by Patricia Stewart | Jul 26, 2012 | Story |
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
“Well, there it is Brothergod,” said Sistergod enthusiastically, “the space probe Voyager crossed the boundary of their solar system. By My reckoning, they did it in less than 20 revolutions around the galactic core. Therefore, I win the bet.”
“That was too damn quick, if you ask Me,” objected Brothergod. “If I were the suspicious type, I’d accuse you of having a tendril in there someplace.”
“Nonsense,” denied Sistergod. “I didn’t interfere one iota after We seeded their primordial soup. They did it totally on their own. I just sat back like an objective observer, and observed objectively. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“Methinks you are protesting too much, Sistergod.”
“I’m just stating the facts, that’s all. Nature had to take its own course, just like we agreed.”
“Soooo, You had nothing to do with that asteroid whipping out the reptiles one quarter of a revolution ago. It was pretty clear to Me that those dimwitted behemoths weren’t going to achieve space flight before your time ran out. I think you decided to roll the dice with the rodents.”
“I swear to Fathergod, I had nothing to do with that asteroid. Besides, I thought those raptors had way more potential than those little mammals. But fortunately for Me, they evolved into primates that liked to kill each other more than they liked sitting in trees eating insects off each others backs. Yep, fear and military technology spurs magnificent innovation, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, especially when they get help from a deity with a stake in the outcome.”
“Face it, Brothergod, You’re just being a sore loser.”
“I still say you cheated. I demand a do-over, or I’m going to ask Mothergod to go back in time and see if you pulled any dirty tricks.”
Knowing She was on the verge of being caught, Sistergod transitioned to negotiation mode. “I’m not admitting to anything, mind You, but I do like a good wager. So, what kind of do-over do you have in mind?”
“We seed the second planet, and start the clock over.”
“The second planet? That’s not fair. It’s way too hot for carbon-based DNA to survive. And silicon life is so lazy it wouldn’t move to get out of the way of a lava flow. I want to do the third planet again.”
“Very well, but you only get 10 revolutions.”
“Fifteen.”
“Twelve and a half, and not a second more,” countered Brothergod.
“Done. I’ll sterilize the…”
“Oh no you don’t,” snapped Brothergod. “I’ll sterilize the planet. You cannot be trusted.”
“Well, I never,” replied Sistergod, feinting indignation. “Do I at least get to keep the oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere?”
“Nope. The same gasses as before. And, Sis, I’ll be watching You this time. So You better behave.”
by Clint Wilson | Jul 25, 2012 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
“Good evening sir, would you care for a bedtime companion?”
Jenkins looked tiredly from the edge of his luxury mattress toward the glowing wall console. “I dunno, lemme have a look I guess.”
Without answering, the household central computer opened the closet doors wide. On a long chrome rail sexdroids slipped past, posing frozen like statues, smiling invitingly. Busty blondes, voluptuous redheads and stunning brunettes, perfect specimens every one of them. Dozens of skin tones were available. Outfits could change color on command. “Stop,” he said. “Number thirty-nine. She’ll do.”
“Excellent choice sir. Shall I have her make you breakfast in the morning?”
“No, I want her to leave, right… after.” He glanced up at the sexdroid embarrassingly, knowing full well that she had no real feelings of her own. All the same he felt somewhat… guilty sending her off like that, after he was to have his way with her. But he just didn’t like sleeping with them.
She activated and sprang forth from the chrome rail and the closet, pattering lightly across the bedroom carpet toward him, negligee flapping open, showing pretty much everything. Her voice was sultry, all of their voices were. “Shall I get you a drink sweetie?”
“No.” Patting the bed beside him he said, “Just come here.”
He had always had his pick. Like everybody else did. There was no more actual mating by the general population. Humans were only born under strict guidelines and in very limited quantities. It was estimated that it would take at least another thirty years before global population dropped to acceptable levels. But The Web had taken care of things. No one was to be lonely ever again.
Across the hall from Jenkins’s apartment Lydia Smith tossed and turned. Finally she pounded her fists on the sheets and said, “Lights!” The household computer immediately complied. She propped herself up on one elbow and blew the hair up off her forehead. “Lemme see what’s in the closet.”
The doors opened and dozens of tall muscular statues began parading by, their perfect teeth gleaming in the artificial light. After running through the entire collection twice she finally settled on an olive skinned rogue with a five-o-clock shadow who was draped in nothing more than a thigh length velour housecoat. Like her neighbor across the hall, she did not allow her sexdroid to stay the night after they were finished.
In the morning Jenkins sometimes saw Smith. They often caught the same transport into the office district. This morning they exited their apartments at the exact same time.
“Er, good morning Mr. Jenkins.” She only glanced at him, staring mostly at her shoes.”
“And a good morning to you too Ms. Smith. It looks like I’ll be escorting you to the transport line once again.” He had seen very old vids where men had taken women by the arm and it always seemed like such a grand and wonderful gesture to him. But he did not dare do this of course because it was strictly forbidden. There were eyes everywhere.
Together they turned down the long hallway and walked side by side, her graying hair partially obscuring her face, which included a larger than average nose and slightly protruding buckteeth, both of which he silently adored. He tugged his tunic down nervously over his fat rolls and wiped his sweaty hands on his pants. He wondered if she noticed his perspiration problem, while she wondered if he liked to sleep in and make pancakes on the weekends.
They made their way to the elevator, imperfect, awkward, and secretly in love.
by Julian Miles | Jul 24, 2012 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Thundering down the kaleidoscopic tunnel at point four light and all’s well. Got a cold vodka sliding down to join the steak and chips delivered from the catering car as I look over to where old Max is interfaced to the drive arrays. The screens show that the drives are lime green across the scales. Not even straining.
I flick the broadcast switch and pass the news: “Fems and Gens, we are now riding the fastest man-made thing in all creation.”
We’re due to arrive at Stevenson Station in an hour. It’s in free space, as the wormhole generators and deceleration matrices work better the less gravitic influences they have about them. I’m looking forward to the look on Corvanto’s face as we pull in a full hour ahead of his much vaunted express.
Max slaps me on the head and points to where an urgent message flag is lit. I’m meant to be handling the peripheral boards while he has his hearing, taste and smell slaved to the drive arrays.
I hop from my seat and hit the read pad: MATRICES DAMAGED BY UNSCHEDULED OVERSPEED ARRIVAL AND TOTAL LOSS OF MALLARD TWO AT POINT THREE-ONE LIGHT. FLYING SCOTSMAN TWO MUST ENTER MATRICES UNDER POINT ONE-FOUR LIGHT OR RISK OVERSHOOT.
Overshoot? A slight understatement for becoming technicolour mince smeared across two star systems. Corvanto had obviously only partially succeeded in his industrial espionage: he got the accelerator plans. The greedy fool had implemented them without thought for the ability to stop several thousand tonnes travelling at double the speed rating of current catch matrices. I slide into the seat next to Max and slap the auxiliary interface cap onto my head.
“Max, we’ve got a problem. Corvanto’s express just tore up the sandpit and buffers at Stevenson as it smeared. We have to come in under point one-four.”
Max nodded: “Point one-four? They’ve had to switch arrivals to the old catch matrices. Our decelerators are only designed to resonate with the new units.”
Oh yeah. Forgot that little complication.
“I’m open to suggestions, Max. You’ve been riding star-locos since they first pulled out. If anyone can stop us becoming fractal patterns on infinity’s cloak, it’s you.”
“Your confidence is touching. Really. Now go and tell the luminaries to sit down and strap in while I think.”
I had just finished when the Scotsman shuddered and creaked. A big, unhappy, metallic groan that vibrates your bones. Things this big just do not do that, especially in the midst of wormhole transit! I leap across and slam the interface back on my head.
“Max!”
“All under control. There’s going to be more noises, but don’t worry.”
“Worry? I’m about to spontaneously pass kittens.”
Max smiled. “Then we’ll have three firsts to declare on our arrival.”
“Okay, give. We’re going too fast to slow down in time using the usual drop-off. The matrices at Stevenson cannot hold us. What have you done?”
“This loco is a streamliner. Each car has drive arrays, instead of putting big grunt up front and pulling the carriages in its wake. Simply put, the rear cars are now trying to go back home instead of forward. I’m keeping the stress margins under eighty percent and adding cars to the reversal as the hulls accommodate the stressors. I calculate we’ll enter the catch matrices at point one or less. I don’t want to push the impact loading after stressing the hull in strange ways.”
“That trick could make big decelerator matrices redundant.”
“I know. I had the idea decades back, but no-one would let me test it.”
by Duncan Shields | Jul 23, 2012 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
The priest wheezed on the other side of the confessional screen. It wasn’t uncommon. Cryogenia malathusmia. Freezer lung, we called it. Or the holy cough. Most people that traveled by cryo in the sleepships ended up with it. That meant that the priests had it.
“Forgive me, father, for I have sinned. It has been six weeks since my last confession.” I started. I heard the priest let out a rattling sigh and shift position.
The priests believed that transporters stripped a person of their soul. When a body is transported, it is completely destroyed and then reassembled on the other end. Technically, you die. All holy men only traveled by cryoship. Popesicles, my dad called them.
“Twice I disobeyed my father this week and willfully looked the elder settler statues in the eye in the town’s main square. I have had wanton thoughts about two of the miners that came here for work. I was approached by the whorehouse manager and turned him down. He said he’d ask again on my fifteenth birthday. I was scared but also excited.”
I’ve never been anywhere except here. Newgodsville, Tantalina, Zeta-2KB7. A rock big enough for one town, my daddy used to say. Before he was killed in an evac when I was 8.
The priests wouldn’t hear the confessions of workers that were brought here by transporter which meant he didn’t hear a lot of people. We were far away from most systems but rich in tungsten ore. Mostly ‘porters with a few dollars to stake a claim came here, not sleepers. I’d heard that to get here, he’d been on one ship for nearly fifty years, sleeping in the cold. And I’d heard that this was his fifth posting. I’m not good at math but that meant he might be two hundred and fifty years old.
I found him handsome. That should have been part of my confession but I couldn’t ever tell him. That’s why I kept doing bad things so that I’d have to confess.
“I took the lord’s name in vain twice down by the river when I lost the washing. And I stole a toffee stick from the general store on my way here.”
Mustering up my courage, I stuck the toffee stick out and around the divider into his booth. After what seemed like half an hour, he took it. I heard him laugh on the other side of the screen and I heard him sigh as he put the toffee into his mouth.
“Thank you my child.” He said. “Say three hail marys and come back to see me whenever you want.”
Smiling, I pushed my curtain back and left the booth. I stepped into the green twilight of our never-dark night, Tantalina’s rings sweeping across the sky.
I skipped home.
by submission | Jul 22, 2012 | Story |
Author : Aldous Mercer
Septu’s core-temperature rises as soon as he steps out of the wind. But he keeps his eyes to the ground. The trembling of his father’s hand has nothing to do with the heat and everything to do with gathering other Master-Miners every sevenday.
“Greet the Heptarch, child,” says the Priest behind them. His father’s fingers tighten around Septu’s for a moment. But then he lets go and Septu walks forward till a pedestal, waist-high, enters his field of vision.
DORSALIS PEDIS; POSTERIOR TIBIAL
His first glimpse of the Heptarch is of the Heptarch’s feet: bare and dusty, they don’t look any different from miner-feet. But higher up, molded perfectly to the shape of the Heptarch’s ankles, are two metallic cuffs. Pyramidal extrusions of copper rise from their surfaces to form a miniature stalactite-forest of copper spikes. Septu is so absorbed in counting spikes that the Priest has to prod his shoulder till Septu leans forward, kisses the Heptarch’s feet and darts back.
“Your son will make a fine Priest.” The Heptarch’s voice is strong, like Septu’s father’s.
“Wh…what?”
“You didn’t think we came all this way to quell a rebellion, did you?”
Septu’s father is silent.
ULNAR; RADIAL
Septu travels in the Heptarch’s own chariot. The jolting motion has upset his balance often enough that the Heptarch’s hand now rests permanently on Septu’s shoulder. Sometimes the bumps make the Heptarch’s wrist-cuffs dig into Septu’s skin. One such bump draws blood. The Heptarch hisses and removes his hand. Septu, who has been absorbed in twists of the ore-road, looks down at the single drop of blood blossoming on his shoulder.
“Blood,” says Septu, “carries the heat-beneath-skin…”
“…from extremity to center, and back again,” finishes the Heptarch. “I am surprised you memorized such an obscure syllogism.”
Septu knows others. “The heat-over-head begins at–”
“Not now,” says the Heptarch. “Concentrate on balance.”
Septu returns to watching the road that carries ore from the mines to Church, and copper back out again.
FEMORAL; BRANCHIAL
The suns rise, limiting Septu’s ability to radiate heat. The chariots rumble to a stop, and Septu wonders how they will survive outside the dark of the mine-caves. Then a Priest takes him aside and drenches his body with a bucketful of glasslike green unguent. Septu feels the heat within him recede; he feels like running and jumping, without worry that it will raise his temperature, that he will collapse gasping to the ground.
“Temporary,” says the Priest, whose loins and upper-arms are girded with copper spikes.
Septu has to be drenched with unguent–gel–three more times till they reach Church.
CAROTID
The Heptarch takes gel-covered Septu to a table with small pieces of copper-spiked jewelry on it. Septu cannot help but stare at the glittering green-and-copper web of a tiny neckplate—too small for a Priest.
“Septu,” says the Heptarch, “do you know what the Heptarch does?”
“He drains the heat-within, and the heat-without.”
“So today the son of a rebel becomes Septarch. Do you understand?”
Septu shakes his head.
“You will, eventually.”
EXTERNAL MAXILLARY; SUPERFICIAL TEMPORAL
The Heptarch places a knuckle under Septu’s chin and draws his face upwards; Septu sees the Heptarch’s face for the first time. He is younger than Septu’s father, his head framed with the green-and-copper spikes of the Heptarchy’s crown.
“Pulse Points gather the heat-under-skin.” Septu remembers all syllogisms he has ever heard.
“Yes,” says the Heptarch. Then he reaches over, and picks up a tiny crown from the table. Septu stands still, not daring to breathe.
The Heptarch grins down at him. “This,” he says, “is called a Heat Sink.”
by submission | Jul 21, 2012 | Story |
Author : Dan Whitley
My people called me a fool.
They said it was impossible to leave the surface. That was why no beasts flew through the air. It mattered not if I could imagine a machine that could. My people offered me hollow aphorisms; what goes up must come down.
My people called me a madman.
They said we had degenerated. That was why we could not walk beyond the sky. It mattered not if I could somehow free myself of the surface. My people declared we had become unlike Our Ancestors, and could not survive where They had once tread.
My people called me a heretic.
They said my endeavors were hubris. That was why we did not know how Our Ancestors came here. It mattered not if I could survive Their realm. My people believed attempting to exist as They once did was the worst blasphemy.
I defied my people.
For decades I toiled. I spurned friends and relations as my creation grew with my hopes. I would leave the surface and find the realm of Our Ancestors.
I called my machine a “rocket.”
No one came to witness my launch. My people did not care to watch an old man burn himself on history’s most extravagant funeral pyre. Such was their conviction.
Yet it worked.
I left the ground at an amazing speed, tearing apart the clouds as the glass bubble of my cockpit shot through them up into the sky. The blue faded slowly to black as I gained altitude.
And then, failure.
The last dregs of fuel erupted behind me, shattering my creation and sending me hurtling up and out away from it. I entered free-fall in nothing but my clothes. My canvas parachutes would never debut.
I never cared. As I tumbled through space, I knew I had not reached Th’erth, the realm of Our Ancestors. But They rewarded me in my final moments. I saw beauty in the curve of the world stretched out below me. I heard God in the dead silence of the black beyond. I felt my soul escape in my breath as vacuum tugged at it.
I died in rapture.
