Abbeyport was made up of some twenty-five or twenty-six businesses, and as far as I could tell fifteen of them were saloons of some sort.  Among the few others, besides the single hotel, were a couple of general stores, at least two launderers, and an import/export office.  All the others were trading posts specializing in selling to the natives, using a barter system with which they could purchase European or American goods. There were none of the sorts of shops I had seen in cities like New York or San Francisco, which catered to the finer things in life.  The streets were all simple packed dirt affairs and one couldn’t help but kick up a great deal of dust just walking from here to there.  The large colonial style homes sitting around these clapboard stores and saloons looked totally out of place, with their carefully tended gardens, white picket fences, and brightly painted verandas.  Some of the inhabitants sat in chairs or beneath the shade fanning themselves and drinking cool beverages; the men dressed in white suits and the ladies in long dark dresses and white long-sleeved blouses, their hair piled high in carefully constructed stacks.

I didn’t stray too far beyond these houses, examining the native dwellings without wandering out among them.  They were square constructions made by carefully intertwining twigs together and then topping the home off with very large leaves.  I can only assume the roofs had to be replaced fairly often because most of them were still quite green.

Wandering back to the hotel, I hadn’t taken nearly as much time as I had expected to make an entire circuit of the area.  When I stepped into my room, I was surprised to find a native man bent over one of my steamer trunks, which had been laid flat on the floor.  I gave a shout as he plowed into me on his way out the door.  I didn’t try too hard to stop him, and doubt if I could easily have done so, because he was quite a large fellow.  I resolved then that I wouldn’t leave my possessions unguarded if I could help it. The thief had been unable to gain access to my belongings due to a complex locking mechanism that required not only a four-digit combination, but also the throwing of two secret switches hidden on either side of the luggage.

I went to what passed for the dining room in the hotel only long enough to grab a bowl of soup and a couple of slices of bread.  Then I retired to my room and went to bed at an early hour, though darkness had firmly settled before I did.

That night the dream returned for the first time since I had left the United States, though before that it had plagued me for many nights.  I found myself outside the door of my home in Boston. I turned the key in the lock, opened the door, and entered.  Though I tried to move quickly, I felt as if the air was thick syrup.  I stepped through the foyer and heard the voices coming from the parlor beyond.  In my dream I couldn’t recognize the voices, though my waking self knew who they were.

In the morning, I had just washed, shaved, and dressed when the native boy, Saral, arrived at my door.

“Someone tried to break into my things yesterday.”

“Yes, there are many thieves.  Not to worry. I will see your room guarded.”

“It has to be someone capable.  This fellow was bigger than I am.”

“Not to worry.  I will get my cousin Asika to guard your room.”

“As you think best,” I said, handing him another dollar.  “Who can I see about arranging an expedition into the wilderness?  I need bearers and… well, I don’t know what you call them here.  Men with guns.”

“Guards yes?  I can take care of all this for you.  It will not be easy to find all the men you need.  The great Roosevelt expedition has hired two hundred men.”

Birmisia was full of life in the spring.  Wildflowers seemed to suddenly appear just about everywhere.  The days were warm and wet, with frequent fog and almost daily rain showers.  The giant maples grew new leaves, adding their lustrous green to the ever-present deep emerald of the tremendous pines.  Ferns opened up their fronds in the dappled light beneath the mighty trees and in those places with no light, large and varied mushrooms showed their rounded heads.  Plants were not the only life forms present though.  The land was alive with both birds and beasts.  One could easily spot cormorants, snipes, rails, and wrens hopping through the trees along with the strange four-winged microraptors.  A few godwits, grebes, puffins, and pelicans occasionally strayed inland from the shore.  On the ground caudipteryx, buitreraptors, bambiraptors, meilong, and mahakala ran among the ferns looking for small lizards and snakes and large insects, which were everywhere.  They didn’t bother the opossums or the mice, which stayed snug in their dens until nightfall.  In the open areas huge iguanodons grazed, sometimes accompanied by triceratops and ankylosaurs.  Most of the large predators like the tyrannosaurs and utahraptors had become scarce due to the presence of man, though the velociraptors and deinonychus were still thick, as happy to scavenge human trash as to hunt the other Birmisian creatures.

A flock of seven velociraptors made their way down the road. They went in fits and starts, pausing to snatch a lizard or small rodent from among the ferns and squawking at each other.  They were, like all of their species, covered with hairy feathers, yellow near their small arms, and green everywhere else.  Most of this particular group had a black band around the base of their necks. They were only about two and a half feet tall, but their long tails stretched straight out almost five feet. The most famous features of the velociraptors were their feet, each of which had a three-inch claw curving upward, and their long many-toothed snouts, more like something one would expect to see on a crocodile than on a bird.  The leader of the flock raised its head as it spotted a human walking toward them from down the lane.

Velociraptors seldom hunted human beings unless one was wandering alone and injured.  It had little to do with size.  Some of the animals that fell to the feathered runners were much larger than man-size.  Though velociraptors were not known for their intelligence, they possessed a cunning that matched most aerial birds of prey and this allowed them to determine which potential targets were more likely to become their supper than the other way around. Simply put, most humans didn’t act like prey.  A few did. They started, and jumped with fear. But most didn’t.  They didn’t quite act like predators either.  They blundered around the forest without regard to what they might run into.  To the velociraptors, they were simply too confusing to be bothered with unless there was nothing else to eat.  And in spring, here in Birmisia, there was plenty to eat.

Regardless of their intent on hunting this particular human, the flock fanned out, following their instinctual behavior for both hunting and defense.  Three took positions on either side of the road, moving in and among the shelter of the trees, while the leader moved into direct confrontation.  This way they formed a triangular trap around the animal, in this case a human, directing it forward and keeping its attention away from potential attackers on the side.  What happened next cemented in the tiny minds of the velociraptors as much as anything could, that this human was a poor choice for prey.

This human being was a teenaged female, and though biologists still debate whether velociraptors can distinguish between the sexes of mammals, others of her kind could immediately recognize her gender by the long flowing deep violet velvet dress, made more expansive by an extensive bustle over her rear end, and the long flowing blond hair held back by the deep violet velvet ribbon fastened on the side.  Tens of thousands of other human beings could in fact identify this particular human female, because this particular human female was the young sorceress Senta Bly.  She was hurrying home from the Hertling house where she had enjoyed afternoon tea. When she noticed the brightly feathered creature standing directly in her path, she flipped her hand toward it and muttered a single word under her breath.  A bright blue ball of energy flew from her fingers to the velociraptor, which exploded into a puff of yellow, green, and black feathers.  Its comrades disappeared into the forest.

Senta had scarcely passed the spot in which the velociraptor had stood when she was brought to a stop by a honking coming from behind. She turned around to see a shiny steam carriage chugging down the road toward her.  As she waited, the vehicle slowed and came to a stop.  A tall man in the uniform of a police sergeant looked down at her.  His thick blond hair, flashing moss green eyes, and confidant air made him handsome in a way that the recently acquired bend in his nose couldn’t detract from.

“You shouldn’t walk on this side of town alone,” said Police Sergeant Saba Colbshallow.  “Velociraptors have been thick lately.”

Senta nodded.

“Nice car.  I didn’t know you were so rich,” she said.

“It’s police property, as you well know little girl.”

“I’m not a little girl,” replied Senta.  “I’ll be fifteen in six days.”

“Don’t I know it?  I’ve got it marked on my calendar.  Climb in.  I’ll give you a ride home.”

“It’s only about a hundred yards.”

“Sure, but how often do you get to ride in a steam carriage?”

“I don’t think they’re safe.  They used to blow up all the time back in Brech.”

“You’ve never ridden in a steam carriage have you?” Saba grinned.  “The Drache Girl is too frightened to ride in a car?”

Senta stuck out her lip.  “I’m not frightened.”

Saba reached across the passenger seat and offered her his hand.  She stared at it for just a moment, then accepted it, and climbed up onto the empty seat, reaching behind to ensure she didn’t flatten her bustle.  A quick press on the forward accelerator sent the car shooting down the gravel road.

“You’ve passed my house,” said Senta.

“I thought we could take a turn around the block.”

Well, I’m back at work today and I’m feeling pretty good.  I still have to follow up with a pulmonologist and a hematologist, neither of which I even knew existed.  In any case, I’m good, and not going to die anytime soon.  Now I can get back to work.

It should be obvious by now that His Robot Wife: Patience Under Fire is not going to be published in September.  It’s not going to be October either.  At this point, I am still hoping for 2018 though.  I’m really happy with what I’ve written, but no so happy with how much. Stay tuned here for updates.

I was happily getting caught up with my writing, when I hit a little snag.  I couldn’t breathe.  Turns out I had a pulmonary embolism– a blood clot in my lungs (actually more than one– more than several).  I spent some time in the hospital, and thought I could do some writing, since I had my trusty MacBook.  I didn’t take into account the IVs in my wrist making it all but impossible to type.

Well, now I’m home again and ready to get started again.  Maybe I can’t breathe easy, but at least now I can breathe.