by Julian Miles | Jun 20, 2022 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
She’s down by the landing gear, waiting for the moment when the dockhands retreat before launch. There’s about forty seconds when a determined stowaway can get into the ventral landing leg housing and climb inside the survival shelter built into the back of it.
“Martine.”
My step-sister doesn’t even twitch. She just pivots to face me, staying crouched down. Anybody on the observation decks will only be able to see me.
“Tornaz. Took you a while, this time.”
For nine years we’ve been playing games across the System-8 territories. As adopted son and family enforcer, the task of retrieving the errant daughter of Eeyantar, the would-be royal house of System-8, always falls to me.
“Eleven months, one week, six days,” I check my chrono, “and forty-nine minutes.”
She smiles. A Sangrif dagger appears in her hand.
“This time, Tornaz, I’m not going back. They can live without one heiress.”
Logistically, they could do so with ease. Daughters they have aplenty. But having the prettiest and most popular of them abdicate before she even becomes a princess is not acceptable.
“You’ve got further than ever before, I’ll grant you. But it’s a wild universe from here on out, especially for someone making their way with next to nothing.”
Her smile doesn’t waver.
“I’m intending to get free or die trying. The things I’ve seen. How can I go round pretending System-8 is the wonderful place it claims to be? We’re no better than the rulers of the old warworlds we conquer.”
“So you’d kill me to be free of this?”
She shakes her head.
“I’d rather not. You’ve always been fair. Even so, I’m not going back.”
I unclip the smaller of the two databracers on my left arm and throw it to her. She catches it, then looks from it to me, a puzzled look on her face.
With a shrug, I kneel down.
“Here’s the thing, Martine. When they assigned me to fetch you the first time, they thought I’d fail. It was an easy way to dispose of the ‘hanger-on’. When I came back with you, they weren’t best pleased. Since then, I’ve brought you back eleven times. Every time, they make it plain I should have got my adopted self killed in the line of duty. A duty that’s taken me to the same places you’ve been in, and let me see the same things.”
Taking my Eeyantar databracer off, I pull out a generic one similar to the one I threw her. Putting that on, I throw the ornate family one onto one of the blast plates. The backwash of take-off will vaporise it.
“I was so happy to be adopted by Eeyantar, only to find out the whole thing is a hollow game of politics and larceny. Following you made me see all the things we’re supposed to ignore every day.”
Pointing to our databracers, I grin.
“These are the result of seeing a few things I shouldn’t have. What’s on them isn’t glamourous, but they’re clean identities. Unremarkable people who can journey away from System-8 space without causing a fuss. Each has a few credits on them, too. All local funds, nothing traceable. Enough to keep a cautious person going for a goodly length of time.”
She puts hers on: “We go together?”
“We happen to board at the same time. After that, we’re both free.”
Martine stands up, her Sangrif vanishing back into a concealed scabbard. She smiles: “Can I buy you a drink, stranger?”
“Yes. You from around here?”
She shakes her head.
“Just passing through.”
I grin.
“Me too.”
by Julian Miles | Jun 13, 2022 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The planet Naduskar is a technological wonderland without visible natural surface, be it land or water. At some time in the distant past, an advanced race converted or covered every last piece of open ground.
There’s the mystery: is it nothing but a huge machine sitting upon the remains of the planet, or is it somehow a vast preserve, eternally maintaining an ideal environment for whatever dwells there?
I’m of the opinion they simply didn’t want anything interfering with their grand plan, and engineered accordingly.
“Go for entry.”
That’s Cheimo, over in Golden Hinde IV. He’s the instigator and leader of this venture, and to him the glory of taking the armoured bulk of his brainchild down to make planetfall.
His crew are so enthusiastic, verging on a devotion that makes my teeth ache. If they weren’t so nice, they’d be insufferable.
I reach out and touch Baylia on the shoulder.
“Follow them in as planned, but slow our descent to give them a thousand-kilometre lead.”
Hands flit across the control board, implementing my wishes.
It’s been a long trip from Earth 9. Two ships on a single mission, but of very different purpose. The Golden Hinde IV is designed to bludgeon through the debris rings about Naduskar, and whatever effect causes them. The Challenger XIX will be witness, following in its wake. Eventually it’ll act as space-side support, with the ultimate goal of becoming an orbital base.
My theories about Naduskar led to me being ridiculed, even after I accepted Cheimo’s open dare to join his expedition. Today, I’ll be eyewitness to being proven wrong, or I’ll be vindicated – and a hundred people will die.
“Hestor! You recording?”
“With everything we have, Cheimo. Whatever happens, it’ll be for posterity.”
“Still with the doubts, eh? Look at it! Those rings of debris are from a hitherto unencountered weaponization of Roche limits, I’m sure of it. The dynamic gravity field protecting this ship will obviate it.”
A concept so bizarre I still have trouble believing he won any support. That you can vary the gravitational effect of a celestial body so the tidal forces of that body will tear a chosen target apart isn’t theoretical, it’s fictional. Don’t even get me started on his ‘DGPF – dynamic gravity protection field’.
My postulation is that the creators of Naduskar equipped their world with something we need to observe before we seek to work round it. I said we should send a large, automated vessel instead. Nobody listened.
The Golden Hinde IV enters the outermost ring, impacts from debris sparking across its hull.
Ambu calls out: “Something’s happening. Multiple effects, multiple spectrums.”
I look across: “Their DGPF firing up?”
He shakes his head, then points to the monitor, eyes going wide. I spin to look.
The Golden Hinde IV is gone!
As I think it, debris spurts forth from a single point. Before our very eyes, Naduskar sprouts a new ring.
The replay is astonishing. The Golden Hinde IV collapses in upon itself until only a metre-wide black disc can be seen. That disc flashes white, debris shoots forth, then the disc vanishes.
The AI in our quantum computer considers the event for several minutes – a very long while in QAI subjective time – before advancing an initial hypothesis: a null-point wormhole. Both ends are mapped to the exact same place and moment. It collapses before anything can traverse the internal region: the debris being rejected, syncretised content.
My apologies, Cheimo. Compared to this, manipulating the Roche limits wasn’t such an outré idea, after all.
by Julian Miles | Jun 6, 2022 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
In a room darkening as night falls, lengthening shadows are rearranged by the flickering of a grimy display screen.
White, blue, green, yellow, black.
The night briefly reforms.
An image of an emblem flashes up to fill the view. It trembles, then stabilises. A deep voice speaks in tones of exhaustion.
“Hey, Winona, it’s Bart. Not sure when you’ll be seeing this, but I hope it’s between the end of the war and my return. You can show it to those doubters who gave you such a hard time.”
The image changes to that of a man of indeterminate age. Beard and hair are unkempt, both crudely hacked short.
“Steady, love. There aren’t any grooming salons out here. We’re off to do what we were trained to do, and bring those bastards down. To get there quick enough, all the ships are light on amenities. We’ll get clean when we’re done.”
A voice comes from offscreen, the words unclear. The man nods without turning his head.
“That’s the quarter-hour warning. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but we’re doing good out here. The Betlie are so desperate to stop us they’ve started to make threats against our colonies. I heard a rumour they’ve even threatened Earth! Don’t worry, it’s just propaganda. Their pacification raids started this. We’re going to finish it by pacifying them. They’ll have nothing left, the arrogant bastards.”
He pauses to cough for a moment, hand covering mouth and nose.
“Don’t worry. It’s just the air quality difference between inside our suits and inside the ships. At least we’ll be able to sort that out before we head back. Once we’re done with them, we can replenish the ships at leisure.”
The face moves close to the screen.
“I love you, Winona. I can’t say that enough. You waited. You trusted. All these years and you never wavered. You’re some kind of angel according to many of this Brigade. A lot of troopers got deserted by their partners after that razebomb hit Sydney. Countries started questioning our resistance. It took ordinary people like you to keep it going. You’ve no idea how much it meant,” he grins and shakes his head, “how much it means to me that you keep believing.”
He plants a kiss on the screen.
“I’ve got to get ready, love. Hold me in your thoughts. They say we’ll be able to shift back in around eight months because we won’t have to use evasion routes. One more day, then a year at most. After that, we’ll have all the time we need. Until then, stay safe.”
The emblem reappears, then the screen fades to black. Darkness returns.
On the cracked paving far below, a hunched figure shakes itself as the dim light in the window above disappears.
“How many is that, Ari?”
The figure turns to a smaller figure pulling a hand cart.
“Eighteen, Tal. It first happened sometime during the month after the Betlie exacted Toll. Didn’t expect it to last this long. Whoever they were, they built a formidable lair. We lost many folk before Robin declared it off-limits. It became our year marker.”
“Do you think they’ll ever come back?”
“The Brigades? Never. Tonight is eighteen years. I’m sure the Betlie made good on their warnings.”
“They devastated us.”
“To make sure. Our civilisation relied on war to keep it running. Therefore, our civilisation had to end.”
“All we have left are worlds of farmers and artists, linked by Betlie Portals.”
“All? They’re peaceful worlds. The Betlie promised peace, and delivered it. That’s more than any Terran government ever did.”
by Julian Miles | May 23, 2022 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
A quiet Thursday night, working away on the laptop. Actually doing nothing of any substance. Too many opinions to agree with, laugh at, or marvel over. So many people being misguided. So many of them seemingly wanting to be, as an alternative to having to face the realities of their assorted situations.
The music fills the lack of companionship, a mix of Mendelssohn’s works reminding me of summers at home before my parents separated, and of long evenings studying with friends who’d been so close for such a short time.
A movement catches my attention. It’s not the first I’ve seen in my peripheral vision today, but this is the one where I have no doubt: something did actually move.
With that thought comes the waving of insectile limbs and something like a freakishly large spider climbs into view over the furthest arm of my sofa.
“Prepare to die.”
It launches itself at me! I throw myself from the chair and scrabble frantically across the floor. It hits the chair back, swings for a moment making curiously cheerful noises, then backflips to land on my laptop.
“Your suicide note will be a literary masterpiece.”
Suicide? Not likely.
I start to reach under the bed, then glance into the shadows there. Did something move?
The multi-legged maniac springs my way. Without thinking I pick up a copy of Gersten’s ‘An Initial Study of the Chreeskakt’ and swat the threat away. For good measure, I throw the book after it. It pancakes the creature. There’s a screech, and what sounds like swearing.
Springing up, I grab kitchen knife and cutting board. Wish I had a sword and shield, but residential permits for actual weapons are impossible to get without good reason or bribery.
“Ha! Now we’ll see who gets an obituary.”
The creature drags itself from under the bound volume, apparently taking a moment to read the spine.
“Flattened by a treatise on my people. Not sure if that’s apt or ironic.”
The voice has changed. Become familiar.
It waves a foreleg at me and chuckles!
“Before we demolish more of your home, shall we move to the dojo, or can we call it quits and go to Servalan’s for steak and sorbet?”
Spawn of a…
“Ralbatmakt? Thanks for the fright! When did you complete renewal, and why chose that arachnid horror as a new form?”
“While we soldiered on Sarvis, you told me about your Doctor Anonymous and the Eight Legs from Three. Something about them fascinated me. So, for this cycle, I’ve chosen to be one – or as near as my research in human archives allows. I didn’t know you had intergalactic guardians who had such amazing adventures. Are there any left? I’d like to meet one.”
I slide down the wall to sit on the floor.
“Do you remember the conversation we had about the human imagining form called ‘fiction’?”
I’ve never seen a proto-spider wilt in disappointment before.
“The universe is a much more interesting place in your collective imaginations, Gan. What we have is positively mundane.”
“Says the talking dinosaur who chose to come back as a giant spider for his next lifecycle. How many more of them do you get?”
Ralbatmakt picks itself up and wanders over to me, eight-legged gait occasionally uneven.
“Extra limbs always confuse me for a while.”
It places a foreleg on my thigh.
“This is the last, Gan. My millennium is up. But for this cycle I can hitch a ride on your back. We can have adventures, yes?”
How can I resist?
“That we can.”
by Julian Miles | May 16, 2022 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Read for me the writing on the wall.”
We bow our heads and recite the words writ high above, engraved deep into unyielding stone. We have no need to see them, having recited the Second Law every morning and evening since the first day we could talk.
Of the First Law, they say it’s only told by the Hand of One to those who die faithful before they ascend. I never understood that. We’re told this world is everything: the one, all, and only. How can the dead go anywhere else?
“There is nothing new under the Hand.”
No punctuation up there. Guess putting a full stop on the end was considered inefficient.
‘Inefficient’. The dirtiest of condemnations, and so versatile: you can apply it to anything you don’t like. Even to typing approved words in unapproved ways. Everything that comes from human imagination is also considered inefficient.
I tried to argue that without imagination, the concepts we built our survival upon would not exist. They told me I was correct. In the times before the Hand of One, imagination was necessary for the visionaries of humanity to shepherd the unenlightened masses to the ‘ubiquity of utility’. Now we’ve arrived, we don’t need it anymore.
We toil to produce the shapes that disappear into the maws of the supply lines, or to unload the cubes of material we dismantle to reassemble into the shapes we push into the maws. Every day. From clock on to clock off.
What we do makes no sense. Who makes the Nutrigel we eat, the paste we dilute to make Drinkup? I’ve asked. They sent me to ‘contemplate my inefficiencies’ while cleaning out the waste trenches.
I should be upset, but I found caches down there. Cubby holes cut into the filthy walls, down where the Fingers won’t inspect. They’re filled with colourful, useless things. I like the little flowers on hollow stalks that spin in the breeze. I don’t know what they’re made of, but they still haven’t withered. Lots of people like them too. The Fingers don’t. We learned to keep them out of sight. I also found a block of coloured squares. If you twist it, you can get each side to be the same colour! I spent lots of clocked off working that out.
Then I found it. The box with the thing full of new words. I read it: learned about ‘book’ and ‘page’ and ‘plural’. Plus what was in the bottom of the box. How to use that, too. Learned about other things. I don’t understand them all, yet. I haven’t got all the ideas worked out. But I did work out the thing it suggested I do before I go.
The book told me where to find the other thing I needed. Last night, I put them both on and did it.
I stand in the left-hand maw and look up at my first visionary work: adding words to a Law.
There is nothing new under the Hand
and that is the problem.
There is more to this world. Look for it.
Get out from under the Hand!
Slinging the cutter across my back, I make sure the gravbelt is turned off, then walk into the maw. The book says this one leads to somewhere called ‘outside’.
I’m a long way away when I hear a lot of shouting from behind. Sounds like I started something. I hope I did.
Grinning into the darkness, I try out some new words as I jog towards a better day.
“Stop me if you can, Hand of One. I’m innovating.”
