Wow... talk about thread necromancy =-)
I'm afraid I have lost the will to finish writing it. I feel I lost my way with it, really, and to be honest there are some cringingly bad bits in there that make me want to just delete it all and hope that everyone forgets it ever existed. Apparently they won't though, and reading back through I concede that there are some great bits that I really like.
I haven't written anything for almost a year now (I have at least two other non-SE4 writing projects on the go, neither of which I have posted here), and I don't think I'm ever likely to finish O&C properly. Totally re-written, it might make a decent story, but I doubt I'd ever get round to that.
However, I did have an idea of where the plot was going, and (believe it or not) it almost all falls into place and ties up the loose threads without leaving any (or many) gaping plot holes. I think. Here then, for the sake of closure and as a way of thanks to those of you who supported me through this bizarre project, is who the story ends:
Othaglot & Cane: Chapters 35 to end (summary).
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After chapter 34, Othaglot makes his call to Loorl, with Hammer listening in. Loorl doesn't give him away as he'd feared, but does say some things to make Hammer even more suspicious. Loorl goes straight to the Canes, and they immediately set about locating Project Asgard's secret island. Meanwhile, they are also searching for the rogue Cue Cappan, now known to be loose in the city somewhere.
Hammer decides to kill Othaglot, mostly out of paranioa. He tells him that he's decided to let him go back to the city and pick up the tech in person after all, with the intention of killing him on the flight and dumping the body in the sea. The execution is botched when some of the Vikings turn on Hammer in defence of Othaglot, who has become very popular. During the struggle, Othaglot is thrown out of the vehicle into the sea. He can tell from the craft's con trail which way Primavera city is, and he's a semi-aquatic species anyway, so he begins swimming for civilisation.
Weeks pass. Eventually they locate the island, but it's abandoned. From evidence found at the site they are able to identify the coloniser (disguised as a transport), but it has already begun its journey. The Endeavour is undergoing a refit and training up new crew, and once ready it will be despatched to catch the colony ship. They find the stolen armour plans on the island, along with an apologetic note. The stolen Cue Cappan technology (from Chapter 28) remains unaccounted for.
There is no sign of Othaglot, and everyone is really worried. They hope he's safe aboard the colony ship.
Soon afterwards, thanks to a lucky encounter by Cane's ex-flatmates (who mistook her for Loorl), they also track down the rogue. One way or another it turns into a one-on-one confrontation between her and Cane, at the docks near the Sergetti quarter. Holding her at gunpoint, he listens to her plead for her life.
She says that's she's not the psychotic killer everyone thinks she is, but the innocent traveller she said she was on the Marilyn. She hid when the Endeavour arrived because she thought they were being boarded by pirates, and then stayed in hiding when she realised everyone thought she was a murderer. She saw a second cue cappan and an empty cryotube in the cargo hold before the explosion. After the explosion, she took Othaglot's suit and floated around in the wreckage, dodging the Endeavour's cleanup crews, before taking up residence in the re-pressurised bridge. When the salvage ship arrived, she snuck aboard and when Frasier came down to the hold that night, she chased after him (holding a tin opener, not a knife), desperately begging for help, except she'd lost her translator. He slammed the door on her and then, for some reason she didn't understand, kept coming down and giving her food for the rest of the voyage.
She tells a very convincing story and Cane isn't sure. He's seen both Sloo and the killer, but didn't know enough about Cue Cappans during the fight in the cargo container to be able to tell if they are the same person. The only person who could tell for sure is Othaglot, who would recognise the killer again if he encountered her. Cane can't pull the trigger, but then the police arrive. It looks as though she's going to be taken in when Cane notices something purple in the water. It's Othaglot, floating lifelessly. He dives in to save him, but is immediately confronted by a pair of Sergetti hunters: They claim the body as a trophy due to the long-standing animosity between Cue Cappans and Sergetti (First mentioned in Chapter 27 - it all ties together, see?) and refuse to relinquish it. They threaten Cane and look as though they might kill him. Suddenly the Cue Cappan rogue, moments from being captured by the police, dives into the water and lands right among the Sergetti. A battle ensues (
http://www.dogscoff.plus.com/fiction...scififight.jpg )
in which she is killed, but Othaglot's body is released for Cane to retrieve.
It turns out that although the host is dead, killed by exhaustion and malnutrition (the partially-terraformed oceans of Plenty didn't provide very much to eat), Othaglot's cappa has just survived, although it is very weak and doubtless traumatised by the experience. The only way to save it is to implant it into Loorl, the nearest available host. Othloorl is born, a personality distinct from either Othaglot or Loorl, but sharing traits of either. Othloorl has Othaglot's keen mind and sense of duty, but Loorl's laidback attitude and sense of mischief. Despite fears that their personalities will be incompatible and lead to some kind of mental instability, it turns out that their recent experiences have made them more alike than anyone would have supposed 20 chapters ago, and the new personality is viable.
Further investigation into the unjoined rights movement mentioned in Chapter 28 reveals that the killer was a Cappa born with a very rare natural psychic sense, one that requires no Cue. People born with this condition do tend toward mental health issues, and in her case it (combined with various traumatic events in her life) made her into a killer. Her actions and motivations can mostly be pieced together from the conversation in Ch 28. Records of a person named Sloo, matching the story given by the passenger on the Marilyn are found, but whether that was the actual Sloo or whether the killer just murdered her and stole her identity is unknown.
The body of the rogue is never recovered from the Sergetti, so her identity of the Marilyn's passnger is never clarified. Was it the killer in disguise that Cane befriended, who dived into the water to escape the police and got caught up in a fight with the Sergetti unintentionally? Or were there really two Cappans; the killer who presumably died aboard the Marilyn (but may still be at large) and Sloo, the innocent tourist who dived in and gave her life to save Cane? We'll never know.
OthLoorl and the two Canes are invited aboard the Endeavour for the mission to catch the colony ship full of vikings. The ship is heading through Gamallon, toward the Outlier system (See map:
http://www.dogscoff.co.uk/fiction/stories/map_O&C0.htm ) and the Endeavour is fast enough to catch them on the Human side of the Outlier warp point. However, due to some teething problems with their new, refitted engine systems they don't catch up with them until the the Outlier system, just in time to see the colony ship plunge through the hazardous third warp point there, to what can only mean certain doom. To everyone's surprise and dismay, the Captain orders the Endeavour to follow, and it arrives unscathed in orbit around the black hole. There, undamaged, is the colony ship. The stolen armour technology, fitted to the colony ship and a component in the Endeavour's recent refit, has made safe navigation of the warp point possible.
When they open communication with the Viking ship they find Hammer conspicuously absent. No-one will actually own up to killing him, but it is strongly suggested that "honour was served" before they left Plenty. It becomes clear that the Vikings, suddenly leaderless, panicked and decided to attempt to complete project Asgard anyway, despite not having the Altoona's stolen technology (mentioned in Chapter 28 - it turns out to be psychic scanners, which explains the mystery of how the Cue Cappans found a dead body in space in the first place), which was to be to be given to the Sallegans in return for colonisation rights to a system on the borders of their space, beyond the black hole and second warp point. (First mentioned in chapter 2- See map again- see, there *was* some planning going on, even back then) The vikings didn't know how to deal with the Sallegan problem, so many of them are almost relieved to have been caught.
The moment the Vikings see Othloorl they immediately forgive him for infiltrating them as an undercover spy/ policeman and are generally delighted to see him. They keep soliciting for advice, and it doesn't annoy him nearly as much as it would have done Othaglot.
The Endeavour forces the colony ship back through the warp point to go home, but discover a number of Cue Cappan warships waiting for them. They want to claim custody of the Vikings, and it looks as though some kind of interstellar incident may arise. Luckily Cane Senior (a foreign office diplomat, remember) is aboard and, after some serious wrangling, it is decided to allow the Vikings to go on their way and create their new colony. The Cue Cappan and Human governments even promise to intervene with the Sallegan government on the Vikings' behalf, using their knowledge of the Sallegan's attempt to buy stolen technology as leverage. In return the Vikings, now living on the borders of Sallegan space, must keep a close eye on the Sallegans on behalf of the humans and Cue Cappans, especially since the (no longer secret) armour technology means that the warp points can now be safely traversed, making the Outlier system a strategically significant junction of Cue Cappan, human and Sallegan space.
Othloorl realises that he's tired of policing, spying and his lifestyle in general, and decides that colony-building might make a nice change. He accepts the Vikings' offer of leadership, boarding the colony ship to guide them into their future.
Cane returns to Plenty and moves back in with his friends, to await the not-forthcoming sequel.
Re: Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread
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