Path: netcom.com!netcomsv!decwrl!spool.mu.edu!uwm.edu!rpi!nason107.its.rpi.edu!harrij4 From: Josh Harrison Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [Chance] Long Walk Home Date: 11 Sep 1993 07:23:06 GMT Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY. Lines: 58 Sender: harrij4@nason107.its.rpi.edu (Joshua James Harrison) Distribution: world Message-ID: <26rucq$rl1@usenet.rpi.edu> Reply-To: harrij4@rpi.edu NNTP-Posting-Host: nason107.its.rpi.edu [Author's note: this is a slightly modified repost of the previous two postings entitled (respectively) Descent into Darkness and Long Trip Home. I received some e-mails about the fact that while my 'puter may have autowrap, not everybody's did. So I decided to repost my two installments in one, autowrap free package. If your system has autowrap, then you have basically already seen this. If you couldn't decipher what I had before, this is your chance to read it. Thanks to Chris Steiner for pointing the autowrap out to me. I'm fairly new to this, and I wasn't aware. -- Josh Harrison] FROM THE JOURNAL OF CHANCE MCRAE ~Date: Unknown, Dusk (Day 3) Place: Unknown I don't know what this is intended to be, but considering all of the things that have happened to me recently, I thought for some reason it would be a good idea to record my experiences here so that when I get home (let's be honest _if_ I get home) people won't think that I've just inhaled too many exhaust fumes wafting across the launchpad on Ardel VI. I guess it's also for me as well, trying to keep sane and prove to myelf it isn't all just a bad dream. We all need something to help us cling to reality, and this is my lifeline. Since this is the beginning of my journal, I had better explain just who I am and how I got into this mess. My given name is William Arnold McRae. I come from Ardel IV, which is a colony world on the fringes of the Interstellar Treaty Zone. It's a pretty dull rock, concerned mostly with mining and research. There is a little agriculture, but the soil doesn't support plant life very well. As a result, the colony is still dependant on Regna V, the center of the Zone government. I haven't been back to the rock in years, so I don't know if the situation has changed. I doubt it has. I am, by profession, what is known in the Zone as a C-Runner. That means that I pilot a hyperspatial cargo ship from world to world in the Zone, ferrying food, tools, medicine, military personnel, and just about anything else that you could want shipped between the stars. Supposedly, we Runners are under contract with the Zone, and we're only supposed to run goods for the government. I'll tell you now that very few (I'd say one in a hundred) Runners limit their activities to just Zone jobs. Since the Zone is a rather dictatorial government, there is always call for people willing to deal in a little bit of contraband, whether its drugs, guns, or mercenary troops to aid in one of the dozen rebellions that always seems to be happening somewhere in the Zone. Of course, the public newsnets all claim that these rebellions are purely terrorist extremists, ignorant of the benefits that living under Zone protection entitles them to. I know from experience that these claims are false. Man, do I know. That's what got me into this mess. It all started fairly innocent enough. We were just drifting (most Runners, despite rumors, spend a great deal of time drifting between jobs), waiting for a job to come in that we could accept, whether it was legit or illegal. Dartan, my copilot hailing from Atros V, was passing the time playing a strategy game against our Shipboard Artificial Navigating Device, or Sandy, as we called her, and I was watching the public broadcasts, waiting for the results of the Recball playoffs to be shown. It's getting too dark to see what I'm writing now. I'll pick this back up tomorrow morning. [Author's note: Sorry, this is only the first part. Stay tuned for the autowrap free continuation of _Long Walk Home_ --- Josh Harrison]