It took just shy of half an hour to reach Randhra. Black and yellow barricades signaled the end of the Spine, which was pretty much a wall save for a small yard where two spare train cars were stored, one for passengers and one flatbed with fold-up sides for cargo. A thick cluster of pipes […]

With his duffel slung over his shoulder and the PDQ strapped to his thigh, Geddy and the others stood before the door to the Spine, Durandia’s only conduit to the spaceport and the outside world. The vault-like outer door, Bartok explained, was generally left open to aid ventilation. Only the metal mesh inner doors slid

Including the smallish Durandian freighter on level three, Geddy counted just seven ships in all of Wuntara Station. Maximum capacity was maybe thirty, thirty-five. Stepping out onto the stone floor, it was quiet enough to hear workers talking from clear across the wide, fairly shallow space. Specifically, talking about them. “Fresh meat, you think?” asked

Before launching into my reflections on this experience, I want to acknowledge two important points. First, I did lose a few subscribers who, going by their email open stats, were avid fans. I knew that was a risk, and that writing about this kind of thing might go too far afield for folks who just

After a lazy morning of drinking coffee and chatting, Steve and Sammy excused themselves to prepare for the ceremony. Half an hour later, we were asked to come to the maloca and were reminded to leave all our electronics in the house. We banished our phones and watches to the room and came out with

We weren’t in Ecuador very long before we started hearing about something called ayahuasca. You might have heard about it here and there since it’s become a thing that celebrities do. The basic idea is, you go out to the middle of nowhere, most likely Peru but maybe somewhere else, and you experience a ceremony