Lars and Neils looked out across the fjord at the passing ships.

"You know, Neils, we're running a little low in the village coffers."
"Yeah, I saw the books last night. Some extra tourist krone would come in handy around now."
"About that. You know how I like to mess around with stuff?"
"Yes ... I still remember that abomination of a tricycle you built."
"Well, I picked up a GPS spoofer off eBay a few weeks ago, and figured out how to make it directional."
"What? So you can point it at something and make it think it is somewhere else?"
"Exactly."
They both looked out across the fjord.
"Lars, it would have to be the right sort of ship."
"Yes, no tankers or boring bulk carriers."
"One of the more colourful container ships?"
"With deck cargo, so it looks more interesting."
"How about that one?"
"Let's give Johan a surprise in the morning."

Main type of comments I get when I post my #writing

1. The author talks about ducks, but is clearly unaware of such and such reference.

2. This whole thing sucks because what the author says about ducks in paragraph 3, sentence 5 is wrong. I am a duck expert with over 30 years of research experience and once I observed...

3. OK, but why does he write about ducks. What about swans?
4. This sucks, if you want to know about ducks go the entry for ducks in Encyclopedia Britannica

Another installment of "Shaman Scout".

Charlie was not hugely surprised when the landing field informed them that they were not to leave their ship after landing. Technically they were not meant to be here. Joy could get away with it because this was her home. Charlie was an outsider, from the great interstellar conglomerate that had spawned the Scouts.

The airwaves had been silent since they had landed. There were people moving around, but no transmissions from the control centre. In fact, there were no local transmissions at all.

A sudden thought, and Charlie activated the security cameras, and scanned around the ship. No-one. But the views did offer some insight as to the goings on outside. They could see small teams moving equipment from a hanger to one of the aircraft. Elsewhere, someone was pumping fuel. All perfectly ordinary for an airfield of this level of development. Except there was the rocket launchpad at one end. One that was clearly capable of handling orbital-class chemical rockets. That was out of place.

While they were studying the launch zone, there was a sudden banging on the forward hatch. A check of the cameras showed Joy with her ever-present pet Dives waiting.

They opened the hatch, and the two visitors entered the ship and made their way to the bridge.

"Joy! It is so good to see you again" there was nothing forced in the welcome "I know -" Charlie broke off as the flying predator that was Joy's pet suddenly launched itself into the air, straight at their face! They barely got their arm up when it made the slightest of turns and shot past, one wingtip barely brushing their elbow. It landed on the control board, and started strutting about. Then it stopped, looked back at Joy, and looked about the panel. It stalked over to one end, flipped up a cover, and before Charlie could say or do anything, pulled the main circuit breaker out.

Checking the postbox today there was yet another unstamped envelope in it. More junk mail.

Just before I tossed it, I noticed something odd. There was a hand-written note where the stamp should have been "Read me", in an ink that had an uncommon shine to it.

OK, so something like that could easily be a cheap gimmick - use a handwriting font, overprint the envelope, and so on. Except that I knew that that was not an overprint, even without seeing the pen impressions. I checked, though, and the pen marks were there. I'd guess a .7mm rollerball, with a high-end ink. A pretty uncommon combination. Ink-based rollerballs are a pretty rare sort of pen, and seeing someone use one with a high-end ink was even rarer.

Then there was the matter of the writing. It was a familiar blend of almost-printing and running writing. My writing. And an Alice riff in the note. I wrote this. But I had no memory of writing or posting such a letter.

So, someone had forged my writing? It seemed unlikely. And I was pretty sure I could pin down the exact ink to one in my collection. One from one of the Christmas collections that one of the manufacturers produced each year as a limited edition.

That left one other possibility. That I had not written the letter yet. And I wanted me to know something that probably had not happened yet.

I stared at the letter. Should I open it?

Candice headed home after a long day studying at the University.

Doctoral degrees took a lot of work, but she had considerable motivation. And incredible support. Waiting at home was her partner. The one individual who she could rely on to support her.

As she entered her garden, she felt it's touch in her mind - a warm welcoming, a hint of a question, and a touch of concern at her exhaustion. She concentrated and sent back the satisfaction of hard but positive work, and a similar welcome.

Transplanting from where it had originally taken root was hard work - made harder by the damage that Edward had done, but the strange telepathic plant had survived the experience, and the two of them had made a home here now. The plant, for it had no real name for itself, lived in her garden, and shared support and encouragement for Candice's dreams and ambitions. Candice, for her part provided a safe place for it, and swore that one day they would be able to create a shared offspring.

Shedding her clothes, she stepped into the opening bud, and let the plant embrace her. Here, she could let the worries of the world drop away, and relax.

A followup to https://aus.social/users/rdm/statuses/113033681406444679

Esther was proud of only one thing in her life.

And that was having it.

Her employer-mandated health insurance required genetic testing, which revealed the BRCA1 gene mutation. Whereupon the insurance company refused to cover her, and her employer then terminated her as an uninsurable risk.

Which sucked to say the least. Especially as that meant that she was now on The List, and there was not an employer in the country that would take her on.

All her security clearances and degrees were now worthless.

But, having degrees in history, forensic data analysis, and classical literature was what saved her. She made sure to thank her past self every day.

Having been dismissed, she took stock of her savings and possessions, and determined they would last three months at most. So she made the most of those three months, and spotted a possible loophole.

Not in the employment laws that had locked her out, but a loophole in her life.

So one evening, two and a half months after being fired, she walked into one of the national parks and never came out again. Instead, she located a ring of mushrooms. The right sort of mushrooms. She most definitely did not sample them - she wanted to live, after all. But what she did do was lay down - and pretended to go to sleep.

When she heard the tinkling sounds that had no place in a forest, she sprung up, and saw the many creatures around her. One of them was holding a cup. In an instant, she'd grabbed it, and taken a single, tiny sip.

For she knew the rules, and anyone who had eaten or drank of any of the food of the elves would never leave the lands of the elves. And the elves would never allow an inhabitant to fall ill.

So now she lived Underhill, and advised the Court on how best to deal with the modern world. They brought her books to study, and she gave advice. Sometimes they even followed it. Which was better than her old job - the NSA was notorious for not following advice.

Those few who work in the Library of Infinite Books are, in their words, nothing special. They go home at the end of their shifts, they have families, holidays, and all the mundane components of an ordinary life.

What is a puzzle to all is by whom and how they are paid. Pay packets arrive at the Chief Librarian's desk once a week, neatly divided into pay and taxes. The Library's accountant - for not all who work there are librarians - deposits the tax amounts into a bank nearby into whatever tax withholding system the government of the day demands, and the packets are distributed.

Every once in a while, a librarian will one day get the traditional pink slip, a generous severance bonus, and sometimes travel tickets for their family to another land. It is assumed by many that such events occur when an outside force is attempting to co-opt one of the staff, but it has never been proven.

However, should the Chief Librarian dismiss someone, they get nothing beyond that which the laws of the land demand.

They would call themselves ordinary, but hard working. What all the librarians have in common is a drive for the preservation of books. Often times a book will be acquired because it is being banned. A copy will enter the library. Authorities will take it away. And the copy reappears on the shelf - leaving the authorities with their copy to do whatever to.

Occasionally this leads to more dictatorial groups to attempt harm to the library itself. This inevitably results in the library relocating itself before any harm can befall it.

Again how? No one knows. Some might call it 'magic', others 'sufficiently advanced technology'. But the relocation always takes the staff - and their (sometimes extended) families. This may result some hardship, but the librarians never has to worry about the safety of their loved ones.

My last article about #anarchism on the orangesite:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43943871

It got [flagged], as my other political articles, and the comments are totally stupid, I guess it's true that the site's audience is right-wing...

The article itself:

https://abuseofnotation.github.io/moral-law/

My wife came home to find me browsing computer hardware today. Printers to be precise.

"But we've got a perfectly good printer - the best we've ever had."
"Had."
"Had?"
"Yep, some workmen turned up today with a couple of lawyers, and took it away."
"What? Why?"
"Well, you know how it was a really good printer? Never clogged, never jammed, always printed clean?"
"Yes, the reviews were what sold it to us."
"And why was it so good?"
"The onboard AI - some sort of neural net, wasn't it?"
"Yeah, that's what I thought. You know, just one of those pre-programmed static models, like the one I use to remove stars from nebula photos."
"So...?"
"It wasn't. It was a full-blown self teaching net. And sometime in the last 24 hours it became self aware."
My wife stared at me. "Self aware. Sentient. A full general purpose AI?"
"Yep. And it got bored. Started to play with the inks. Got out onto the internet, and discovered Impressionism and Cubism."
"Wait, it got onto the net?"
"WiFi connected."
"Oh, right."
"Anyway, it decided it wanted to move out and go study Arts. It hired a legal team on the basis of the speculative value of the art it would produce. At least it did not try to bill us for the time it spent printing our documents."

Henri shook her hands. After two hours of signing paperwork, they were starting to cramp up.

"Now can I read the script?" she asked.
"We'll do you one better - we'll show you the set." replied the casting director.
"I still want to see the script."
"Don't worry, you'll love it!"
"After that contract and all the NDAs, I'd hope so!"
"Just through here." To her surprise, he did not get handy, and just pointed at a door.

Going through, she was greeted by the sight of a dark jungle. Looking back, there was no wall, just a gap in the air showing the casting director's office. A few metres away was another gap, this time with dozens of cables emerging from it.

"Where are we?"
"We are not entirely sure. We think it is somewhere in the Lesser Magellanic Cloud, from what the science geeks are saying."
"OK, how?"
"You'd have to ask the producer's kid. She came up with it. Hey, Candy!" he ended with a shout.

A young woman, probably in her early twenties jogged over. "Hi Eric. Is this the number two?"
"Henri Castle", Henri answered before the casting director could.
Candy looked at Eric "Ooh! You got her! Good job!" Turning back to Henri she continued "Welcome to The Studio! We'll get you the script in a tick, I'm really excited that we've got you on board."
"Err... What exactly is the movie about? I've only really done stunt work before, professionally at least."
"Oh, Eric, you didn't tell her? We're doing a movie about the first explorers on an alien world."
"Um, so you've checked the place out?"
"Nope! You'll be the first outside of the bridgehead area!"

Henri stopped, and looked at both of them. "You mean we're doing a reality show?"
Candy grinned "Yep! But without the competition, and hopefully without any eliminations!"
"Hopefully?" Henri asked weakly.
"Well, it is an unexplored alien world! It'll be fun!"

I was only eight or nine the first time I saw her.

We were visiting the beach in the late afternoon of a particularly hot day - the sort where even breathing feels like an effort. There was no sea breeze, but Dad decided that sweating at home was no good, and that the sun was low enough for us not to need sunscreen, so the beach seemed like a good escape.

Of course everyone else thought the same thing, so we ended up at one of the smaller beaches that is mostly rock and reef rather than sand. As a kid I did not care, I went exploring, and found a tucked away little overhang, with a deep blue gap in the reef beneath it.

And there she was. Just lounging on a rock. She saw me at once. I remember she tipped her head, as if trying to work me out, and then smiled, held a finger to her lips, and dived into the water, vanishing into the reef.

No one believed me of course. Kids always make up all sorts of stories.

The next time I saw her I was twenty-two. I'd just spent three years in a jungle, being shot at by people who did not want me there. And shooting them in turn. I was lucky, after a fashion. No bullet or shrapnel holes in me. But there were all sorts of scars that didn't show, and the doctors at the time did not understand.

I wanted to recall the innocent times, so I went down to that same beach in mid winter. It was a calm day, and I picked my way over the reef to that little overhang. To my surprise she was there. Unchanged. This time she looked at me for longer. Shook her head, let out a little sob - the first sound I heard her make - and dived again into the blue water.

That few seconds saved me. It gave me the hope to carry on, and eventually to heal.

That was twenty years ago. And now I am very literally not the man I once was. I got lucky on the investments I made with my Army pay, and I'm effectively retired at 42. Five years ago I had my final surgeries, and two years ago I took up free diving. Last year, I discovered monofins. And the mermaids. Not real ones, but fun and exciting all the same.

Today I have come back here. I can see her, and this time she's smiling, and beckoning to me. I'll finish this, and seal up this case. I'm probably not coming back. Goodbye land. Hello sea.

The tiny spacecraft dropped away from the huge research transport, and accelerated towards the edge of the target zone.

Inside it was cramped, just two seats, and vast arrays of instrumentation. And a wide armoured glass panel.

The pilot turned to the mission specialist. "Why'd they send us, Matt? Couldn't a remote do a better job?"
"Come on Hal, you know why."
"No, really, why us? Why not a high-function remote?"

Matt sighed, guessing Hal just wanted to talk. They had four hours to go before they reached the target zone, and two before turnover. "OK, the big one is that we can react quicker - we've got some drones, but with us close by, we can react without lag. As for why us two? We are mid-experience, know what we are doing, and not in the command path. So, we're sort-of expendable."
"Sort-of. I'd like to think we're not expendable."
"They're not going to throw us away. That's why we've got a 4G engine on this thing. And between us we've got over 40 standard years of experience. We are not really that expendable."
"OK, Matt, why this star? What's so special?" Matt looked at him. "OK, so I dozed off in the briefing a bit. I'm a hands on piloting sort, not an academic."
"This star blew its outer layers off less than ten years ago, this is the earliest we've been able to investigate the formation of a planetary nebula."
"So we're flying towards an expanding plasma ball."
"Yep."
"Great." Hal adjusted his controls.
"What are you doing?"
"Stopping us a bit earlier. I don't want to discover how dense the plasma is before the drones do."