Page 57 -- First Seen: 2010-01-06

This is a preview of: Phoebus Krumm

The Transcript For This Page

PANEL ONE (upper half of page)

The private bedchamber of 20-year-old Robretta Islay, better known
to a delicately shuddering universe as the dreaded space pirate
'Bretta Martyn', heir to the Autonomous Hereditary 'Drectorship of the
moonringed planet Skye.

The room is circular in plan, located in a tower, high up in a
castle. The windows have Norman arches. So does the door. The ceiling
overhead has large, low beams (not actually wooden). Outside, the day
is bright, the sky is blue with a few fluffy clouds. The blocks of
which the room (indeed, the entire castle) is constructed are of white
plastic, about two feet wide and a foot tall, an ancient form of
architecture called _legos_.

Bretta's a very unusual girl. Although she's only just out of her
teens, she's had life experiences unlike those of many an older woman.
She's been beaten, raped, and left for dead in a metal box set adrift
in open space. She's been rescued, revived, and healed by strange,
monstrous, but kind and gentle mutants. She has logged thousands of
hours of spaceflight and combat. She has killed men and come close to
being killed, herself. She has almost singlehandedly overthrown the
interstellar empire known as the Aggregate. Yet she has sprung back as
a healthy, happy, optimistic young human being.

Somehow, her room should reflect all of that. She's seen before an
upright, freestanding, full-length mirror. There can be pictures
around the room of her mother, father, and siblings. There can be
pictures, as well, of moonringed Skye from space, and of her father's
ship, the three-decker _Osprey_ that normally orbits the planet but is
gone at the moment. There are also conspicuous pictures of animals
somewhat like dolphins (these are the _lamina_, and I'll include a
detailed description in the next few pages), only set against the
background of space.

Bretta's bed is simple and sturdy, made of wood and clothed in
white linen. There are cases here and there that look like they ought
to be filled with books but hold hundreds of 'thills' (memory devices
about the size and shape of the shaft of a Q-Tip) instead.

A crossbow hangs on the wall with a short scabbard of quarrels,
along with a big Bowie knife in its scabbard on a belt, and a pair of
personal thrustibles. But there are also a few dolls and stuffed
animal toys (some of them quite alien) lying around. There should be a
globe of Skye, possibly hanging from the ceiling. Skye is ringed, like
Saturn, by billions of fragments of a broken moon.

Bretta is slender, with a willowy frame, broad shoulders for a
female, ample but not excessive breasts, a narrow waist, and a small,
shapely backside. Her beauty is most evident in motion; she's graceful
and a trifle elfin. She has golden hair, cut off in a utilitarian
fashion, at the shoulders, and green eyes. For the record, while she
looked like Bridget Fonda when she was younger, she now resembles
Jessica Biel as she appeared in _Blade: Trinity_ and _The
Illusionist_.

At the moment, she's wearing what appear to be frayed and faded
denim cutoffs (worn at the waist, not at the groin) and a suede vest,
somewhere between mustard and russet in color, that ends a couple of
inches above the cutoffs. Four pockets are visible in front. Its two
or three buttons are made from the antler-tips of some Skyan game
animal. She also wears a pair of light but rugged hiking-style boots
that come up to mid-ankle. Instead of ties, they have some kind of
high-tech fasteners.

We see all of this twice because she's standing before a mirror.
Also in the panel are two servants, one close behind her, looking
agitated, the other in the shadowy background with a dress over her
arms. The servants are dressed somewhat like Hanoverian women, but
there is no deliberate exposure, here, no display. Hemlines almost
brush the floor, and necklines are modest. There is no fetishistic
hardware. The women (both of them young) wear their hair up, but only
to keep it out of the way for work.

First servant: 'Mistress, hurry! Lift station says they've started on
their way down!'

Bretta: 'Jenizelle, it will take them more than two hours to reach the
surface -- '

First servant: 'But Mistress -- !'

Narrative (Tarrant): 'Some time later, on the moonringed planet Skye,
once a colonial possession of Hanover, now an independent political
entity.'

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PANEL TWO (lower lefthand quarter of page)

Bretta turns from the mirror (we see her back) to indicate the
dress over the other servant's arms with one hand, and the globe with
the other. The second servant looks alarmed. Jenizelle is frantic.

Bretta: 'After which it will take them another two hours to get here
from the equator.'

Bretta: 'And pray do not call me 'Mistress', Jenizelle. Like you, I
_work_ for a living.'

Jenizelle: 'But Mis -- '

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PANEL THREE (lower right quarter of page)

Bretta: 'Call me Bretta, Jenizelle. And I am not going to wear that
ridiculous get-up. I'm a farmer. What I'm wearing will do -- it's
clean and neat, and it's what I wore when I was a pirate.'

Jenizelle: 'A pirate! We were told that we must never refer -- '