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    Miscalculation
    Miscalculation
    Miscalculation
    Ebook116 pages1 hour

    Miscalculation

    By Ian Stone

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Amos O’Neal and his family joined the wagon train with dreams of a new life in Oregon. But those plans changed when the Krukians' flying saucer descended from the sky. The aliens offered to trade incredible machines for the settlers’ mundane possessions, and although Amos didn’t trust the Krukians, the other members of the wagon train voted to stay.

    An Indian tribe camped nearby and the alien gadget maker Wizguzit quickly charmed settler and Indian alike with his enthusiastic smile and amazing machines.

    However, a year later the town has a mysterious lack of visitors, Wizguzit’s machines have begun malfunctioning with disastrous results, and outlaws enter town, intent on using Krukian technology to achieve their own, sinister ends.

    Miscalculation is a tale of unlikely friends and contrasting cultures. Featuring uniquely endearing characters and insightful humor, Miscalculation is a story you will never forget.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherIan Stone
    Release dateSep 5, 2014
    ISBN9781311381637
    Miscalculation
    Author

    Ian Stone

    Ian Stone has been creating and telling himself stories his entire life. After finishing college and spending more than a decade as a Software Engineer, he finally decided to start writing the stories down. He has a deep, abiding passion for speculative fiction and its unique ability to discuss life’s deepest questions. Ian lives in Nebraska, USA, with his loving wife and two affectionate cats.Readers are welcome to visit Ian’s website, www.ianstone.com, for his blog and links to social media.

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      Book preview

      Miscalculation - Ian Stone

      Miscalculation

      By Ian Stone

      This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

      Copyright © 2014 Ian Stone

      Smashwords Edition

      Edited by T. D. Larsen

      comma_goes_there@yahoo.com

      Cover art by Sara Machajewski

      https://twitter.com/SMachajewski

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Acknowledgments

      Many people helped make this novella possible. Justin Blaske bears ultimate responsibility for this story, because when he enlisted me to create the universe for the board game Area 1851, he said, I want it set in the wild west, with aliens, and I want it to be funny. During the hour of brainstorming that followed, we realized that we were both tired of alien invasion stories in which the aliens are all-knowing, all-sinister, or both. Why not a bunch of bumbling ne’er-do-wells? After creating the universe for the board game, I longed to share the complete story which was hinted at throughout the game, and this is the result.

      I want to thank my beta readers, Bryce, Heidi, Israel, Justin, Kiesa, N, Nemo, Ric, Richard, Shelly, Troy, Victoria, and Yalena. Each of them aided me with encouragement, as well as precious advice which enriched and polished the story and its characters.

      Special thanks to Sara Machajewski for her beautiful cover art. People still judge a book by its cover and rightly so. The quality of the cover hints at the level of effort put into the project by the author. Sara delivered an amazing and amusing cover which I have worked hard to live up to.

      My deepest thanks to my editor, T. D. Larsen, for all his hard work and insights. He didn’t just edit, he took the time to truly understand the characters, and his contributions took a good story and made it great.

      Finally, and most importantly, I want to thank my loving wife. Her support, patience, encouragement, and feedback were essential throughout the project.

      Dedication

      to Justin Blaske

      Without you this story would not exist. Thank you.

      Table of Contents

      Copyright

      Acknowledgments

      Dedication

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      About the Author

      Chapter One

      Amos O’Neal walked down freshly plowed furrows toward home. Beyond the field, the nearby prairie grass was as tall as a man and alive with the chirping and screeching of unseen insects. He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped sweat from his forehead, then squinted at the position of the sun. It was not yet noon and already warm for a spring day.

      As he approached home he saw his two youngest children Ida and Donald playing in the short grass near the log cabin, watched by his nine-year-old daughter Evelyn who sat cross-legged doing needlework. Four-year-old Ida called to Donald and started to run away. Donald toddled a few steps forward then gave up, dropped to all fours, and crawled vigorously after her. She squealed and disappeared into the tall grass. Evelyn leaped to her feet and caught the back of Donald’s shirt as he crawled by.

      Ida, come back! Ma and Pa says you’ll get lost in there.

      The grass parted and Ida emerged with a downcast face.

      I was just hiding.

      I know, he heard Evelyn reply, one hand on her hip and the other still holding Donald by the back of his shirt. Remember the stories about children who got lost and died ‘cause they can’t find their way home? Then she spotted her father and waved.

      Amos waved back and was mere steps from the cabin when suddenly the door flew open and his wife Barbara dove from the cabin, collided with him, and they both fell. His head smacked into the ground as a powerful explosion battered the air above them.

      Amos lay sprawled in the dirt, dazed. Even the insects had been stunned into silence. Foot-long sections of log thumped into the field yards away, thankfully on the opposite side of the cabin from where the children had been playing. Smaller shreds of what used to be the log cabin’s western wall littered the sky, drifting slowly down.

      Ida and Donald started crying. Barbara rolled off Amos and onto her knees, smoothing her brown hair back under her homespun bonnet.

      Amos pulled himself to a sitting position, his ears ringing, eyes searching for his children. Donald and Ida burst out crying and ran to Evelyn for comfort. They appeared merely frightened, so he turned his attention to his wife.

      What was that? he asked.

      She finished adjusting her bonnet and gave him a sideways look. It was the spinning wheel.

      But it worked fine all week!

      "It worked fine for fourteen years until you asked that creature to modify it."

      Woman, stop calling him ‘that creature.’ His name is Wizguzit and—, he clamped down on what he was about to say and ran his fingers through his thick red hair in frustration. In a quieter voice Amos said, Tell me what happened.

      "I was spinning like I always do when suddenly the wheel started going faster and faster and the foot lever to slow it down stopped working. You know the silver ball that creature added, which makes the wheel spin without me having to work the treadle? Well, it started getting real hot. It was like when you put your hand above a bed of coals. I could feel the heat but I couldn’t see any fire. It got hotter and hotter so I ran."

      He stood and took a step toward the cabin, but she seized his arm.

      "Amos, you listen to me! That creature is not to be trusted. Remember what happened to Flora Walker? And now I almost got killed."

      He pulled his arm from her grasp and turned to stare down at her. I’ll fix this Barbara. I will.

      Before she could respond he strode through the open door into the cabin. Except that now the cabin had only three walls. Every possession they owned had been hurled against the eastern wall and lightly charred as if great heat had breathed on it for an instant. Fortunately nothing was burning. The western wall of the cabin was just—gone. Jagged ends of logs framed an expansive view of the western field, which was now filled with shattered pieces of his home.

      He heard a choked sob behind him and turned to see Barbara kneeling next to their bed, running her hands over their quilt which was now as black as everything else. That quilt had been a wedding present from her parents. The children’s bed, covered with a quilt Evelyn had helped make last year, was also black.

      Out in the field the self-guiding, self-powered plow that Wizguzit had modified for them last spring silently sliced back and forth, turning perfect furrows at a speed which farmers back east could only dream about. The sod covering that entire field had been broken, plowed, sowed, and reaped all in one year, a testament to how helpful the aliens had been. In fact, so much around him was owed to the aliens: The well which had been dug so quickly with one of the alien gadgets, the logs hauled in from the river a hundred miles away—how else could he have built a log cabin in a treeless prairie? Without the aliens’ help, his family would have had to live in a damp sod house for years.

      He felt a calloused hand slip into his. Barbara stood next to him and silently watched the plow work back and forth. Back and forth.

      After several long moments she spoke, her voice soft.

      I know you’re only trying to provide for us the best you know how, Amos.

      The plow has helped us, he insisted, reiterating an old argument. He had tried to be so careful, building his farm away from town to limit the danger from these strange gadgets and only using an alien device after the townsfolk had used the same gadget for months. Barbara worked so hard and he’d wanted to make life easier for her and the women in town had used their

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