Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Infinite Joys
    Infinite Joys
    Infinite Joys
    Ebook130 pages1 hour

    Infinite Joys

    By Meyari McFarland

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Meyari McFarland returns in a joyful collection of science fiction stories focusing on women of all types. From scientists exploring new worlds to space liners catering to their guests every needs, the search for joy infuses this collection with delight.

    Includes six short stories plus a sample of the novel Crafting Home, one of Meyari McFarland's lesbian romance novels:

    Mountainous Stretch of Wind
    Eternity in a Touch
    Late Arrival
    Into the Wave
    The Eternal Librarian
    Specialist Class Three

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMDR Publishing
    Release dateAug 20, 2015
    ISBN9781311103611
    Infinite Joys
    Author

    Meyari McFarland

    Meyari McFarland has been telling stories since she was a small child. Her stories range from SF and Fantasy adventures to Romances but they always feature strong characters who do what they think is right no matter what gets in their way. Her series range from Space Opera Romance in the Drath series to Epic Fantasy in the Mages of Tindiere world. Other series include Matriarchies of Muirin, the Clockwork Rift Steampunk mysteries, and the Tales of Unification urban fantasy stories, plus many more. You can find all of her work on MDR Publishing's website at www.MDR-Publishing.com.

    Read more from Meyari Mc Farland

    Related authors

    Related to Infinite Joys

    Titles in the series (44)

    View More
    View More

    Related ebooks

    Gay Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      THE Reading room

      Sep 9, 2020

      THE Reading room
      3 min read

    • Article

      THE Reading room

      Sep 9, 2020

      THE Reading room
      3 min read

    • Article

      In Search Of . . .

      Feb 1, 2019

      In Search Of . . .
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Phone Of The Wind

      Jun 16, 2019

      The Phone Of The Wind
      2 min read

    • Article

      How the Cicada Screams

      Dec 1, 2020

      How the Cicada Screams
      7 min read

    • Article

      There Is No Safe Place to Hide

      Jul 31, 2017

      There Is No Safe Place to Hide
      11 min read

    • Article

      In Search Of . . .

      Mar 1, 2019

      In Search Of . . .
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Thing In The Woods

      Jun 8, 2022

      The Thing In The Woods
      4 min read

    • Article

      Gutbucket

      Feb 27, 2024

      Gutbucket
      18 min read

    • Article

      Christmas Gifts

      Oct 30, 2019

      Did you ever pine after the cake decorations as a child, not the cake? The pointy ballerina, caped crusader? Bowerbird Marion Frith understands the miniature world that children love to inhabit; her own hunting from around the world housed in an alph

      3 min read

    • Article

      Clam Down

      Apr 13, 2017

      Clam Down
      9 min read

    • Article

      THE FLYING TORTOISE A Nigerian Folk Tale

      Sep 1, 2020

      THE FLYING TORTOISE A Nigerian Folk Tale
      3 min read

    • Article

      One man And His Frog

      Dec 14, 2023

      One man And His Frog
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Garden Of DELIGHTS

      Sep 14, 2022

      The Garden Of DELIGHTS
      9 min read

    • Article

      Tales of Colossal Smallness

      Nov 25, 2022

      Tales of Colossal Smallness
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Primeval Comic Book

      Aug 1, 2017

      The Primeval Comic Book
      8 min read

    • Article

      Commonplace Book

      Sep 1, 2020

      We should build parks that students from afar Would choose to starve in, rather than go home … We must have many Lincoln-hearted men. —Vachel Lindsay, “On the Building of Springfield,” 1912 When the researchers posed as pedestrians waiting to cross

      3 min read

    • Article

      Blown Away

      Aug 3, 2021

      Blown Away
      4 min read

    • Article

      Lungs Of The Earth

      May 7, 2020

      Lungs Of The Earth
      10 min read

    • Article

      Notes From The Field

      Feb 27, 2019

      Notes From The Field
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Bear God Revisited

      May 3, 2020

      The Bear God Revisited
      18 min read

    • Article

      Read! Read!

      Jul 9, 2023

      GEORGE IVANOFF Bernie follows his mum to her top-secret job, and ends up on an island. The scientists there call it ‘Monster Island’, and it doesn’t take long for Bernie to discover why! Extinct and mythical beasts are living here, but there are also

      2 min read

    • Article

      Your Letters

      Sep 12, 2019

      Your Letters
      7 min read

    • Article

      Why Japan's Ageing Population Is Dying Alone

      Apr 7, 2018

      Cicadas, every Japanese schoolchild knows, lie underground for years before rising to the earth's surface in summer. They climb up the nearest tree, where they cast off their shells and start their short second lives. During their few days among us,

      24 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Infinite Joys

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Infinite Joys - Meyari McFarland

      Infinite Joy

      By Meyari McFarland

      Other Books by Meyari McFarland:

      Matriarchies of Muirin:

      Tales from the Dana Clanhouse

      Repair and Rebuild

      Storm Over Archaelaos

      Coming Together

      Facing the Storm

      Fitting In

      Mages of Tindiere:

      Artifacts of Awareness

      City of the Dead

      Transplant of War

      Debts to Recover:

      The Nature of Beasts

      The Manor Verse:

      A New Path

      Following the Trail

      Crafting Home

      Finding a Way

      Copyright ©2015 by Mary Raichle

      Cover image © Sdecoret | Dreamstime.com - Sunrise Over Planet Earth In Space Photo

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

      Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be emailed to me_ya_ri@yahoo.com

      This book is also available in TPB format from all major retailers.

      Dedication:

      This story is dedicated to Dean Wesley Smith for all his classes, the many and varied stories he writes, and for inspiring me to keep writing every day no matter what.

      Table of Contents

      Mountainous Stretch of Wind

      Eternity in a Touch

      Late Arrival

      Into the Wave

      The Eternal Librarian

      Specialist Class Three

      Crafting Home

      Afterword

      Mountainous Stretch of Wind

      1. Ascent

      Wind battered at Etsuko. She leaned into it, hands thrust deep into her coat pockets. Not that the pockets helped. The wind stabbed through the coat, through her gloves, through all of the clothes she wore, even her heavy insulated underwear. Cold enough to bite and hard enough to steal her breath, the wind was like an enemy intent on killing Etsuko before she could take another step.

      It was glorious.

      She'd missed wind since she left Japan to explore other planets and other cultures. Certainly, while on world she got to experience actual weather but most of her time was spent on space ships and those could be so dreadfully dull. Even if the Commander shared Etsuko's sense of humor and indulged in little prank wars with her the vast majority of her time shipboard was dull. Uninteresting. Boring.

      Every time she tried to look at the path ahead the wind whipped tears into her eyes. She grinned, wiped the tears away with one cuff, and kept looking despite the wind that slipped under her safety glasses and into her eyes. So nice to have that struggle!

      Even through the tear-blur Etsuko could see that they had far to go yet. The path stretched upwards, a bare rocky foot trail leading through boulders and scrubby grass that whipped in the wind like tentacles reaching for Etsuko's feet. There were other plants, tiny purple creeping plants that slowly moved over the soil with tentacle-like branches functioning as limbs. Their white flowers were more like dots against the purple stems than the flowers that Etsuko was familiar with.

      She wondered what they smelled like, if the pollen they released to the driving wind would cause her eyes to swell and her nose to run as the flowers on their ship did. Best not to check. She had promised not to do silly things just to see what happened and who knew what her teammates would think of Etsuko kneeling down to stick her face in the little purple plants. Besides, her face mask was fuzzy and warm, likely to collect any pollen that the flowers might have, if any remained after the beating of the wind.

      Ahead, Chikafuji Kimiko and Yamashita Rika trudged upwards. Both carried packs on their backs equal in size to Etsuko's. Two weeks' worth of clothing and dehydrated food, one tablet for entertainment and to work with, a brush, a toothbrush, nothing else. The natives were quite strict about what could be brought in. At least they provided water, though from the briefing the water would always need to be filtered and purified. Even then the taste was something to regret. Pity she couldn't bring tea. That would help.

      Etsuko shook her head at herself, carefully pulled her boot out from under the seeking fronds of one of the purple creepers that had crawled closer to shelter behind her feet, and then trudged after her teammates. It would be strange to be surrounded only by women. In her life, Etsuko had spent far more time among men than women. For all the progress that the authorities claimed, women still tended towards soft sciences rather than hard.

      She was no exception. Xeno-sociology was mostly a matter of learning to talk to other species whose morphology differed dramatically from human. It was delightfully fun trying to explain stereo-vision to creatures with one eye or three or none. And the joys of demonstrating running to a race that always moved at a snail's pace had been beyond anything that Etsuko had imagined. This trip would likely be more of the same, though Etsuko did wish that she was even shorter and smaller so that she could see the natives' homes.

      Chikafuji Kimiko was an exception to the general rule of women in science, as was Yamashita Rika. Both had studied extensively in physics and xeno-biology before joining the Exploration Corp. Their reports were so thick with math and chemistry that Etsuko had set them aside, largely unread. It made Etsuko doubt her place on this team, her right to be here on this alien planet with its demanding, complicated, confusing masters.

      But then, the problems the previous teams had experienced had more to do with social dynamics among the team members and between the humans and the natives than any hard science issues. Etsuko was fairly certain that her job was to be a wall between Kimiko, Rika and anything that would distract them from their work, though her orders had included a line about 'smoothing interpersonal issues in the habitat' that her commander had refused to explain further.

      Annoying, amusing man. Mission briefings was not a place for teasing. Even Etsuko avoided making jokes during briefings. Still, dealing with any personal issues their team had shouldn't be too hard. Etsuko usually did a good job of adapting to her environment, whether that environment included humans, aliens or mixes of the types.

      It should help that both Kimiko and Rika were of Japanese descent. They might not follow Japanese social customs but they were familiar with them by default. One couldn't grow up with a Japanese grandmother and not learn that bowing was important and politeness was mandatory.

      Etsuko would certainly have to adjust to their needs, though. Neither of them were native to Japan or even Issei, first generation children born after emigrating from Japan. They wouldn't follow the customs as fully so Etsuko would need to be conscious of herself and try not to offend them with her idiosyncratic version of Japanese politeness.

      I can do that, Etsuko said to herself even though the words whipped her sounds away. I will do that. I will do it well.

      She nodded and marched up the path after her teammates, wind tearing at her skin despite the protective gear. No matter what her always present worries told her, Etsuko would complete her mission. Two weeks wasn't that long. It would take hard work but she could smooth relations with the natives and, hopefully, keep Rika and Kimiko happy during their stay on world.

      She would do it.

      And when she wasn't dealing with her teammates, Etsuko looked forward to spending time talking with the natives about their so-interesting world with its wind and mountains and moving plants that acted like animals while being vegetable.

      This should be an absolutely delightful mission.

      2. Arrival

      Etsuko staggered once the door sealed behind them. She'd gotten so used to the wind that its lack nearly shoved her off her feet. The backpack felt heavier, somehow much more noticeable now that the wind was gone. When she looked at the others, they stood so straight that they might never have been subject to the wind's pounding, waiting for the inner door to cycle open.

      An airlock. This was an airlock, of course. Etsuko should have expected that. Even though the planet's air, bright blue sky with shredded white clouds overhead, was a near-perfect match for Earth air, the wind was so much stronger that it would be needed.

      The windows won't open, will they? Etsuko commented, thinking about midnight farts with no place to escape and the inevitable smells that accumulated when three people lived together in a very small place. Hopefully the air filtration system would be adequate to the challenge.

      Rika turned to frown at Etsuko, one perfectly manicured eyebrow sliding upwards. No, they won't. Logically.

      Etsuko ducked her head in an awkward attempt at a proper bow. Rika nodded back with her lips pursed as if she'd just bitten a lemon. Next to her, Kimiko shook her head. Unlike Rika with her perfect eyebrows, perfect smooth hair coiled into an unruffled bun on the back of her head, Kimiko looked as though the wind was still blowing over her. They were both a good head and a half taller than Etsuko. Kimiko's hair was short, only a few centimeters long. At some point it had been dyed brilliantly neon blue. Very little of the blue remained, only a bare three millimeters or so at the tips. Everything else was steel gray, the same as the walls of their airlock.

      The entire habitat is sealed, Kimiko said in a tone that strongly implied that she was used to teaching much younger and much more flighty people. She didn't look back at Etsuko. We will stay inside the entire time.

      You will, Etsuko agreed. She winced when they turned to frown at her. Kimiko's frown was particularly fierce, eyebrows drawn down

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1