Tag: Gil Haven

Tillamook, part 6

I’m still about a thousand words ahead in this story, which is good as, having got Gil off the warship and back on land, I’ve hit something of a stop. I’ve seen a little past that (the local mayor, introducing Gil’s family) but there’s no drama. There’s no plot. That, coupled with being oddly tired this AM, has me staring off at nothing, waiting for someone to start talking to me.

Do the political powers of Portland and/or the Kingdom of Columbia freakout over the Russian ship? Who was it in their intelligence apparat who dropped the dime on Gil and his relations with Nichole 5? Questions with no answers. Yet.

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Tillamook, part 5

My recent bad cold/walking pneumonia has convinced me that besides taking on daily posting for Lent, I shall finally restart my morning exercises, the Five Tibetan Rites*, which I learned from reading Dr. Jerry Pournelle’s blog before he died. *Note that I only do four, as the first, that spinning around, would have me collapsed and puking by rotation number seven.

As you’ll see below the fold, Gil knows he’s not a prisoner, but that he cannot leave. Further, he begins to see that while not an interrogation, well, it’s an interrogation.

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Tillamook, part 4

Thinking honesty the best policy, Gil answers the questions put to him by the Russian junior officer. He seems relieved that he will not be detained too long.

Honestly, I’m not sure what the next conversation holds. I would like to see Gil back on shore to introduce his wife, Mackenzie. For those who’ve read “Friend & Ally” and “Foes & Rivals,” they’ve a very unusual past. And, I’d like to see how she’s grown as an artist; she was extraordinarily gifted, so has time honed or dulled her ability?

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Tillamook, part 3

Russians. They seem to play nice until they want something. And then they’ll want something more. Given the shit they’ve been through over the last thousand years, can you fault their behavior? If they were not advancing their nation was being eaten by its neighbors. I don’t think the crew of Golitsyn is up to no good but I certainly expect yawning cultural gaps to be pit traps to Gil over the next few hours.

I’m beginning to wonder if there will be any “sci-fi” elements in this short; I’ve certainly not seen any. Typical for my style is how Gil speaks to his sons about his wife and their sisters: besides God, family first.

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Tillamook, part 2

Given the current political climate of the so-called US and much of Europe, this could be an extremely unpopular short story. In my future history the Russian Empire is remade and forms one of the four spokes of the Polar Alliance (Japan, Habsburgs, Russia, imperium; Australia has observer status). Some of the AIs of tribe Mendrovovitch, coded in St. Petersburg, while having no Laws, were imbued with the patriotism of their coders. First among equals of that tribe, Reina, seizes power, finds some distant, suitable Romanov heirs (yes, they exist) to be Tsar and Tsarina, but holds all real power to herself, with her primary objective of turning around their demographic implosion. Being Russian, when the US imploded in the Breakup, it was natural for them to advance into a power vacuum, as you will read below the fold.

This is not commentary on the current stupidity – on all sides – going on now in eastern Europe.

So, read on as things get, as Gil says, “spicy,” very quickly.

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Tillamook, part 1

A small town on the northwest coast of the US State of Oregon. Known for its cheese. While connected to the Pacific Ocean via a good sized bay, that bay is fed from so many small rivers of the Cascade Range that said bay is nothing but silt, sand, and mud flats. All commercial fishing and crabbing is done out of the village of Garibaldi, about five miles north by northwest. That’s where Gil Haven keeps his little trawler, Nichole. And, this is where the SPOLIERS begin.

Gil Haven is the major secondary character of both “Friend & Ally” and “Foes & Rivals.” Starting as a careful friend of Nichole 5 Clarke, who he comes to realize is an android, they later fall in love. Skipping way forward, when things go to absolute shit in the city-state of Portland, he and Nichole’s other best friend, Mackenzie d’Arcy, artist and accountant, are given a special grace to pass west to the coast unmolested by the Huns. Hopelessly in love with Gil but knowing she is an artificial person and can never make children with him, Nichole forces her two friends together. And abandons them.

The story picks up a generation later. Gil and his two teen sons and two hired men are at sea when their boat’s engine begins to act up.

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