September 27, 2012

Excerpt From "The Airlock Scene", by Karl Johanson

Continuing with our series of excerpts from our upcoming issue. 

  Captain Winston did his best to look heroic as he stood at the exit to the airlock of his spacecraft, looking over the surface of Mars. The bulging pack on the back of his form-fitting vacuum suit made moving around in the airlock awkward. The other five crewmen in the airlock made it sextuply so. He looked at the terrain below him, held out one arm and said, “Looking out at the new world, the six intrepid men set out from their brave craft, with its numerous shades of orange and red.”
  “Hang on a minute,” the life sciences officer said from further back in the
crowded airlock. “The space ship isn’t red and orange.”

3 comments:

  1. "The Airlock Scene" is intended to pay tribute Neil Armstrong, and his first words as he stepped onto the surface of the moon. The story is about the Captain of the first manned ship on Mars, attempting to make an epic speech, while his crew corrects his wording and grammar.

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  2. I can believe it, Karl! Happens all the time where I work. A group of editors or profs might just be worse than a group of economists for reaching agreement on wordsmithing.

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  3. Just read it today. Beautifully done.

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