On Socialism.

Built by union workers and socialism.

Socialism has been getting a bad rap in some circles lately, and yet Denmark was just voted the world’s happiest country. This is due in some small part to its prosperity—a prosperity both unencumbered and even enabled by socialism.

There’s no doubt that Canada is a highly-socialized country, for surely the definition fits. I would even go further and say that the long-term effect of social networks such as Facebook and other sites will be to increase socialization globally.

The sheer number of sources of information, and points of view, is astounding. Assuming an iPhone and local wireless service, something that will be coming to much of the world in the next twenty-five years or so, I can now friend the chief of some New Guinea hill tribe on Facebook.

He can upload pictures of his village, his hut, his wives and kids, and maybe even his dinner. He can take pictures of his warriors all painted up and brandishing spears. I could show him pictures of my car, or the bridge, or a sandwich I just bought at 7-11. And that’s good, because in some small way we will come to know each other a little better, and over time, this mutual understanding between peoples and cultures will have a wonderfully socializing effect on the entire human race.

I grew up under Canadian socialism, which, like many a good thing, must be taken in moderation.

The schooling was free, but the teachers got paid, quite well in fact, and then they went and bought homes from private enterprise.

The books at the library were free, and yet the librarians got paid, and they went home with a bag of groceries and fed their children. They paid their rent and some of their pay-cheques back in the form of taxation.

And when I fell from a scaffold, socialism even failed me. It has failed a time or two, every so often it happens, but it works the great majority of the time for most people. People get jobs and pay into the unemployment fund, and when they get laid off they get up to a year or so on unemployment benefits. They pay into a fund, and when they retire they get a monthly cheque. What if they don’t get laid off? Then they are fortunate indeed, for when the benefits run out they end up on welfare. Not much fun for all concerned, especially if you have any assets to begin with, and plenty of working people have at least some assets—private property, ladies and gentlemen. Plenty of working people have families, although some do not, but the point is that socialism smooths out some of the harsher bumps in an otherwise precarious existence.

(One of the benefits of effort and persistence under social-capitalism is reward, ladies and gentlemen, including private property.)

Under the provincial hospital plan, medical care is free, although some things aren’t covered. And if you’re a skilled worker, and looking for a job, you might want to find an employer with a private dental and medical plan. You might prefer some private enterprise somewhere to provide this to a valued employee.

This represents a kind of freedom of choice, based on skills and merit.

Even then, some things might not be covered, and of course they expect regular monthly contributions, over and above the provincial hospital plan—but the private plan covers things the official plan doesn’t. Obviously in a world of free enterprise, someone is paying the bills. In the world of socialism, the same msut also be true.

All social programs rest on some sort of revenue stream and they are as inclusive as they can be.

Otherwise it’s just fascism.

The big problem arises when the power to tax is somehow more difficult to use than the power to borrow—and the government has the power to do either one if it so chooses. Borrowing is deferred taxation, nothing more.

We are five years into a global recession that is showing all the signs of a soft recovery, one that really doesn’t put everyone that used to have a job back to work, certainly not at their old rate and position.

Too much time has passed, and some of the places they used to work are just gone. Some of those old skills aren’t even that relevant anymore.

In my home town, there were, once upon a time, companies that made brass plumbing and other fixtures. 

There was a company, a foundry, that made engine blocks for automobiles, and another firm that made electric alternators, starters, windshield wiper motors, all for the auto industry. I worked at a manufacturing plant where we bagged up fiberglass, and made it into big rolls, and pipe insulation, and cut custom fab jobs, small orders for refrigerators and freezers and ovens.

All of those places are gone now. Some of those plants were unionized, but the newest plant in town, the UBE wheel plant out on the highway, has closed down again. That plant was non-union, and the closure was due to falling demand for production—back then a Mazda sportscar was marked at $13,000 OFF due to the recession. Five years ago, as I recall.

With better health services, and the aging of the population, the rise of social media and social marketing, the rise of social politics, the next twenty-five years will see socialism face big challenges, not just ideological but also very practical.

There are also many opportunities ahead and they must not be overlooked.

In a world of diminishing employment opportunities, and consequent demands on governments at all levels, how can the commitment to social policy be maintained, i.e. paid for?

That, is a very good question, when multi-national corporations with possibly less of a commitment to good social policy can just pull up stakes and move their operations to less progressive states, where government priorities are geared towards development at any cost, (with their own political stability at stake) and oversight is somehow less ‘repressive.’

The funny thing is, none of those peoples enjoy the same benefits as we do as Canadians, they do not have the same standards of living, or political freedom, or education, or health care…half of the people in those countries would immigrate to Canada in a heartbeat, if only they were given a chance.

That’s what socialism has done for us—everybody and his brother wants to be a Canadian.

They have their reasons, ladies and gentlemen, and I suspect they are very, very good ones at that.

Socialism is all of us, working together for the common benefit.

Here's something on social democracy: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy

The Towel of Babar.

Zon and I were just leaving the ship.

“That Luiz will get himself in trouble someday.”

Zon, whose build was attenuated at best, shuffled along beside me.

He was amused by the sign over Luiz’s office door. It’s taken from an old movie.

‘Gentlemen! You can’t fight in here. This is the War Room.’

I grinned. Escobar was tolerated for many reasons.

“Yeah. He is a little impudent.”

Zon snorted.

“Good word.”

The ramp led down into a flat open space a half a kilometre from the village gates.

We strode along, Zon content to shadow my every movement with careful observation and I just enjoying the day. Pre-industrial planets have air that must be experienced. He had his job to do and I had mine. These folks read body language like I can read the training manuals. In other words, ethicality is the key to successful first contacts.

“You really can’t fake sincerity.” When I told him that, his bead bobbed in enthusiasm.

It was a kind of substitute for conversation. His people loved words, poetry, songs. They had aphorisms and quotes for every occurrence.

“Yes, we have a similar saying.”

That’s a good sign, that and their easily-recognized sense of humour. The planet was a bit off the beaten path for the tourist trade, but you never know. It was all significant from the survey point of view.

The air was laden with the scent of blooms by the millions. Even the grey-green turf underfoot contributed something that was spicy, tart and wet-smelling all at the same time. The oxygen-blue sky of the unnamed planet had a certain depth to it that could be disconcerting to the uninitiated spacer. To me it was merely remarkable, rather than threatening.

We were learning each other’s language while the pumps sucked up enough of their air to replenish our stocks of fuel and water. They knew what we were doing, as far as they were equipped to understand it, and with a glee that wasn’t all that mysterious to any student of a more mundane human nature, they were happy with our price. They got a piece of silver for every person in the village, or half a piece for every child under the age of majority.

They responded well, and understood the social concepts. Our captain and the Guild committee responded well to my efforts, and that was good too. But breaking the ice is only the first step.

The walls of the village aren’t high or even very stout. It’s just a palisade of two and a half metre sharpened stakes dropped into a narrow trench and tied top and bottom with roots and thin saplings. They fill in the trench, tamp it down, brace it with angled poles, again dug in and tied off, and that’s about it. It keeps the wildlife out and their domestic animals in. There are four gates to every sizable village. The inhabitants had nice, logical minds.

Zon’s people were not unsophisticated. They immediately saw the potential for trade. The assertion that we were from off-planet didn’t seem to surprise them, as it was all nicely accounted for in their cosmology, which, if a little offbeat, was extensive. We were something like big brothers, smarter than them—to hear them tell it.

There were shouts and calls, high-pitched but happy. Young ones chased a ball, skittling along with the tendency of radial creatures to be asymmetrical in their youth. Every one of their eight little feet were different sizes. They grew one leg at a time, in a circle. When they had eight legs, they were at a second stage of childhood development.

The adults were much bigger and fully-formed octopods.

“It must be hard to buy shoes for them.”

Zon nodded.

“Oh, yes.” He grinned on the segment closest to assure me that he was not offended. “Really,

though, they don’t get shoes until they are at least seven. One of the first rites of passage.”

I nodded solemnly to assure him that I understood. It is extremely difficult to exchange pleasantries in an alien culture. Most of the other crew members were under strict orders not to even try it.

As we neared the gate, the noise level picked up, for a Srettuppi market is something to see.

Part of my training in the Guild involved something called Cultural Comparisons. It’s a first year patch.

The Sretuppi were at about a thirteenth or fourteenth century African level of culture—they were casting bronze. They had gold, grain and weapons. They had kingdoms, engaged in wars and traded with neighbouring peoples. There was an ocean nearby, but all they did was fish—there they seemed, again, to be at that cultural level. They didn’t explore, or trade much up and down the coast.

My job was to assess the place for trading prospects of our own. My instinct said yes, the problem was in proving it. We’d already seen the produce, the woven products, the sort of collectible kick-knacks and what we call ‘flavours’ in the trade. People are always looking for some interesting new flavour to perk up otherwise drab and unchanging diets.

Zon pulled me over to a booth. He chattered gaily with the proprietor, who gathered up a pinch of stuff and put it on a round paper disk. Zon gestured and I picked it up.

“It’s called biimw.”

I smelled it, and then cautiously tasted it. It was hot, the tiniest bit of it burning my tongue.

Wagging my head back and forth in contemplation, something I had seen Zon do, I looked at the proprietor.

“Nice. It’s very strong.” A small cargo might fetch millions.

“He says you may have that as a sample.”

I smiled, nodded and bowed. Safe policy. I gave it back to him so he could wrap it in one of the ubiquitous scraps of paper, which was tough and smooth and silky. We’d talked about the paper already, and the consensus was that we were interested in the process of making it more than the actual product itself. That sort of information-gathering takes a little time, but some native products are produced as knock-offs on factory worlds nearer to markets and raw materials. This was if demand was especially high or if it was a bulky product.

We moved on after effusive thanks on both sides.

I was looking for something special—exotic woods that smelled good and glowed in the dark, that sort of thing, luxury items that made the place special. It had to be something we couldn’t get cheaper somewhere else. A new and unheard-of gemstone of high quality and hardness would fit the bill nicely. Exotic animals, suitable for pets, are another good find. They almost define the category, in that you can’t get them anywhere else.

Make no mistake, a mountain of copper or platinum would be perfectly welcome. That was an entirely different sort of prospecting, and one that I wasn’t really equipped for. I kept my eyes and ears open, though.

The heat of the day rose and we wandered up and down the stalls, brightly coloured, noisy with the hawkers ready to pounce, rife with the sound of people haggling over a pile of fruit or a coloured twist of paper with some apothecary substance inside. Some of them were going for quite good money, as all sizes and shapes of coins and markers exchanged hands back and forth.

The tallest buildings in town, all of wooden construction, were maybe thirty metres tall. It was impressive in its own way. This was all built with hand tools and minimal theory. We had already bought some books, always a good investment with an alien first contact. Their level of knowledge was spotty in places. Certain statements were very sophisticated, and the next minute came superstition, witchcraft and sorcery.

There were caravan trailers, pulled by odd mounts not unlike horses, except they were much squatter, more rounded all over somehow, with big flat feet.

From yesterday’s visit I recognized the prostitutes, and the rolling hotel, which had exactly two rooms to rent for travelers or vendors who needed a place to stay. When it was full to capacity, the owner slept underneath on a carpet. For a fee, he would bring guests breakfast in bed. It was all pretty fascinating, and sooner or later, I would find something of commercial interest. In the meantime, the pumps sucked in air and the ship wasn’t going anywhere for a while.

#

The bazaar was mostly given over to extensive areas where vendors sat on mats or carpets, selling local produce from buckets, baskets and cages. Nearer to the built-up centre of town, were more permanent stalls and kiosks, roofed with light planks or just coloured fabric. I would think the more permanent establishments were the more prosperous. The agricultural population walked in from five or ten kilometres away at most, with what they could carry on their backs.

Thousands of objects from pots and pans to clothing and shoes were on display. We were just rounding a corner when we bumped into Fenton.

“Hey.”

“How’s it going?” A quantum mechanic, Fenton worked in the engine room, but they were only using auxiliary power generation systems, and the pump-master, Jordanis, was supervising that.

“Oh, not bad. Found anything you liked?”

He held up a thin net bag with maybe a dozen of a fruit that looked an awful lot like apples.

Their slightly salty taste, not unlike a barbecued peanut, had convinced us the resemblance was purely coincidental.

The crew was all hot for them, as our own diet tended to be bland, and the word was they were a marvel for inducing regularity.

He had a couple of other purchases, and I was just going to ask him where he had gotten the small purple blossoms—exotic perfumes hadn’t really occurred to me before, when a rising hubbub of shouting and what sounded like a chant came from not far away behind the screen of stalls.

Zon looked at me, how I knew that is hard to describe because one of the eight eyes is always looking at you. Basically, they can’t turn their heads so they twist the body ever so slightly. The adjacent eye rolled to regard Fenton with calm dignity.

“What’s that all about?”

He shook his head slowly back and forth, looking concerned and peering off up the narrow alley into the brightness of the square.

“Let’s go.” I gave Fenton a special look, the one with both eyebrows raised.

Zon looked at me and Fenton again and then led off, focused on whatever was going on, which must be an unusual occurrence judging by his reaction. He hurried along in a state of high excitement as I interpreted it. As far as threats were concerned, my instincts were on full alert and Fenton stuck close at my right side with his face carefully blank.

We both had side-arms but were trained not to use them in anything other than the most extreme circumstances.

#

What we witnessed was half riot and half procession. There was a central clump of people, maybe a thousand or two of them, running along in transports of joy, holding aloft tall poles and standards. There were models or sculptures on some of them, banners and placards on others.

Some of the young males were naked, covered in mud, filth, blood, and what looked like raw egg. The gnashed their jaws and stabbed at their chests with sharp sticks. I exchanged a sharp glance with Fenton. He nodded, mouth tight.

We seemed to be safe enough, as the figures of two priests, recognizable by their painted bodies, were the centre of attention as they balanced precariously on platforms borne on the shoulders of gaudily dressed Sretuppi laymen.

They were all male, with arcane symbols painted on their faces. This was not a mourning ceremony, of that much I was sure as they were oddly festive affairs, although with the same type of signs and such held high. This was something completely different.

By this time most of the population of the town was involved, with the three of us on the sidelines at the mouth of the passage. The noise was horrendous. A sort of wave went through the crowd, they were jumping up and down in a frenzy of collective harmony. With all those legs, the sight was bizarre in the extreme.

Zon was straining his ears to catch some sense of what was happening.

He turned to me.

“Oh, my.”

“What is it?”

He put a limb on my arm.

“I must go and see about this. Remain here, you are safe.”

And then he scuttled forward to arrest and confront a similarly-dressed male about his own age on the edges of the seething rabble of folks clustered around the priests, now halted in the middle of the square and chanting a long and arduous monologue interrupted by numerous reprisals from the crowd.

#

My report to the committee, along with Fenton’s, was, under the circumstances, necessarily brief.

“It seems they found the Towel of Babar. He's a local deity. Some boys were looking for avian nests in the temple, and they had permission to do it, which seems a bit off but I’m told they do it from time to time. The eggs are sold in the marketplace, and I recall seeing them, or ones very much like them. They found a loose board in the edifice, up high above the capital of a column. They were using ladders—that’s one reason for needing permission. Also, the dignity of the place must be respected.” A Sretuppi ladder had two sets of rungs, set at right angles to each other on a stout single pole.

“So what do you think, Mister Macdougall?” The captain was chair of the Guild committee.

There were seven of us at the evening meeting, held in the lounge for the sake of comfort.

Meetings were pretty informal affairs, with thin notes and few official records kept. We were on the spot and the Guild was a long ways away. The power of discretion resided with us.

“I think we had better tread lightly. It’s hard to know what to make of it. The populace takes it seriously. That’s all that really matters here. The relic they found purports to be the Towel of Babar, with not only the holy perspiration of the Enlightener, but a faint image of his visage as well. Zon was extremely excited, and it’s clear that he accepts it as a miracle of the first order.”

How manipulative the local authority figures were was unclear, but I had my gut instincts in these matters. 

While it had all the hallmarks of a manufactured incident, we couldn’t rule out coincidence. The actual facts weren’t that important, the impact on local opinion was.

The committee members, all more senior in rank than I, listened to Fenton, who gave his impressions of the noise and excitement of the discovery.

They thanked us for our reports and Fenton left as he isn’t a member of the trading committee.

“So. What do you think?”

The Chief Pilot, Luiz Escobar, looked me over as I hesitated.

“I congratulated them on this marvelous discovery and described it as a historic moment. I told him how privileged we were to be witness to this miracle, and how grateful we were to have friendship with the people of the Enlightenment.”

“And?” Katrel, chief of security, of course wanted some conclusions drawn so he would know how to act.

“I think it’s a bargaining chip.”

Their eyes lit up and their faces relaxed.

“Okay. So what do you want us to do?”

“I think we should be very diplomatic in our dealings with them. And quite frankly, get out of here as quickly as possible. A follow-up mission in five or six years is not out of the question.”

This would give them time to think on things. It would also show we weren’t a big threat to their way of life.

“Zon is a representative of the government, and he watches us very closely. Yet the appearances are informal, and quite friendly. Almost intimate, in the psychological sense.”

They sat with their hands across their bellies, chewing on their lips and with their eyes far away.

I interpreted this as a good sign.

“Other than that, the prices have just gone up.”

This one actually drew a laugh from the hard-nosed committee members. My plan passed by a quick and unanimous vote. Another three or four days would do it anyway.

“Thank you, Mister Macdougall. You’ve done a fine job.”

This was high praise coming from the captain, but I don’t let that sort of thing go to my head.

END

My science fiction novel, Third World, is available for $4.99 as an ebook on Kindle, and a 5 x 8 paperback will be available by Christmas from Createspace and Amazon.

Thank you for reading.

Digital Publishing, Quality Control.

Like that sullen Alex look.

Quality control is important in digital publishing because very often one person is doing everything themselves. If you haven’t done it too many times, it can be a murky process. More than anything, I want to be fresh and with a rational time slot available. I can upload to Smashwords or Kindle in about ten minutes, but if there is a problem, you don’t want to be running out the door to get a box of diapers or whatever right in the middle of fixing a problem with a book

When uploading to Smashwords, you need a clean .doc file as per the Smashwords Style Guide. As soon as it’s done converting, I download Epub and Kindle versions onto my desktop where I have the desktop Nook and Kindle reading apps. What I am looking for is good formatting. I want to see clean scene breaks, with the blocks of text above and below set at the right distance apart. Generally speaking, if the Kindle version looks good my Epub usually will too, but I flip through both of them right to the end. Then I go back to Smashwords and assign an ISBN, submit the converted file and have some fair degree of assurance that it will make it into the Premium Distribution Calalogue.

You want to read the chapter numbers on that Kindle version—recently I read : Chapter Four, Chapter Four, Chapter Five, Chapter Six…Chapter Seventeen, Chapter Nineteen…this is the time to fix it, right?

You want the right number of chapters!

What you are hoping for is a clean upload. Sooner or later the book will pop out onto the home page as a new release, and this puts a little pressure on the new author to do it right.

Before uploading to Kindle Direct Publishing, I take out the Smashwords standard disclaimer, as I have my own anyway, and Kindle certainly doesn’t require the Smashwords disclaimer!

On Kindle Direct Publishing, there is now spell-check for English-language titles. I always read this report. If you have a lot of made-up words, alien names or planets or whatever, those will always be ‘errors’ to the computer program, so make sure you proofread those for spelling thoroughly.

Fix all the ‘real’ errors and upload a corrected file. Use the digital previewer, and go right through to the end, as this is exactly how your book is going to look in a Kindle device. This is useful in helping an author to sleep at night—one or two reviews have mentioned “well-edited,” and good formatting, et cetera. (They also liked the story.)

I never use Digital Rights Management, as on Smashwords there is no provision for it anyway. If someone wants to pirate the book, they can do it easily enough. Since I give away thousands of books in a year, there’s not much demand for pirated books. I click ‘enable lending,’ and MatchBook since I have PODs.

There was a site once that had a free download of a title that I had been giving away for free. It was an old version, with an old and not very good cover. You can try and find a contact form, or an email address on the site. Generally speaking, they do take it down. If it’s just a ‘cheap ebooks’ site, and if all that is there is an image and buy link going back to Amazon or something don’t worry about it. Hope that they sell a few copies for you, as most likely they have an affiliate account and they’re making a small commission. It is not necessary to thank them.

Be glad someone thought they could make money on the book.

Uploading to Createspace is easy enough. For that I use the ebook file, format it, then save it as TitlePOD or whatever, and if I update a version I’ll put Oct13 or something on the end of the file name.

I wrote a blog post on version control, because after a while you just spawn so many files. In my case I tend to back them up like a squirrel, all over the place. I’m sort of worried the computer will crash, and every so often there is an odd-ball glitch that just locks up a file on me.

Another thing is to e-mail those files to yourself at the end of every working day. For that you need maybe two accounts.

My chapter number is six 12-pt spaces down.

A paperback is obviously formatted differently than an ebook. You can and should have page numbers for example. But also, I put section breaks in for the front matter and end matter, so the page numbers are only in the actual book. If you have a foreword, stuff like a dedication, acknowledgements, that’s front matter too—no page numbers, no headers, etc.

The free cover templates on Createspace are easy to use with a little fiddling around, and like many other self-publishing sites there are professional cover and formatting services available.

Learning to do everything myself keeps the cost down and gives me a bit of power in a sense—now I can write how-to articles and post them on my blog, and it might be helpful to someone else along the line.

Before uploading my next two ebooks and five more POD files, I will proof each file at least one more time, take a look at the covers again, get a marketing image (and maybe a better title for Collection # 4 Dark Satires) and ISBNs, write blurbs for new titles, and stuff all that into a folder on the desktop. For one thing, 

I’ve been thinking of a new image for Core Values. It’s not ready to upload until I have a cover.

The books will be uploaded in order of priority:

Third World > my new science fiction novel > ebook > Smashwrods > Kindle > POD

Collection # 4 > ebook SW > K > POD

Engines of Creation > POD after ebook published around Dec 1. The ebook is already on the platform, it’s just been unpublished after uploading. (That one had a small error which I think has been fixed as well.) 

But the Kindle version is not fixed. That’s why I make lists in the first place.)

Ghost Planet > upload POD file and cover to Createspace as the ebook is already published.

Core Values > POD this book has been out for three years so it’s high time I made the POD, however it’s not my highest priority in uploading. During the POD file creation process, I noticed one error, so after this is done I will go back, fix the .doc file, upload to SW and then upload an .html file, a corrected one, to Kindle.

During the POD process I might have to go back and forth between Createspace and my desktop via tabs to fiddle with marketing images; as often the name and title are off-center a wee bit, and sometimes it can’t be adjusted properly with the free templates that I use.

Once your POD goes live on Createspace, it will be automatically linked to your ebook on Amazon after about a week, but you have to check and if it doesn’t show up, contact them through the form on the site and tell them. On Smashwords you can also link to a print version from the ‘manage links’button on the right side of your book’s page.

Notes: on Kindle, as long as you haven’t completed the second of the two publishing pages, you can quit and the thing will be saved as a draft. You can trouble-shoot and go back later with no harm done. On SW, you can always unpublish and when you come back a few minutes later, uploading begins the conversion and submission process again. Simply do the coversion and proof them puppies one more time.

On Createspace and other platforms there are digital proofers, human review, and in many sites you can download PDFs to your computer and see how your book turned out.

Since it takes about a week for a POD to pop up on Amazon, presumably you could do PODs first and then upload your ebook. As an experiment, I loaded up to Amazon and used their spell-check as it saves me the time of scrolling through fifteen times. Then I fixed the .doc file and published it first on Smashwords. Over time, I have evolved a process, and yet if you haven’t done it in a while, or if you’re nodding off to sleep, it can definitely still be irritating. That’s why I like to have a bit of time—enough time and forsight and it’s just less stressful.

Ebooks and paperbacks of the same title must have different ISBNs, and if you even change the colour of paper, (I read this on Createspace) you will need a new ISBN.

With a Createspace assigned ISBN, (free) they are the publisher of record.

With a Smashwords-assigned ISBN, they are the publisher of record, with your own ISBN, you are the publisher of record.

POD tips: Use mirrored margins, and use the format header and footer feature to raise your header and lower your page numbers away from the text. There is a minimum gutter depending on the number of pages. A wider page margin at the top lowers the top of the text.

You can stop the process and go back to the document in order to fiddle with that. Upload it as many times as necessary to get it as good as you can get it.

As things stand right now, (Friday, October 18,) I have had to ‘nuke’ my new collection Dark Satires, but Third World went through just fine. The collection has stories that go back some years and have been through two or three computers and two or three crashes. So now I upload Dark Satires to Amazon, and this evening I’ll put them up on Createspace as PODs.

After that, I have another several PODs to do, but no more ebooks for a while.

Nuking a File.

To nuke a file, save it as a .txt document. Highlight the whole .txt document and then copy and paste that into a fresh, blank .doc file. Now re-format the thing from scratch, although the .txt saves scene breaks and indents. It will strip out bold, italics, bigger fonts for titles, stuff like that. Comb through the file carefully, and if it takes an hour to redo it, it’s better than releasing a badly-formatted product.

Here’s my new science-fiction novel Third World on Smashwords.

END

The True Face of Glory.

Morguefile.

“Hey, Mister. Can you spare a dime?” The man at the mouth of the alley had a rasping voice.

Zeb turned to look, about to tell him to get lost.

He stopped short on seeing the stained cheesecloth rags tied around his head and face.

“What the…?”

“It’s okay, Mister.” The man’s sloping shoulders slumped further still.

Zeb dug in his pocket to see if he had some loose change. 

The sight of a double row of campaign ribbons and the Military Medal wrenched at his guts and made his heart beat faster.

“What are you selling?” Zeb recovered quickly.

The man stood awkwardly, trying to stay out of the streetlight’s glare, and yet still make a pitch to passing strangers.

“Apples.”

Zeb handed him a three-dollar coin, one of the green-anodized hexagonal coins the government had just issued to commemorate the Empire’s final defeat of the Republic.

“Here.” The guy handed over three apples, as Zeb sniffed the air suspiciously. “Thank you for your kindness.”

Zeb was hungry enough, as dinner had been three or four hours ago. He stood there a little self-consciously polishing the apple on his jacket, and then taking a bite out of it. The fellow didn’t smell as bad as he looked, although there was a perceptible aroma. The hands seemed clean enough.

“It’s good. Really good.” Zeb chewed, wondering at his feelings. “I hardly ever buy them, myself.”

Normally he brushed past such people without a backward glance.

“So…if you don’t mind me asking…what happened?”

The head jerked in the semblance of a nod. The question was a familiar one, and the answer came easily enough after years of dereliction, deprivation, and despair.

“Laser blast. The cavity—that’s like the breech of a gun. It failed and blew up in my face. Most likely it was stress cracks from overheating.”

“Ah.” Zeb took another bite.

“We were on Alpha-Seven.”

“Oh, really?”

Alpha-Seven was a glorious page in Imperial military history. Its small garrison, seven hundred Marines, if Zeb remembered the news stories correctly, had held out for three months before being overwhelmed by vastly superior forces. Alpha-Seven was an airless rock not much bigger than Rhode Island. In Zeb’s private opinion, the Empire had provoked the war with its trade embargo of resources vital to the other’s economy, although the Republic struck first, in a surprise attack that had come within a whisker of success during the first six months.

Zeb couldn’t think of a thing to say.

He had an inspiration.

“Thank you.”

The man twitched and expelled breath noisily.

Zeb took another bite, working his way around the core.

“That’s a good apple.”

“I steal them.”

Zeb grinned.

“Can’t say as I blame you.” Zeb threw the core into the alley.

He stuck out a hand, after carefully putting the other two apples in the side pocket of his jacket.

They shook, as the liquid pools of darkness that were the man’s eyes searched his face, looking for signs of contempt or pity or even compassion.

“Thank you, Mister.”

“I’ll give one of these to my little sister, and one to my mom.”

Zeb could almost sense a tired smile under the bandages, and the fellow inclined his head.

“Good luck to you.”

There was no response.

Catching someone’s eye, the fellow leaned forward into the light.

“Excuse me, nice lady. Can you spare a dime for an old soldier down on his luck?”

Zeb moved out of the way as she gasped, stopping short. Her hand went to her throat, and then dropped.

“This gentleman was on Alpha-Seven.”

“Oh.” Her eyes glazed a bit and then she remembered. “Oh.”

Her hands reluctantly opened up her small clutch-purse and fished around for some coins.

“The apples aren’t bad either.”

She sized Zeb up with an odd look, and the veteran took something from her outstretched hand. Zeb had the impression she wasn’t all that enamored of either one of them, although she accepted an apple with as much grace as she could muster. There was no room in the purse for it, and the likelihood was that she would throw it away around the next corner. Which didn’t seem right, somehow, but what could you say? It would just embarrass all concerned.

Zeb decided that was the psychological moment to move on.

Yeah, it was a disgrace how the Empire treated the maimed, the crippled and just plain lost veterans, to whom they all owed so much. Their pension benefits were abysmal, and while media reports on the rehabilitation centres invariably glowed with praise for the good work done there, the need was so great that inevitably, far too many fell through the cracks and ended up in the gutter. Zeb had been a year too young for the service, or he might have joined up himself.

That’s what he always told himself.

It was always the way, wasn’t it? When the war started the promises were legion, the recruiting calls patriotic and made with fervent calls upon men’s honour. When it was over, the Empire turned to other priorities, not the least of which was putting millions of returning, able-bodied soldiers back into society, and the workplace, and of course paying down the colossal debt. Wars were won, as everyone knew, by the massive expenditure of blood and treasure. The balance of power remained. Nothing had really changed. 

The balance had been maintained. Zeb figured within twenty-five years, maybe less, they’d be at it again, for nothing would be decided until one or the other system had been destroyed.

That’s what a lot of people said, and it seemed true enough.

This was the true face of glory.

END

Author's Note: my new science fiction novel, (set in the same external frame of reference in relativistic terms as this story,) otherwise known as Third World will be available in the near future.