Oort-Cloud.org began in 2007 as an experiment in Social Publishing and Open Lit that grew out of a thought-piece on Corante's "Many to Many" blog (Social Publishing). We hoped it would be a long-term project, but there was always going to be a day when we gave it a proper close. We’ve taken our time in making this final post, waiting to see if the community would transition into something else, but instead, the online world has moved on, and we could not be happier to see that.

[This is actually a part of a round robin exercise, but since the character's not really used in the rest of the series and I kinda created him, it works well enough as a self-contained story.]

Addictive love...

You kissed my lips,
soft to the touch,

My heart pounds ever so loudly,You look in to my eyes ever so deeply..

The anxiety within me becomes so sound..

I forget to acknowledge what is around ...

My body fills with a surge of electricity..

My hands tremble to that touch ...

As fire burns like a flame threw out my system,

I have yet to notice your game ..

Clever, boy
Magical ..
Tragical..
Imaginable..

But I have to pull my self togther and be practical..
It must be distractible ..

This why Im addicted ..

fantasticaly addicted..

(Author's note: The past eighteen months have been Hell on Earth. The fact that I have finished this piece is a sign that some of my burdens are beginning to ease. The backstory is available in the Eighth Adventure, also posted here in my blog.)

Ninth Adventure

Ken, Len and Den accompanied Carrie back onto the Tony Robinson.

“Carrie! Good to see you again. Welcome aboard. I hear that you have been having adventures without us?” asked Danno.

They had put their little misunderstanding behind them and embraced like old friends.

“Nothing as adventurous as yours by all accounts,” replied Carrie.

“I hate to break up this happy reunion,” interrupted Ken, “but we should get back to Time Control as soon as possible.”

Carrie was in the slide arrival zone of the solar system when she got word that the Eric Laithwaite had returned and made contact with TIO Rio. She received instructions from Stakus to make contact with Ken and the others to lure them to returning the Slider to the control of Time Command. In case persuasion didn’t work they also gave her the codes to take over Eric remotely.

Taking one of the inter-planetary Slip-Streamers, she manoeuvred close to the Eric Laithwaite and radioed Ken. He seemed to be in a good mood and even invited her to Jaunt aboard.

The String Slider Tony Robinson emerged back into the normal three dimensions in the Telubi region of space. It took Lisa some time to get a fix on their co-ordinates.

“I’ve never done a directed slide before,” said Tibor, “It feels kinda weird.”

“That will be the time displacement,” said Lisa, “you feel it most when you are directing and it is worse when the destination is ages ago, as the photon flies.”

Tibor got up from the Slide Guide chair and immediately wished he hadn’t.

Cathy had been exploring a planet in the Telubi three system, looking for a suitable destinations for her tourism company. She ran New Worlds, a tour company for the new age as it says in her publicity.

New Worlds looks for planets that haven’t developed a dominant intelligent species yet and then adds then to their catalogue of holiday destinations with a list of the attractions.

Tibor woke with a start. “Oh no!” he exclaimed aloud to no one in particular as he was alone in bed at the time. It was six in the morning. Hurriedly he got dressed and headed out from his New London hotel room. Tibor was from Canada and there was no time on this stop-over to get back there so he had been put up in the Brannigan for the duration. It was a good hotel though not one he would have chosen himself due to the high cost. A Slider crewman’s wage did not reflect the importance of the work they were doing for mankind nor the dangers.

The Eric Laithwaite emerged from its short slide away from the Tony Robinson in the vicinity of the Crab Nebula. That is one of the joys of having a String Slider at your disposal; so long as you didn’t worry too much about when you were arriving, you could take a slide to anywhere in the universe. To be certain of the time of your arrival took more energy and a more precise choice of string to slide. That sort of accuracy and energy could only be programmed by the boffins back at Time Control on Earth.