A
2nd Place
Mokoena Dyson's life was ending. You wouldn't know it by looking at her; her red evening gown accentuated her dark skin, flowing up her tall body, and drew the eyes and spirit from the men around her. However, in less than a week she would be gone to everyone here, everyone except her nine colleagues at the head table.
She took her place behind her chair. The crowd's energy was enthusiastic, unsurprising since the politicians would get stature and the invited reporters an exclusive Q&A session. Well, it was time for the speech. It was time to explain what the hell was going on. "Welcome friends! We apologize for the secrecy; I will now help you to understand the project and why we have been so concerned about security. For the past three years a spacecraft has been under construction at Space Station Freedom. I will now reveal it's purpose."
The crowd went deadly silent; all idle chatter ceased. Those reporters asleep or engaging in omphaloskepsis broke from their reverie and paid rapt attention. The government had said nothing of the new design, purpose, or even existence of the ship. The tabloids had enjoyed years of speculation and pettifoggery, and now it seemed the answers would finally come.
"Engineers at SETI have detected over a hundred X ray trails several parsecs in length centered around the Epsilon Chi system. We now know that this is the 'exhaust trail' of a certain type of star drive. I will belay the circumbendibus of how we arrived at this answer. The very existence of these trails led our people to speculate on what engine would generate such a unique trail, and that speculation showed fruit in the drive system of the aptly named 'Prospice', Earth's first Light-Drive Ship. Truly, it is our first Starship."
"Tomorrow the ten of us will leave this planet and never return. We will travel at light speed to visit Epsilon Chi, where there is a flourishing civilization. We will learn what we can and then return. Meanwhile due to the principles of relativity Earth will have aged ten thousand years even though we will be a scant five years older. Thus the Procpice's name is appropriate in two senses. We are visiting two alien civilizations, one of them our own."
Most of the crowd was stunned. A few were in the know. Keeson looked at Dyson wistfully. He was more qualified than her for the captainship, but he was too sciapodous and failed the physical requirements. Unfortunately for him he also had a crush on her. Keeson looked away and commenced his depressing sagination. The deciding vote against Keeson came from his own friend Turing, gazing at her from the same table. Turing was judged harshly as an infracaninophile by those who jump to conclusions, thinking that she had his vote because she was a black female, but the truth was her qualifications in linguistics and political science made her perfect to lead the mission.
She continued: "Episilon Chi is roughly two light-years from Earth, a googolplex of miles. The most dangerous part of the mission that we know of will be the departure from Earth, as the solar asteroid field has placed untold dornicks in the way that may crush the hull. We think that their system is less polluted with rock than ours or so many ships could not function. Tautegorically, once we pass Neptune, once we pass the last of the asteroids, the odds are that we will be back.
She was growing tired of this. She would need her rest for the morning. She moved on in her talk to a lengthy technical explanation of the protocol by which the aliens would be greeted. Then came the Q&A session.
"Question from Mr. Trent.", the moderator said. Mr. Trent stood up. "Who is paying for this mission?"
An easy question and one she had prepared for. "The United Nations is paying for it with all nations committing some share, though the lion's share is from NASA. You will be given technical documentation at the door describing the parsimony used in the ships construction. Much of it is recycled parts from old satellites harvested in space and processed on the Freedom. If we had to shuttle up all the parts this would not have been feasible. The independent U.N. Pecuniary Tribunal oversaw expenditures and their balance sheets will go into public record after the launch."
"Question from Mr. Kent", the moderator said. Mr. Kent stood up. "Will the ship be carrying weapons of any type, such that you may respond if attacked?"
This would call for some circumlocution. "Thank you for the question. This is a peaceful mission and we do not wish to give the wrong impression, so there are no missiles on board."
The questions continued for some time. The evening turned into night, and Dyson was exhausted before the banquet ended and she was headed for home and rest. She was not in bed until midnight. Her sleep approached grudgingly, and with the dreams of disease and war that had taken her family rest fled and she was shocked awake again.
So she lay in bed and considered the world. There was nothing left for her here, a fact true for each of the ten crewmembers. Well, Boyle had an enate, an aunt, but they had never really spoken and had no relationship. The voyage would make a new family of the crew. The ten ambassadors were psychologically compatible and sexually balanced. She grinned. The psych boys had even calculated the thirty nine possible couplings that could form and warned her of what configurations could endanger the mission. She considered number twenty-two and went back to sleep with a smile on her face.
Although a nice story, Judge 1 felt that entry A was "too verbose" and overall had "too much packing." Judge 1 also did not like the way the words "sagination" and "tautegoriacally" were used and felt they were not the quite the correct usage.
This is clearly the best story. It is the beginning of a really nice novella or short story! Great imagination (I am sure the writer WILL be asked about #22).
However, it is very long and it still is fairly torturous to try and get these particular words used in it. Some of the necessary lexicon are used inappropriately--circumbendibus (which would be hard to use except in the passive voice), infracaninophile was couched inappropriately (one who roots for the underdog wouldn't be judged as that because they hesitated to jump to a conclusion), and parsimony is not used correctly (you could rewrite the sentence: the builders practiced extreme parsimony in the building of the ship, using recycled parts...).
A nice first draft of a short story, this entry was more of an outlet for creative writing, and less of an exercise in using the words on the list. It should be noted that this was intended by the author, and when given the option to rewrite a shorter entry, I was turned down.
1st Place
Tim always thought Layla was a little odd. Not in a bad way, just an odd way. The kind of way that makes one special. He also knew that it was the infracaninophile in Layla which attracted her to him. Her navel was shaped a bit like an enate dornick and when she looked at it long enough, she would find herself in a state of omphaloskepsis. She was also very sciapodous and often tripped over nothing at all. That is how they met. Layla had fallen on him, literally.
They would sit by the Mulberry bush at the end of the trail and she would say, ÒTim, my love for you is larger than a googol loves loved by any of the great lovers, so large that I canÕt breathe.Ó and he would reply, ÒAnd my love for you is greater than any googolplex of loves loved by the greatest lovers and their loversÕ lovers, so great that it swallows me whole.Ó
Since the moment they first laid eyes on each other three days ago, they knew that their love would be one of epic proportions. It would be a love greater than that of Luke and Laura. Every second of every minute they would prospice to see each other. But like every great romance there would be a tragic end to their affair. It would be LaylaÕs jealously evil, and much larger, twin Ezra who would bring on the demise of Tim and Layla.
Ezra was a pettifogger, and by nature always quibbling over the smallest things. Many attribute her progressive sagination over the years for her bitter ways. Everything and everyone was pecuniary in her book. And being quite impoverished, she was very parsimony. Her manner of speech was extremely circumbendibus and tautegorical, one could never get a straight answer. It was with this evasive manner that she tricked Tim and Layla into meeting her further down the trail past their favorite Mulberry bush.
Little did the doomed lovers know that at the end of the trail was a patch of quicksand. They had walked out into the middle of the spot and by the time they realized what was happening, they where already starting to sink. Ezra stood by the edge and laughed. If she couldnÕt be happy, then no one would. Tim and Layla locked their gaze as the quicksand suffocated and swallowed them whole. After all, love is but a meager weapon against quicksandÑand evil fat talkative twins are not to be trusted.
Also a good story, it uses the most words in the correct ways. Extra bonus points for the phrase "...like an enate dornick..." in reference to a navel. Also, some trouble was taken to use the words correctly (e.g., omphaloskepsis, and the "googol" section). The only points removed were for omitting prospice and wrongly using "parsimony" where "parsimonious" should be used.
It's the winner!!!!!!!!!!