La lecture à portée de main
Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage
Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement
Je m'inscrisDécouvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement
Je m'inscrisVous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage
Description
Sujets
Informations
Publié par | Andrews UK |
Date de parution | 14 février 2014 |
Nombre de lectures | 0 |
EAN13 | 9781849898898 |
Langue | English |
Poids de l'ouvrage | 1 Mo |
Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0124€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.
Extrait
Title Page
A DAMNED GOOD ROGERING
The Roger Frank Selby Collection
By
Roger Frank Selby
Publisher Information
A Damned Good Rogering published in 2011
by Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
The characters and situations in this book are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person or actual happening.
Copyright © Roger Frank Selby
The right of Roger Frank Selby to be identified as author of this book has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Cover Designed by Matt Bateman
Catch of the Night
It was the night of Two Moons Passing. This season only one boy in the village stood on the threshold of manhood. Jude noticed a different look in his founder’s eyes as he kissed the old man’s forehead and bade him farewell. He felt a surge of emotion welling in his chest, but managed to hold back the wetness that stung his eyes. If he passed the Night Fishing test this would be the last time he would dwell under the same roof as the man who had raised him.
The four headmen of the village were in high spirits as they collected him from his founder’s lodge and walked him down to the beach.
‘A long time ago a boy was brought to manhood on almost every Two Moons Passing, but now this is getting sparse indeed. A rare treat, lad! So don’t you worry, none,’ said Russ.
Jude hoped they hadn’t brought him to this to soon – perhaps they should let him wait to the next... No! The time was right – he knew it. On the way to the boats they passed the street of young men’s lodges. Last season he’d helped to build three new lodges in preparation for himself and two younger boys of the village. As the senior, Jude had already made his selection - The lodge under the great tree of yellow cock-fruit.
Russ saw his glance. ‘If all goes well, me lad, you can claim that lodge by sunup.’
The land breeze of the night – driven by the land cooling off from each ever-hot day – was full of the smells of perpetual summer as it wafted down from the heights of Mother Mountain. The men waded into the warm sea, their kilts spreading out over the surface. The warm wind helped them push out the Night Fishing Boat. This would be – of course – Jude’s first time out at sea in the big boat. He revelled in the privilege of being allowed to touch the sacred, weathered timbers. The great boat met the first big wave of the swell. The bow surged high as he hoisted himself over the gunwales in the salty spray - almost catching his cock on the splintery old wood - and flopped like a wet fish onto the dry planks of the deck, still warm from their baking in the sun. The other men flowed aboard, moving to their stations to work the boat.
Soon the great lateen sail – vastly bigger than a normal two-man boat sail – was thrusting them strongly down the wide glitter-path of the rising moons. Jude marvelled at the difference from day fishing – the strange, eerie light, the much bigger tackle, the huge boat ...
Russ – head of the headmen – looked down at the youngster, probably knowing well his thoughts. He seemed very friendly to Jude tonight, for a change, allowing the young man temporarily into the intimacy of the inner circle.
‘Much bigger game for thee tonight, young ‘un!’ laughed the big man. The other men chuckled knowingly as Jude squirmed. If only he had something to do ...
‘Well we can’t have an idler in the boat, can we lads? Up the mast with you, an’ see you keep a weather lookout. Your young eyes should see anything twice afar as ours – see something to make them fairly pop, I shouldn’t wonder!’ The men laughed again as Jude scurried like a rat up to the masthead. As he looked down from his perch he suffered a moment’s dizziness. In his embarrassment he’d forgotten he was climbing a much taller mast - that swayed and pitched with a slower but wider swing ... Steady now, he told himself. To calm his nerves and his stomach he concentrated on the equipment on the deck - the wide mesh nets on the teasing booms, the large lashing frames on the fo’c’sle - all so much bigger than on the boats he was used to. A man could put a foot through that mesh. The teasing poles were as thick as his wrist at least. Just how big was this special fish? And what was the big secret?
‘Don’t look down, look out! Ye’re supposed to be a smerthing lookout!’ called a voice from the distant deck. The headmen’s laughter followed again as Jude knew it would. He banished their voices from his mind and scanned the wide, featureless sea ahead, searching for their quarry in the bright, doubled moonlight.
The two co-orbital moons would set by the time of the boatmen’s return. They would sight their island homeland when the first white-orange rays of sunlight from the system’s K1 star-sun picked out the highest point of a conical mountain – a mountain of partly corroded metal more than five hundred seasons old. Mother Mountain the boatmen called it, no longer remembering just what “Mother” meant. Only at the very highest point (away from the lower salty atmosphere) did the metal alloy still gleam un-corroded - a useful beacon to guide a homebound Night Fishing crew, when lit by morning’s early light. But once a far larger crew had landed here with no beacon to guide them; their vast starship, wrecked in that desperate forced landing, had weathered and overgrown to become Mother Mountain itself.
Hours passed. The two moons were now at the zenith. Jude’s straining eyes began to close from fatigue and the lateness of the hour while he listened to the voices from the deck below. The head men had been talking in low tones. From the odd words caught by Jude’s keen ear, he gathered that they were discussing the subject that now dominated all village life: why had there been no foundlings for so long? Since he’d been beached, only two others had followed. For two thirds of his dry life there had been no baby boys found on the beach. The village was ageing; the population dwindling as the old ones died off without replacement.
A fresh fragment of conversation drifted up to him.
‘They used to be so willing in them old days ...’
‘... mark their position with shoals of glow-fish so we could find ‘em, they did,’ said another voice.
Low murmurs of agreement as they all pitched in, adding to the same tale.
A louder voice – Russ’s – called up to him: ‘Hey Lookout, keep awake!’ Then in a kinder, sadder tone: ‘Well, lad, it looks like we’re goin’ to be unlucky tonight.’
But just then, Jude caught a flicker of movement in his peripheral vision. He looked hard at the spot but saw nothing but the shimmering of moonlight on the waves. He glanced to one side – automatically using his night vision – and saw the movement once more. Again he looked directly at the spot and this time saw a brief splash – the unmistakable sign of a big creature in the water!
‘Off to starboard! In the water a quarter off to starboard!’ His yell sent the men scurrying to the starboard rail.
‘Yes! By the Founder! Thar she goes!’ shouted Russ, his voice full of the joy of life again. ‘Port your helm, Ben!’ The man at the helm swung the boat onto the new heading as they ran the big boat down to their quarry.
‘I can’t see her now!’ shouted Jude.
‘Don’t worry son, she’s dived - that’s normal nowadays - just mark the last spot with yer eye and keep watching it. Then tell me when we’re up to that exact same spot – as best yer can, like.’
Russ barked orders to shorten sail as they approached the site where the last splash had risen. As the boat came up into wind, the men looked all around. ‘I’m sure this was where ...’ began Jude, but a man shouted over him.
‘Thar she goes! Dead upwind!’
Russ yelled fresh orders to tack the boat. He would try to work upwind in short boards towards their quarry. Once the boat was moving again, close-hauled, Jude heard him mutter: ‘That’s a new one... A cunning one, too... Dead upwind, eh? Now how would she know that’s the hardest for us?’
But the crew knew their business, tacking the big, fast boat out to starboard, then, skimming back down on the other tack. Soon Jude – now down from his masthead perch and at Russ’s side - caught his first real glimpses of their quarry.
He drew in a sharp breath.
The colony ship - desperate for any world after her long, fruitless search along the Orion arm – even for a world without continents – landed very badly on the sparse and uneven volcanic terrain, but the genetic engineer was among the survivors. Without enough personnel, resources and equipment, any technological future was out of the question. For their offspring to have any chance of survival they would have to evolve rapidly to the new aquatic environment. She’d spent the remainder of her life making sure that hers and the crew’s distant descendents would fully adapt to this new, watery world. The only trouble was that infernal short Y chromosome in place of the generous doubled X. It meant that the necessary genetic adaptations would lag in male offspring - maybe as much as 30 generations.
‘She’s a real beauty, she is my lad!’ breathed Russ. But, privileged, he had seen women before. Jude just saw the differences: The incredibly long hair that streamed from her head, sometimes covering the small oval hairl
En entrant sur cette page, vous certifiez :
YouScribe ne pourra pas être tenu responsable en cas de non-respect des points précédemment énumérés. Bonne lecture !