and controlled.
A tall, blond woman stood there, with graceful bone structure, dressed in silk with an unadorned computer band on her wrist. Her aura of confidence and authority made her look older than her twenty-four years. Her eyes were red-brown, tinted by eye shields against the intensely bright sun. She also wore a shoulder holster and held a pistol in front of her with both hands. She fired one and only one photon burst.
All at once the beast came out of the infra-red projection field. It was a real Indian tiger... wearing a harness with a big round red patch. Alyson fired a second time at the patch.
The tiger leaped from Dion’s chest, landing seven feet away, sprang forward two more steps, then collapsed.
Suddenly relieved of the weight, Dion sat up.
Alyson asked, “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” He started to stand and winced at the sting from the claw marks. “That animal—?”
“It’s stunned. This is a hunting range and the animals are invisible except by infrared binoculars until you hit their harness. They play but they rarely attack a human. I’m Alyson Dahlia Forbs.”
“I’m Dion, Operations Manager of the GT Teleporter Project, Earth.”
E-book. w/ NONFICTION APPENDIX.
Sibling Rivalry -- competitive or friendly? Dion would do anything to get out of his older brother Michael's' shadow. But when he tries to find competitor's industrial spies he gets into more trouble than he could ever imagine!
