Usher's Harbour
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Quinn moved along the passage until he reached the privacy screen. Once again, it had been turned on. It must have been on automatic reset; he was certain that they hadn’t reactivated it when they left. He proceeded cautiously through it, his glolamp held high. A sharp report from the darkness beyond shattered the silence, and the lamp exploded in his hand. Instantly the blackness enveloped him, and he pressed himself against the nearest wall.
“Projectile weapon,” he thought. “He got here ahead of me.” Several more bullets buzzed past him and pinged off the carbocrete walls.
The hiss of a portal opening and closing nearby, then silence filled the Stygian void surrounding him. … He slid along the wall, his arm outstretched, feeling his way. A few meters along, he felt a smooth edge, a break in the smooth wall. Following its contours, he determined that it was a low portal …. Opening it cautiously, centimeter by centimeter, he edged his head around the expanding opening. …
He slipped into the passage and stayed close to the wall, proceeding warily towards the light. … He’d gone no more than thirty meters when a nearby movement caused him to advance more slowly and guardedly, back to the wall.
A voice broke the shadowy silence. “Stay right where you are, professor. We wouldn’t want anything unfortunate to happen to either of us, now would we?”
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About the Book
The people of twentieth- and twenty-first century Earth failed to live up to the challenges presented by the planet’s devastating climate changes. The few who did survive the ensuing plagues and environmental devastation lived, of necessity, in domed cities, under the benign rule of the Compilers. Twenty-first century crusaders for social justice and equality for all, the Compilers, in changing the world, became its saviors.
Now, however, the seemingly safe and tranquil socially engineered society of the twenty-third century has been invaded by a vicious serial killer, and the authorities in RichmondDome lack the expertise and the resources to stop him.
Quinn Braxton, a biology professor; his brilliant sister, Sera; and his girlfriend, River Usher, take on the task of thwarting the murderer. The chase takes them into the wilds of the Outlands and to the depths of the undercity in their pursuit of a seemingly unstoppable killer.
About the Author
Barry & Darls Epstein share a lifelong love of literature and wordplay. He is a retired high school teacher, born in England in 1941. She was born the same year in Ontario, Canada. Usher’s Harbour is their first novel. They live on the shores of Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron. Darls passed on in May, 2012 from lung cancer. She was able to see the result of our hard work in print before the end.