Story

[tom_hobbes]

Part 1 of of a story I'm writing, meanwhile still working on my screenplay (remake) of <i>"The Thing"</i>, Part 2 follows in a week or so, hopefully.<br /><br /><b>The Sting</b><br /><br />It wasn’t hard work but it demanded all of Jejhe’s concentration to keep ahead of what needed doing and when. His main chore was tending the constant trains of bots back to the silos, they needed to be supervised to maximise the flow of traffic. Most of the food crops were too early for the best yield and quality, but it was preferable to harvest early rather than lose the entire crop. There were precious few hours remaining to gather them in before the storm hit. Jejhe waved his hand pulling the cursor over his screen and halting a train that had backed itself into a snarl and was threatening to foul up everything at the bottleneck by the far hills.<br /><br />“537, stop now, wait where you are. Standby. Allow 338 to pass. When 245 is approaching pull out in front. 245 stop now, 537, go now.â€<br /><br />Royd was busy with the same kind of problems, riding bots around the fields, tablet in hand, overseeing the entire operation. Jejhe sat on top of the rig in the sun. By late morning he could see the storm front closing down the sky to the south east. He wondered if Jo may have been wrong. It seemed far too early and too massive. Jo was their prime geosync oversight mind, she had advised that the furricane would pass by as always, her various orbital limbs and weather drones gave her the full picture so she should know. The main body of the vast swirling storm, nearly 3700 kays in diameter would never reach this far inland, instead it would shadow the coast, arcing far north and east of the settlement, circulating harmlessly away into Ocean. Jo said only a few stray hurricano’s spinning off the edges were expected to deluge the croplands.<br /><br />The afternoon sun had slipped behind a high blanket of cloud by the time Royd arrived back at the rig. The air was stifling. Sweat ran <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="2" color="#339966"> I wish I could remember<br /> But my selective memory<br /> Won't let me</font><font size="2" color="#99cc00"> </font><font size="3" color="#339966"><font size="2">- </font></font><font size="1" color="#339966">Mark Oliver Everett</font></p><p> </p> </div>