Biological Exploration

It happened in class. I was quietly sitting in the big lecture hall, surrounded by some fifty-odd other students (this was Friday, and no homework due in class, and a beautiful day... about half the class didn't bother to show up). I was writing, because the character I'm weaving a story around likes this class. It reminds her of her undergraduate days, and she starts talking about the things she's working on, so I write. Only I needed to stop and think a little, because in the story, there are colony planets, and she's traveled to one. I wanted to know how she got there in only three weeks, and was looking up space drives. My knowledge of the FTL possibilities is rather limited to the fictional.

She didn't know, and didn't care. She was much more interested in telling me about the tweaking of her microbiome in order to make her safe to live on a new colony because four human generations is practically a millennium in genetic shift of pathogens. For her, the ship was simply a container that got her from point A to her new lab, where her employers betrayed her... But I digress. I suspect that for most of us, even those who aren't quite so focused on one topic in the way she is, don't think a whole lot about how we get from point A to point B.

Cross-posted over at Mad Genius Club. To get the whole thing, click here.

I'm running a very special one-day promotion on Pixie Noir.

My book is being featured on Saturday September 20th 2014 at eBookSoda, a new readers' site where they'll send you ebook recommendations tailored to your taste. www.ebooksoda.com.

Hattip to Peter Grant for this Bestiary of Intelligence Writing, which made me giggle.