One of our daughter’s favourite movies is “Uma Mal!”, otherwise known as “Disney’s Descendants”. She calls both the first and the second this, so it’s always a surprise which one she pulls out of the bookcase. to watch (PS the third is coming out this August!)
So when Mal came to our booth, of course we had to grab a picture of her.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 4.5 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12
“Holy Mother-Of-Stars, the micro-star is sentient?” Annie’s surprise was uttered in a silent voice as they rushed through space. The station hadn’t sent anyone to escort them back yet and Annie was hurrying to make sure that didn’t happen.
“Yes, and we think the techno-mages having been hiding it the whole time.” Seren sighed at the implication that she’d come to believe. Their civilization, who’s guiding principle was to learn about and respect life, prospered on slavery.
They told each other everything that had happened and even after Annie explained that the star shaped ships had saved someone, they all held their breath as they passed the line of ships orbiting the planet.
When they’d passed the star shaped ships, Jan said, “Wow. There are a lot of them.” They were right; the ships seemed to have completely surrounded the planet with a hole where the station was transmitting something to the surface.
As the passed the line of ships, they saw the planet. Lush and green, it seemed to have more vegetation than anything else. The oceans were only forty percent of the planet.
Scans showed that under the plant life were ancient metropolises. “This planet must have housed hundreds of billions of people.” Seren sounded excited.
“Whoa! Can a planet even sustain that many people?” Jan asked.
Annie was the one who answered, “Not for long. I’m guessing they either left or died out.”
There were cities all over the planet according to the scans, but eight metropolises dominated the landscape. The eight formed a star pattern similar to the ships.
Scans also showed that each city had a giant building that hadn’t decayed and was shielded from sensors.
In the centre of the geographical star was an enormous version of these buildings. It was larger than most cities on the planets they’d visited. It was also where the station was transmitting information.
“Where should we land?” Annie asked, fully expecting the answer.
“We should go to the largest one. If the station is sending a signal, there must be someone to receive it,” Seren said, while taking deeper scans of the planet.
Jan had been looking at their screen and finally asked, “How did they get this much material? Those buildings are impossibly big. I can’t find any quarries or sign they recycled parts of the cities.”
“We’ll have to ask them when we get there.” Seren was practically vibrating in her seat. Annie expected her to dash towards the door and jump out.
The building was massive and had no obvious doors or landing places. The transmissions from the station was being sent to a small area of the building. Since it was the only reference they had, they landed nearby.
There was a small opening in the jungle that let them land, but the walk to their destination was going to be over harsh terrain. They had machetes to cut through vines in the survival packs but kept them sheathed. It was standard procedure to avoid slicing a sentient tree by accident. There were no paths, which was unusual. It meant there were no large animals.
The planet was definitely not dead, however, and they could hear bird songs and other small creatures.
“The larger animals would have no way to get up here!” Annie exclaimed. “We might look like we’re in a jungle, but we’re on a giant building’s roof. Big animals wouldn’t come up here since there are no large water sources.”
Jan looked impressed. “I thought you weren’t paying attention in school, spacebird.”
“I love flying, but I spent a lot of time with Seren and her curiosity is contagious.” They all laughed.
The laughter startled a small flock of birds and the sound of their wings was enough to bring the three back on task. They walked for over an hour before they reached the middle of the building, according to their devices.
There was no indication in the foliage or the ground to show this was the spot. Seren took out a scanner that would let them see what was under all the plant life.
She synced it to her computer and scanned. Watching the screen of her computer, she could see there was something under the plants, but it must have been blocking everything out. Just as she was getting frustrated, she saw an outline of a square.
Annie watched from over her shoulder and said, “I’ll go check it out.” She walked over to the square and started feeling for it. It was definitely an indent. She crawled slowly forward and when she was fully inside the square, she disappeared.
Seren yelped and ran forwards to help Annie. Jan’s strong arms stopped her and said, “Wait. If she’s been disintegrated or hurt, running into the same trap isn’t going to help. We need to study it some more.”
Her heart hurt at not rushing to help her friend but Jan was right and they had to be careful out here. She got closer and started to run scans on the area, hoping beyond hope she hadn’t lost Annie.
While you wait for the next chapter, check out the previous serial stories:
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Part 1: What’s a doula? Why do I want one?
Pregnant women often say that what matters most is the health of their baby or babies. Our society focuses heavily on the arrival of baby often to the detriment of the mother. One of my favourite quotes is, “the moment a child is born, the mother is also born,” and according to the internet it is attributed to Osho, a controversial figure. But the quote captures a truth about childbirth.
The woman is as integral to the process of birthing as the baby is, and her importance and her need for support is just as important as the health of the child. The act of labour is a symbiotic relationship between the woman’s body, mind, and soul working along with the movements of the newborn descending through her birth canal. The more we can allow that process to happen unhindered and for women to be free to listen to the intuition of their bodies, often the better the outcomes are for both the mother and child.
Unfortunately, our highly medicalized birthing system in North America has forgotten the power of the female body – but this is starting to change.
Women are remembering, they are learning to trust themselves, and they are demanding more support. One of the forms that support might take is a doula.
“[A doula] is somebody who helps you see your strengths, helps plan, helps craft questions for your healthcare provider,” says Courtney Holmes, the family outreach and birth companion support worker at Mothercraft Ottawa. “They really help instill a sense of confidence and empowerment moving through the experience.”
Mothercraft Ottawa provides doula services to at-risk women in Ottawa. At-risk includes new immigrants and low-income mothers. The support the doulas provide those women is invaluable.
“How women feel about their labour and delivery is a huge marker for postpartum mental health issues afterwards,” says Holmes.
Pia Anderson, a local doula and Hypnobirthing teacher, has been a doula for over 14 years and has supported hundreds of women physically, emotionally, and informationally through their journeys of birthing their children.
Anderson tries to meet with each family at least three times prior to the birth. This helps build her relationship with the woman and her partner.
She is a big supporter of a birth plan, not because she expects everything will go according to the plan, but it gives a chance for the woman and her partner to explore their options and be aware of the different scenarios that might come up, as well as to explore questions they might want to bring up with their healthcare provider. It also gives them a chance to voice any fears or worries. Anything that can be addressed ahead of time or can be anticipated to come up during the birth, can help increase the chances of a positive birthing experience.
Anderson worries about the mothers who make a birth plan that they are too attached to.
Birth is not a predictable process and getting too entrenched into an idea of how it should go, ie. having your heart set on a “natural” birth (meaning no epidural, vaginal delivery, etc…) can set a woman up for disappointment if anything deviates from her vision. The birth plan is a great tool for educating yourself on what could happen and to help you be prepared for various outcomes, but it’s important that it’s viewed as a tool to help create an optimal birth in spite of anything that happens, and not a carved in stone agenda. Very few births go completely according to plan.
Melaina Landriault is a mother of three in Ottawa. Her first birth was a c-section as her daughter was full breach and stuck, but her two subsequent pregnancies were homebirths with doulas. Her second birth didn’t quite go as planned. It was supposed to be a hospital birth, but the hospital sent her home thinking she was still hours away from delivery. Her daughter had other ideas.
“I delivered her myself,” says Landriault. “[My doula] caught the baby!”
“We really believed what the doctor and midwife had told us and I’d never birthed before,” continued Landriault. “Then I remember pushing and [my doula] was like ‘Don’t push!’ and I was like, ‘I can’t stop this!’”
Landriault’s daughter was born in her living room with only her doula to support her. Her midwife arrived after the birth and an ambulance arrived to check everyone out as well.
This is not a typical scenario for a doula and most doulas will actively avoid a birth without any medical practitioners in attendance, but this one thankfully had a happy ending.
Unfortunately, if a doula attended a birth with no medical support and it didn’t have such a happy outcome, the doula could be open to a lawsuit with devastating results and charges could even be laid if the outcome is deemed the fault of the doula in any way.
Doulas are not medical practitioners and should never provide medical advice on your pregnancy or how you choose to birth. They can provide information to help you make a decision and will direct you back to your OB/GYN or midwife for answers, but they should never tell you how or how not to do something. The main goal of a doula is to support you in whatever choices you make and to help you achieve the best outcome for your birth so that everyone, including the mother, is healthy.
Stay tuned for Part 2 and Part 3 in two and four weeks respectively.
If you’re enjoying the Blush blogs, consider learning more with Blush: The Card Game from Renaissance Press.
Things got worse after we heard Teddy scream. We all just took off running and shamefully didn’t notice what happened to Fry.
When we reached Suzie, she had cut one of the creatures from my nightmare in half. I froze and had to fight off urge to run, puke, or both. When I finally felt confident I wouldn’t, I looked at the thing that had been haunting me for the better part of the past few years.
It looked like a cross between a wolf, an alligator, and a human. Everything about it ate light. My eyes had trouble focusing on it, but what I did see showed that the insides were the same greasy light-absorbing substance as the outsides.
What was left of Teddy was all red with some splotches of brown. I bent over to look at him, but he was dead.
“Teddy shot that thing eight times and it just ate the plasma bolts like they were nothing. Thankfully it couldn’t defend against my sword.” That sword had been made by one of the first Sunspeakers, forged from solar alloys in the heart of Sol itself. I don’t like swords so I gave it to the assassin turned bodyguard who’d been using them for her whole life.
Hoff’s mouth was agape when she said, “This is it. This is the thing the virus was designed to kill. Except it’s not affected. The thing’s body just ignores the virus.”
Suzie sighed, “Great; an unkillable enemy. Let’s get the hell out of here before more of those things show up.” She looked around. “Where’s Fry? Adric do you have a location on Fry?” Everyone was starting to move more frantically. I could tell they were trying to act cool, but it was starting to get to them. After spending enough time around me, people develop a thick skin but this was too gruesome, even for me.
I said a small prayer over Teddy’s body and turned to Hoff. “Take a sample and treat it as the highest biohazard level. Go back to the ship and send the shuttle back on autopilot. Travis, go with her.” Hoff looked relieved and I could see her hands shaking as she took the samples. The command effectively left me alone with Suzie, something I wouldn’t mind, minus the horror show going on.
Travis nodded. He was a mild Precog; enough to be a damn good pilot but not much else. He liked the feel of a pilot’s chair and buttons to press. This was not in his comfort zone and he looked damned relieved to get out. He held his swords out and the two of them retreated to the shuttle.
“Your crew respects you too much,” Suzie said. “Leaving you behind with only me as defense in this situation is a great way to get you killed.”
“Or maybe they’re terrified and want to get the hell out of this place before they die. If I thought you’d listen, I’d have sent you with them.”
“I guess you’re not a complete fool.” She stopped and looked at the man in the cryotube. He was dressed in what looked like robes and he had a calm frustratingly smug look on his face. “He makes me think of you.”
“Oh?”
“He gives off a feeling of power and authority.”
“I thought you said he reminded you of me?” I joked.
“I did… but there’s something missing, something cold. Even asleep he scares me. You’re warm and you only scare me in that you care too much.”
Adric’s voice cut in, “That’s really deep. I found Fry’s signal in the armory. Two levels down.”
“How do you know it’s the armory?”
“I have the ship’s schematics now. Along with how to build those engines.” He sounded inappropriately happy, considering.
Taking off her ear piece, Suzie turned to me and said, “You know he’s probably not alive, right?”
I only nodded. I knew she was right but I couldn’t bring myself to accept it. These people were my family and they far too often died for me. The walk to the armory had me less nervous than before. My enemy was here and now I could deal with it instead of waiting in horror.
When we got to the doors that would lead us to Fry, Adric told us he hadn’t moved and that Hoff and Travis had made it onto the ship.
“I’m going first,” I said and she rolled her eyes. “It’s not a macho thing. I can just take a lot of damage if it’s a trap.” Her eyes rolled again and she gestured with her sword.
The armoury was filled with swords and projectile weapons. It had been centuries since we’d used that sort of weapon. Plasma blasters were cheaper and easier to make.
In the centre of the room was what was left of Fry. Mostly his head and his earpiece. They were precariously balanced on a chair. There was no blood anywhere and the whole scene felt like it was meant to unnerve us.
Inside, I looked around and tried to figure out why he was displayed. “These things aren’t dumb. They bated us here.”
“Oh great. It’s a trap. I never saw this coming,” Suzie deadpanned.
I instinctively grabbed a weapon and a few cartridges. As I loaded the weapon, I said, “Suzie… I-”
She cut me off by saying, “Not now Hal. For a smart guy with the ability to see the future you have terrible timing for personal talks.”
“But…” I trailed off as she walked away. I followed her out of the armoury and back the way we came.
“I’ve waited two years. What’s another couple of hours?” Suzie quipped.
The lights flickered and I turned around to shoot the first creature in the head as it seemed to fly towards us from behind.
In the distant future humanity has spread to the other planets in our solar system. These stories follow Hal (a prophet for a godlike entity that lives in the sun), and his friends, as they try to make the solar system a better place.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7
I knew that the Louvre was considered one of the biggest museums of art in the world, but I wasn’t prepared for just HOW big that meant. We couldn’t see the full size of the building on this day, but the Seine cruise the night before really showcased the immensity of the building.
And this? This is just the entrance.
Breathtaking.
With the new Magnum PI show on air (very enjoyable, definitely recommend!), we got to see a cosplay of the original.
You know it’s the original because of the mustache.
Thanks to Dex Morgan for always coming by our booth with her newest cosplays!
Hello My Imaginary Friends,
I turned 62 yesterday. This year for my birthday, you should buy yourself a gift.
Go sign up for the the Canadian Science Fiction & Fantasy Association and buy yourself 14+ novels, collections, short stories, and more.
Once you’ve signed up, you get the ebooks and the privilege to vote for the best in Canadian science fiction and fantasy.
I hope you’ll consider The Travelling TARDIS and The Sign of Faust when you’re voting.
Elizabeth Coderre solves mysteries. Magic, wizards, and killer kittens didn’t stop her last semester. Now someone is trying to kill her in absurdly complicated ways, she’s hearing voices, her best friends are constantly fighting despite being madly in love, and the desires of Baker City’s residents are becoming reality. Can she find out who’s trying to kill her and discover the source of everyone’s luck, while navigating dating, concerts, school, and competing in the science Olympics? She can only wish… and you know what they say about wishes!
The Travelling TARDIS moves, with the power of timey-yarney crochet, through time and space visiting and taking pictures with cosplayers, landmarks, celebrities, and cute babies.
Sign up, get ebooks, read, and then on August 5th you’ll be able to vote for your favourites. It’s a great deal and you’ll love the books.
So go to https://prixaurorawards.ca/ and click on the “Become a Member” button.
Later days,
Éric
While Fandom Travel is near and dear to my heart, Accessible Travel is supremely important to me as well.
So when an article crossed my path about the city of Breda in the Netherlands and how it is the most accessible city in Europe, I knew I had to share it.
Europe, generally, is NOT built with accessibility in mind. Cobblestones, stairs, narrow doorways, etc are the norm.
Read about how Breda changed all that, and their website, to make them the most accessible city in Europe.
Also, a huge happy birthday to my amazing husband, who is turning six squared today!
Jen has retired from working as a travel agent. Hope you’ve enjoyed Fandom Travel.
The bridge was an interesting design; no captain’s chair, pseudo-military layout. Just a large screen with three rows of four work stations. It looked more like a coding party set up than a bridge.
“Okay Adric, what do we do?”
“Just slap the patches I gave you on the closest computers and let me work.”
“Alright. Adric will poke at the computers, we’re going to explore the darker places. Suzie you’re closest to what should be the flight decks and primary docking bays. Go find me a reason this ship’s empty. We’ll head to crew quarters and living areas.”
“Aye, aye Captain!” Suzie said mockingly. I could picture her face as she said it and it made my heart skip a beat.
The walk was slow and nerve-wracking. Without my visions from Sol to guide me and having no real Precog abilities, I was blind and I hated it. I don’t like being surprised.
The hallways were boring grey and utilitarian. A very Earthen design. I was more used to the opulent, borderline ridiculous design esthetic of the Venusians. This felt like being in a metal box or coffin.
What should be the crew quarters, based off of Sol standard design, turned out to be a giant hold, it held nothing but glass and dried blood. “Everyone back out. Masks on, there’s something viral in here,” I ordered. I could feel a virus trying to take hold of me. The moment the other two left the hold I burst into flames.
The virus wasn’t natural. It had been designed to wipe out something specific. I got a flash of two scientists finishing the virus and then a vision of them being horribly killed by the creatures from nightmares.
The room was now filled with melted glass and ash. I walked out and Hoff gave me a new robe to wear. Fire doesn’t ignore clothes. That’s why I never keep my credit chips on me.
“That virus wouldn’t have affected us. It was designed to attack something specific. I have the genome now but I’ve never seen anything like it.” Hoff had her pad out and was looking at it with a mixture of horror and amazement.
“How did you get that so fast? I wasn’t out for that long, was I?” I was worried. I hated losing time.
“No. I scanned the virus and it had a secondary part that was biotech. It interfaced with my pad and downloaded everything about itself.”
“So we’re on a plague ship with viruses smart enough to interface with our tech?” Fry asked.
“So a few steps ahead of you Fry,” Hoff joked.
Cutting into our conversation, Adric said, “Yes, and it gets worse.”
“What? Did it infect our ship?” I asked, starting to feel a little better.
“What? No. I’m better at security then that. I’m not just stumbling through a ghost ship’s systems without a plan.” He was snarky but not wrong. “I managed to get some data from their systems. This isn’t an original jump ship. It’s a distress call. The Earthen’s settled in Tau Ceti and it looked like everything was fine until they were attacked by ships from Epsilon Indi.” He sent a picture of the ships over to Hoff’s pad. They were the ships from my nightmares. “They’re asking for help but this information is all over a two hundred years old.”
“But where’s the crew?” I asked, hoping he’d found something.
“Looks like they should be in the lower decks where Suzie is. They were in cryosleep. The ship said it tried to wake them, but got an error and shut down to conserve energy. It’s been drifting towards us slowly for two hundred years.”
“Sir, we found the cryotubes. There’s almost fifty and they’re all smashed except for one.” Suzie sounded worried. She never sounded worried, unless it was about me.
“Okay, fall back to the shuttle. Let’s decontaminate and figure out our next move.”
“What about the man in the last tube?”
“He’s been in there for two hundred years, a few more hours won’t hurt.”
Teddy’s com cut off any other conversation, “What the ash is that?” His screams of pain caused us to start running.
In the distant future humanity has spread to the other planets in our solar system. These stories follow Hal (a prophet for a godlike entity that lives in the sun), and his friends, as they try to make the solar system a better place.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7
While we did not take the time to stand in line to get into the Louvre, we did want to see the famous pyramid outside. Definitely worth it.
