A Bit Of Work

The beginning of the seventh chapter of the current novel:

Did I say that I hate having to supervise from a distance?

We held mock space battles and boarding exercises with the Guardian as the target ship. In each exercise companies of the Ranger battalion would take turns as boarders and defenders.

My Fourth Incarnation was a bit annoyed at my constant presence on the command deck aboard the Eagle.

“Don’t you have a desk on the ground?” He once asked me with a clearly annoyed voice as we observed a boarding exercise.

“Yes.” I replied to him politely.

“You also have a wife.”

I turned to look at him silently. He spoke again.

“Seriously, I remember what happened to our marriage in the first incarnation.”

“Our marriage?”

Number Four took a very annoyed and lecturer tone of voice in his reply.

“Evelyn Boatman Number One and our one and only Susan.”

“Oh yes, I remember.”

“She went back to Earth and it was our fault.”

And she remained on Earth until the end.

I spoke again.

“Our fault?”

Number Four looked forward and lowered his voice.

“Fine, I understand, the language isn’t set up for multiple incarnations of a person to have a conversation, particularly concerning a private matter. The point is that I remember being overworked while building the escape fleet, I remember the divorce, and I remember the subsequent results. And so should you, and I don’t want to see the whole thing happen again.”

“You aren’t married to Cheryl.”

He turned to speak at me again.

“And the way you are pushing yourself right now neither will you. Seriously Number Three, you need to take a break, put on some music group files and dance with her. She’ll love it.”

I silently stared at him.

“Oh come off it!” He said. “Don’t give me the silent stare treatment!”

I broke off the stare and looked about the command deck. Everyone on deck was putting on the appearance of being hardwired and fully dedicated to their work stations.

Number Four spoke again.

“Look, you can call it a rehearsal for the arrival celebration, the point is that you need a break.”

“What about you?”

“I’m not supervising this entire operation, you are.”

“You also want me off of your ship?”

“Yes.” He replied. “Just trust me, we’ll get it right.”

I had no idea how to respond to the argument. So I took a break. I clearly needed it. And Cheryl and I conceived our first daughter.

A Work In Progress

I've already written the epilogue of my current novel project:

Time passes and life continues.

Zoe grew up as a fully human young woman and pursued the man of her dreams. In this case my fourth incarnation, for this I don’t blame her at all, but then I am clearly biased.

The wedding ceremony and celebration was held in Landfall on Zion. A live band played for the event.

Zoe made the first request.

“Could you please play ‘Have You Ever Had It Blue?’”

“My pleasure ma’am.” The lead singer replied.

The fellow actually resembled Paul Weller of The Style Council, even down to the British teeth.

As the happy couple began to dance Cheryl turned to me and asked a question.

“Why don’t we dance that way?”

“Let’s try it.” I replied.

I stood up and took her hand.

Human Life is a joyous and a learning experience.

Live with it.

Unusued Portion

I originally wrote this segment for a novel in progress. I eventually used part of it as dialogue in the second chapter:

So why are we here?

Why did we escape the Solar System and settle on the planets of Alpha Centauri?

The fact is that we live in a dynamic universe. A universe whose internal material components are subject to change by entirely natural means. Life, including human life, is the result of a series of an entirely natural processes. The process of life is also a localized acceleration of the process of entropy, the conversion of matter to energy. Simply by living each of us is accelerating the ultimate decline of the known universe. Please don’t tell the environmentalists.

For simple forms of life survival is simply an accident of nature. For Humanity survival is the result of the function of the active mind. And we will think and do what is necessary to live what is properly a human life.

Believe it or not there were people back on Earth who objected to our escape from extinction and actively worked to prevent it.

I am not kidding.

Some of those people believed that our lives were the result of the will of a being commonly known as God. And that the event that would ultimately destroy all life on Earth was also the will of God. They believed that the extinction event was brought about because of our collective sins. The primary sin being the constant refusal to obey the commands of God as transmitted through his self appointed spokesmen. The vilest of our sins being the persistent habit of actually thinking on the basis of the actual facts of reality. The believers in the God Premise deemed us guilty of these crimes and wanted us to sit down without resistance and die for our sins.

Absolutely not, we decided.

The idea that God could eliminate Mankind at a thought and did not require an actually natural event to kill off our species simply did not enter their minds.

This assumes of course that those who believe in the concept of God had actually functioning minds.

There were also those who believed in the concept of material equality. That everyone had to be materially equal regardless of the actual amount of productive thought and labor. They believed it was unfair for us who could build starships to escape the Solar System. We who could should not do so because it was unfair to those who could not. That the truly fair course of action was to do nothing and for all of us to die together.

This view, which was purely emotional, was clearly wrong.

And finally there were the self-appointed elites. They believed that only they had the best of the collective interests of Mankind in mind. And that only the best and the brightest members of the Human collective, as defined by themselves, should be allowed to escape extinction by the means available.

That the elites have always lived off the thought and labor of those they deemed inferior and invariably made decisions for their own benefit was never, ever, mentioned by them or their willing servants.

The fact was that we would not sacrifice ourselves for the benefit of what was in fact a band of lazy and mindless losers.

The fundamental moral value is life. But human life is not simply physical existence. The human mode of life also requires an active mental existence.

In order to live as human beings we must see things as they are and act as we conceive as necessary.

Live with it.

What are your questions on this block of instruction?