TOF the Scrivener

TOF is busy finishing a short story that he should have finished two days ago for an anthology yclept Mission Tomorrow. He had started out writing a different story and then realized it was going nowhere, and not even going nowhere fast. So, like a circus performer, TOF leapt from one dead horse to another hopefully more lively. He is about three-quarters done with it. The title of the story is:

"In Panic Town, on the Backward Moon"

and it is set in the FIRESTAR universe in between Falling Stars and The Wreck of "The River of Stars".  Port Rosario is a going concern and Phobos, hollowed out and filled with warrens by the ancient Visitors, is its skyport. We shall see if it merits editorial approval.

      Mars was the happening place back then. Transit times were down to one month, thanks to magnetic sails, and costs had dropped with them, so the place was filling up with dreamers and scamps and scientists and dogs of all kinds, out to siphon a buck from the desert or from the pockets of those who did. It was a different time, more free-falling, more improv than today’s seal-zipping i-dotters. There were zeppelin pilots and miners, pipefitters, air-squeezers, gardeners and terraformers, hobie-drawers, and all what have you. Half the industry went to support the parasol-makers, but those needed construction and maintenance and food preparation and teamsters and rocket-jocks, and throughout history whenever there was a man and a dollar there was another man willing to separate them.