Ringclimber

"...Like an avalanche floating in glass, the rings are a fume of dust streams and glittering boulders. The suited figures of the team are crosses of light on Sharon's command visor.

"She is watching as it happens. A small fragment, three meters across, rolling toward Rael's path; he pivots on it --

"Another fragment, flushed from stability by a collision, slips across her view. Suddenly, his image is gone, spinning recklessly away, rebounding with shocking force down the endless icy field of the rings."

Also...

• More on the Rings of Saturn and the Ringclimber Adventure

The Hunt

"The sun is casting slices of light that shift slowly upward and waver with the oncoming late afternoon breeze. Talbot races after Stone, pushing aside the branches. The leaves rise up in ranks along the twisting path, choking off the light until it becomes a tunnel of hushed maroon dimness. Ahead he sees the flailing legs of his prey, a momentary flicker, as the path winds straight, and then turns again.

"He runs harder... no more energy than he ever spent on a playground, and yet he is exhausted, and each step seems longer than the last. He is more and more afraid; the path is now a tunnel leading to a fiery clearing -- is it getting hotter?

"He stumbles slightly as he stops on the verge, staring at the sudden ridge of tarnished metal rising under the canopy, at the breaks and contours of vents and legs, ports and broken doors. It is a moment before he sees that it is a space vehicle - a derelict."

Also...

• Behind The Scenes of The Hunt (6/98)

Source

"She stares at the displays, unable to believe what they are telling her. She has programmed the most evasive course in the system, but it has accomplished nothing. The missiles veer sharply with her every turn.

"Clu picks up her helmet from the floor, but her hands feel like lead. She locks the seal, and reaches for her gloves...

"It happens in utter silence.

"The edge of her ship is enveloped in a blinding flash that quickly dies away into a vague fog of parts and gas as the vehicle tumbles away, shattered. Air roars out of the hull, tearing at her suit. The force of the blast spins the ship, and she faints with G-shock as the blaze of the explosion envelops her. The energy vaporizes parts of the seat and the control panel. It washes across her back as she is thrown forward against the restraints.

"In the distance, Haris Rennart is destroyed in the now indiscriminate missile barrage."

- a novel in progress

Atmospheres

Short and Formative Works

"On this occasion, I had just completed a free solo of a new 5.14c mixed route in the Alps. It was 1954, and the weather was the fabulous mixture of sun, blazing cold, and the sort of mixed snow and ice storm that makes the life of an alpinist the glorious near-suicidal experience that it must be. I had just reached the ledge, where, because of my fearless daredevil spirit, I preferred not to clip in, that I might better enjoy the closeness of death. As I lit up a cigarette, I noticed that I was not alone up there.

"A little below and to my left was a wider ledge, and on that ledge was the most amazing thing that even I have ever seen in my years as the most daring Alpinist of all time. It was an odd sort of thing, like an aircraft, but shaped like a discus with a clear glass cupola on top. By the side of this thing were the aviators, wearing clear helmets and sunglasses to shield them against the conditions of altitude.

"Of course, you know I scorn the use of supplemental oxygen, and I suppose you might be surprised that I would wish to visit them. But I was alone in the mountains, and I thought they might need my assistance. So I rappelled and did a short pendulum to their ledge..."

Crystalline Plasmas

• Borders

• Connotations In Reality
  

• Death Of A Good Man
  

• Historical Act
  

• Lines Beyond Light
  

• Silence In The Endless Falling
  

• Technical Agreement Manual 68.06
  

• Tiny Children
  

• End Your Life With A Question
  

• Jordan Retreated
  

• A Time That I Miss You

Poetry

A sun cries its thought
Out to the fields of stars
Only hearing in the hissing
The sense, not the meaning, of life

The man stares at the stars
From the wakening shoreline
All distress flees from his heart
An ancient pulsing living machine
Nested

Remembering
At the core
The life he led
Once before
When he thought
He knew
Everything was dead

A Day of High Exposure

A True Story of Rock Climbing

"Crouched like a prisoner in a tunnel, I traversed the final steps to the edge, clinging to a hold on the ledge below the roof. The rock dropped away beneath me to the trees two hundred feet or so below. There's a thin edge that must be stepped on with an extended foot, while leaning under and around the oppressive rock above. I made the beginning of that move, peering like a child up the wall above, searching for the piton I knew must be there, and not finding it. I reached up high - there wasn't going to be a second choice now, I was committed to go."