t was one of those stupid days in the twilight of my career. The internet connection was down and there was nothing I could do. I didn’t think reading my book was a good idea (even through, quite frankly, that’s exactly the sort of thing we did at the beginning of my career when work computers went down daily). But I really didn’t have anything, nothing outside of my local drives. And then I remembered a downloading of short scifi stories and started listening. At least it would pass the time in this tedious afternoon.

Listened to one interesting one, then another that nearly put me to sleep. And then, paydirt! The Keeper. This was a perfect example of what scifi can be, a story of a man called the keeper who lives on a planet (later, we realize, Terra itself) which is now locked in a terrible ice age with ruined cities, glaciers, and a population that hardly understands the greater galactic empire that surrounds it. Living here is the Keeper, the fellow in a small village that maintains an artifact from the world that was.

Of course, offworlders are interested in it, but the true trouble comes from a local thug who steals it and heads off across the ice with three others. And it’s up to Keeper to recover the item. Of course, in the back of his mind, he’s facing a greater dilemma – who will be the Keeper once he’s gone? And how is he going to get close enough to kill all four men when they are carrying high tech weapons from beyond the stars.

A great story that had me at the edge of my earbuds the whole way through. And you can download it HERE, along with a number of other stories.

>>>AND, IF YOU ARE INTO DOWNLOADING BOOKS, YOU CAN PULL MINE DOWN TOO! RIGHT HERE!<<<