From: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org (alloy-digest) To: alloy-digest@smoe.org Subject: alloy-digest V6 #90 Reply-To: alloy@smoe.org Sender: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk X-To-Unsubscribe: Send mail to "alloy-digest-request@smoe.org" X-To-Unsubscribe: with "unsubscribe" as the body. alloy-digest Tuesday, April 10 2001 Volume 06 : Number 090 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Alloy: Thomas performs!! [CJMark@aol.com] Alloy: [Extremely OT] Sorry, more writing... [Paul Baily ] Alloy: Soft Boys Tour Diary [Robin Thurlow ] Re: Alloy: Thomas performs!! [Slarvibarglhee Subject: Alloy: [Extremely OT] Sorry, more writing... Hi y'all, Apologies in advance! Well I guess I'm doing a bit of a Paul Buchanan (Blue Nile) thing here in that I can only write in a low time. Here's my latest offering. It wasn't originally a part of The Story That May Just One Day Be Finished (Yeh Right!), TSTMJODBF(YR!)(tm) but I just let my fingers wander on the keyboard for a bit while listening to a CD this evening. Right now I'm roughing it by using the very same Mac that sent out that fateful message at 2:22am 2/2/96, and with a comms rig using so much leckie tape and stripped wire that MacGyver would be proud of it at the blistering pace of 9600bps. (long story) Not that this is really relevant... Anyways, I don't have enough bandwidth right now to put this on a web page so I hope you'll forgive me for posting this direct to the list. As always, criticisms, comments, 'don't give up your day job Paul' comments gratefully accepted. stay well, Paul. - ----- Start: 0104091901 Working Title: And they can melt steel. She awoke in what was left of the cockpit. Headache. Dim light from the console backlight. She brought a hand up to her forehead, touched, and saw blood. The last few hours were a blur. Memories of being on another quiet patrol thinking how beautiful the sunset and stars were as a backdrop to the impossibly majestic and brilliant full moon. She could even just make out the shadows of her ship and that of her two wingmen caressing the awe-inspiring central Australian desert and it's sparse but beautifulvegetation at a sedate 400 knots. Moonlight shadow at 80ft. Quite a sight. "Never ever grow tired of this. This is what you're defending." She wouldn't, even if it were possible. There was no place on Terra like it. Her alpha picked up the incoming fire but too late. It came from nowhere, probably low orbit in the shadow of their propulsion wakes. As always, the 'rival's' fire was focussed on the lead. Her wingmen were nowhere to be found; close friends, they would have reluctantly followed the standing 4R's order ('retreat, regroup, rescue and retaliate') that applied when a comrade was downed. If they'd also been hit there would have been two more hundred metre long plows in the desert. Despite her condition (which she admitted was remarkably good considering) her combat training kicked in over the normal Terran rhetoric of 'stay with the craft.' Move. Move now. Do not stay where they know you are. She gingerly tested each part of her body. Many strains and deep bruises, but no breaks. Chances were a little better than marginal. She hit the contact to raise the canopy, then punched through it after there was no reaction. The ship was covered up to the ledge of the canopy in soft sand. If this incident had happened over a hard-baked region things would have been quite different. She pulled herself out, and had the presence of mind to set her watch on a timer. Heavy ordinance at low to medium orbit would take another 50-80mins to get another shot. Problem, she didn't know how long she'd been unconscious. A quick query with the alpha and she reset the timer: 20 minutes remaining maximum. Scrambling around the flier she dug for, and found, the survival compartment near the decaying engine pods and retrieved a backpack containing water, a day's rations, a CL (covert locator), and, after crawling back to the cockpit and tapping in the release code, the slimline briefcase sized block of obsidian-like material that was her alpha. The survival compartment also held a small sidearm which she reluctantly holstered in her flightsuit. 'They' would not normally dare a ground hunt but this was what was known to this country as the outback. A large and very remote area; searches over this vastness took time. It would be worth the risk to capture an IDF flier. Especially if you knew where they were. She looked back on the wreck that was her flier, and the giant "you are here" marker that was the groove carved by it's untimely demise, and used the remote to set self destruct. Using a direction finder she set off towards a small township (really a handfull of corrugated iron huts) to the northeast that she had observed in flight. Five minutes later she was knocked to the ground as the self destruct enacted. - ------ Four hours later she finally saw a faint glimmer. Another twenty minutes of trudging and she found what she was looking for. This was the township known as McBain's Hope. A small gathering of 150 odd residents. In the outlying darkness, she changed into the 'survival civies', staggered towards the only building that had more than outdoor lights on, and ventured inside. - ------ Flourescent light in a pub never works, unless it's a true outback pub. This was one such case. As casually as she could, she entered, squinting against the light. and wandered up to the bar. "G'day mate! What'll y'have?" the jovial woman on the other side of the bar yelled. "Aw c'mon, you guys never say that in real life." "Sorry luv, it's a natural reaction to tourists!" Her body-shaking laugh helped soothe the prejudice. More quietly: "Seriously though luv, it looks like you've been through the wars a little, what can I get you?" "A beer would be nice thanks" "Oh a beeyer!? You mean a beer?" More raucous laughter from the barkeep and some of the locals. She quietly grinded her teeth. "Yes, a /beeyah/ would do quite nicely thank you." Smile bordering on sneer. Just one more word... Still chuckling the owner of the bar decided to give the strangely clad youngster a break. "Right you are luv. Welcome to McBain's." Her eyes softened a little. A genuine smile helped, and handshake was offered and gratefully met. The flier's guard drop a little. Thankful for the slightest concession the IDF flier took the beer and quietly sipped in a corner, looking around for a phone... A short time later a scraggy Aboriginal local who had been quietly sitting in a corner zigzagged over to her in only the way someone thoroughly inebrieated could. "'ello luv, looking for a way?" The flier looked up. "Excuse me?" "I said are you looking for a way?" his alcohol-induced smile beamed in a slightly stupid but benevolent and familiar way. It got her hackles raised. Not enough to blow her diplomatic air though. "Everyone's looking for a way. What do you mean?" Her throat tightened ready to growl. You'd better bloody well not be selling Amway. Suddenly the man's eyes bore a razor sharp clarity, a sincerety, a softness, an understanding. He lowered his voice. "It must be tough with all these... these... life jumps." A long moment of eye contact and realisation passed. Despite herself she could not help tears rolling down her face. How could he know? "I'm not sure I know what you're..." The man suddenly, gently, touched her cheek stopping a tear follow the river forming to her chin. "There are many things that people assume my people do not know. Many things. They think that because we don't fit in with the white culture, the cities, that we miss what counts. It is they that are really blinded. How many stars can you see living under city lights? A hundred? A thousand? Out here we see them all. We know them all. All the twins, all the dwarfs, all the novas, the comets, the satellites and the planets. We see them all and we understand them too. We understand you too. Even if you don't understand yourself. A dark time is coming, Miss Jane. Dark time." A small part of her mind reminded her she hadn't said her name. "We have called your brothers in the sky, they wanted to return when you became one with the Earth. They're returning now." A sound like a distant roll of thunder confirmed this. "When you call on us, we will be with you." Jane, eyes wide open, opened her mouth slightly but could not say a word. Her mind reeled. Most of all for it's prejudice, that she, and other Terran's would all be so blind, and yet here were a people who had not yet achieved space travel (at least in the physical sense), so conversant with the concept, and even the politics of the region that everyone missed it because they were too busy listening to themselves. "When you call on us, we will be with you." A huge woodfire was raging outside when her wingman touched down. It's embers flying up high, as if almost into orbit. Aboriginal elders looking on, as if they could travel with the embers, could see what every ember saw. "When you call on us, we will be with you." - ----- They are Gods I don't really particularly believe they come from this planet I know two or three people (and they can melt steel) Amazing people that just walkabout - -- Melt Steel (Part 1) off The Time & Motion Mixes, Full Circle/Icehouse. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2001 12:11:13 -0400 (EDT) From: CRACKERS Subject: Re: Alloy: Thomas performs!! On Mon, 9 Apr 2001, Mary A. Brown wrote: > Whoa, > What a week this has been! First I get to hear Thomas live on the > radio and then I get to see him in the flesh, on stage, playing > music, in a band! Awwww, man! I wish Thomas lived in Hamilton, or at least Toronto. Feh! Nobody cool lives in Hamilton. It's almost enough to make one overcome their phobia of traveling in the States just to get to see Thomas play live. It's funny, I was in Madras when the government was overthrown and there was rioting in the streets and the gulf war had just broke out yet I didn't feel 1/10th the amount of fear the thought of traveling to LA, or New York, or Detroit fill me with. I wonder how many americans are aware that the media they think is glorifying and glamourizing their country actually just makes it seem like there's a white-supremicist on crack with a machine gun and a bible on every corner. My three biggest phobias the thought of which can keep me awake at night 1)Tornados, 2)Sharks, 3)Being in the USA when the sun goes down. But man, I'd spend a night in a shark infested American trailer park if it meant I'd get to see Thomas Dolby performing live. CRACKERS (I think the Wizard Of Oz gave me the fear of tornados... and flying monkeys from hell!!!) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 09 Apr 2001 15:17:36 -0400 From: Robin Thurlow Subject: Alloy: Soft Boys Tour Diary Hey, check out the San Francisco page of the Soft Boys' tour diary: http://www.underwatermoonlight.com/diary/sanfrancisco.html featuring behind-the-scenes details and a great pic of TMDR! xxxx Robin T ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 09 Apr 2001 22:58:16 +0100 From: Slarvibarglhee Subject: Re: Alloy: Thomas performs!! CRACKERS wrote: > > Awwww, man! > > I wish Thomas lived in Hamilton, or at least Toronto. Feh! Nobody cool > lives in Hamilton. There are two possibilties here :- 1. Crackers is a liar, or maybe just mistaken. 2. Crackers is not cool. I think he's just mistaken. Slarv Thug 2: Yeah! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2001 23:28:24 -0400 From: "Robin" Subject: Re: Alloy: (OT) phobias, was: Thomas performs!! Crackers wrote: > My three biggest phobias the thought of which can keep me awake at night > 1)Tornados, 2)Sharks, 3)Being in the USA when the sun goes down. Strangely, I've been thinking about my own phobias lately - with our pending trip to Britain I've been trying to sort out what bothers me about flying. I don't have any unusually strong fear of death, personally, so that's not it. The only thing I know of that makes me unreasonably fearful is when we're on the highway, and I see a horse trailer. If it's empty I don't mind it, but if it's carrying a horse, I become really panicked that the horse trailer might lose a wheel or come loose from the thing that's towing it, and the horse will be injured. I actually have to make myself look away and stop thinking about it or else I'll get really panicked (and I'm feeling anxiety just writing about it now!) I don't know what this means or how it coud have anything at all to do with not wanting to get on the plane, but it's the only thing I can think of that's been a real phobia for me on a regular basis. I suppose it could apply to flying in some way... being in a contraption that's going really fast & you're not in control of? Crackers, your USA phobia is interesting, but I assure you (and I'm sure you've been told this many times) most of the US is really very boring to be in after the sun goes down. xxxxx Robin T ------------------------------ End of alloy-digest V6 #90 **************************