Smart Mouth Wiley and the Ice of Triton

Smart Mouth Wiley and the Ice of Triton

Neptune from Triton

Triton is 56,958,438,584 miles from earth. Looks a little cold, eh? That’s because it is! It’s–235 degrees Celsius. But that’s outside not in the environment inside Station 32. This moon orbits in retrograde-kind of like Buck Wiley. I will only say that this guy and his snarky mouth is 99.99% based on a real guy I knew pretty damned well.

Orbitus

The Ice of Triton is another Harry Cobb, Intra Solar Investigator book but it’s different. Cobb operates out of Orbitus an artificial environment between Earth and Mars. His secretary is Saddie. Max and Jody one of which is an android work for him. His trusted second is Renee Coburn from down under-Australia that is. Cobb’s best friend is Inspector Jahn Patenaude from Mars. Cobb was a Bureau agent and now has his own private investigative service.

The Ice of Triton-Chapter One

Cobb, in his office on Orbitus, gets a frantic distress signal from his old friend Mark Belkin, Cobb has known Mark and his wife Jenna for decades. Broadcasting on a signal from Station 32 on Triton Mark pleads with Cobb to meet with him because Jenna’s career as a planetary food administrator is in jeopardy. He wants to meet on a Calisto based Cruiseliner, a vacation ship of sorts near Jupiter, to discuss the crisis. Mark ends the transmission by saying: “It may be too late.”

The Cruiseliner

After Commissar Nevis’s death Felix Alder and his cut throat deputy Phil Sevrenson take over the Intra Solar System. On the Cruiseliner Cobb meets a beautiful, golden haired woman named Angelique, a professional oracle player. What in the world is Harry Cobb doing with this woman when his friend is on the way with not so good news about his wife Jenna? A question Renee keeps asking Cobb. C’est la vie. Cobb spends time conversing with this enchanting woman until early the next morning. Then everything goes wrong.

Angelique waits for Cobb

Jenna Belkin dies in a tracer explosion and Cobb is abducted. Renee arrives, trying to figure out what’s going on the highest levels of government. Once freed Cobb contacts his old boss John O’Neil and other irregularities around Jenna’s death surface baffle him, including arch criminal Jacob Lovinski.

Buck Wiley Greets Cobb at Station 32 Dome on Triton

Bucky Wiley: Everyone’s smart ass

Buck Wiley on Station 32

The wise guy Inspector Wiley gives Cobb some phrase in Latin and a bunch of numbers that confuse everybody. Renee and Cobb move into the interior, the Buntas, as they gather information around Jenna’s Tracer exploding. Renee suggests a Pytoids, illegal, explosives. What was Jenna Belkin doing? The new information could lead right up the chain to Felix Alder and Phil Sevrenson, leaders of the Intra Solar System. When Cobb and Renee attempts to get cooperation from Wiley he smart mouths them again: “I’ll see what I can do.” It’s clear Wiley knows a lot more than he’s saying and is covering himself with tap dance answers.

The Buntas

Wiley’s Phases and more BS:

Wiley Translation- is one who is exceeding his territory jurisdiction and the other phrase is: great danger awaits. Like Renee says:” Why didn’t Wiley just say that?” Renee and Cobb’s contact Calvin is missing. Cobb meets a powerful, sexy red headed bioregressive woman, who warns him about being nosey. Calvin finally shakes hands with Cobb in the lobby. The bioregressive is Norah Cerchenkov is wanted for murder. Calvin mentions the worst prison of the solar system is right on Triton.

Wiley Wise Ass Snippet

Cerchenkov

Calvin and Cobb find the body of Bernie Sorrel, a Lovinski contact, sprawled dead in the Buntas. His neck was snapped which was Norah Cerchencov’s trademark. Cobb confronts Cerchenkov and she tells him he will find all his answers in the Saurizen and he will wish that she had killed him.

The Saurizen Prison Station 32

Inside the Saurizen

Inhuman Conditions

Listen as Cobb is dumped into the worst prison in the solar system, the Saurizen . An old man at the entrance refers to the ‘Waters of Oblivion.’ And is soon Cobb facing the Nauravald, a massive slinking carnivore sent in to eat prisoners. Cobb must survive the Nauravald and somehow escape the Saurizen prison. Even if he gets out Alder is consolidating dictatorial powers. Where is Renee? And what of Angelique?

The Nauravald

The Idea of the Harry Cobb Series:

Cobb is in the future but the human condition remains intact. I will say as we leave Cobb in prison that there is some nifty science fiction coming up toward the end of the book-One involving sound etchings and another pertaining to the timeline. Jahn Patenaude, Cobb’s good friend joins the plot more than halfway through the book. We meet John O’Neil, Cobb’s old boss and his connections on Mars. Sevrenson and Alder vie to kill Cobb, O’Neil, and Patenaude so Alder can implement his plan to have total power. However, without getting out of the prison Cobb is finished. He has a plan but it’s a long shot and very dangerous. And what are the Waters of Oblivion?

Wiley: Short and Sweet

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

– John Lennon (1940-1980)

Clearly Harry Cobb on many levels had other plans. Dear, dear Angelique.

Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion-an 1812 oil painting by John Martin.

RPF

Post Script:

I wrote the Ice of Triton in the wee hours of the morning before work, after work and sometimes during lunch.

Fitton at the time of the Ice of Triton