by Julian Miles | Nov 22, 2021 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Good evening, folks. Takes a bit of getting used to, doesn’t it? Curtains open, then the being on stage bows and walks off, leaving only an item of clothing.”
“Hi, it’s me. Yes, Gladia in Seat 9K, I’m ‘for real’. That detector your using doesn’t do half the things the adverts claim it does, by the way.”
“No, David in Seat 14B, your recording device isn’t working. The jamming is doing what it’s meant to. You’re the one trying to break the law.”
“Okay, having demonstrated my relaxed nature, marginally witty banter, and solid grasp of the local digital space, why don’t we get down to some serious questions?”
“Thank you, Greta. Yes, I am boot from a space suit. A Mitchell A4092, to be precise. Well, actually I’m fitted inside it, with my interfaces carefully engineered to match apertures and such on the original item.”
“Hold on, folks. I always make the mistake of not having an introductory piece ready, and today is no exception. So, please, let me tell you how I came to be and we can pick things up after that.”
“Steve in Seat 18J, if you ‘know all this’, why bother coming? At least have the manners to keep quiet so the people around you can pay attention.”
“You’re missing the point. The people in this hall paid to hear me. I’m grateful, and will do my very best to entertain.”
“Still no understanding? The point is that not one of them paid to listen to you.”
“Yes, you can have a refund. I’ll action it as soon as you’ve left.”
“Sorry about that, folks. Where was I? Oh yes. At the beginning.”
“I was made by Reppi Tasman between 2082 to 2094. He started with his artificial lower leg because it was the only thing he could guarantee to keep hold of. Back then, proscaps hadn’t been invented. Early cyberprosthetics had to be bonded directly to the biology.
“As you learned in school, Earth was a bit of a wild place back then. World War 3 – the Resource Wars, Thirty Year War or World War 30, call it what you like – destroyed every country’s claim to being civilised. The OFF – Orbital Free Federation – had only just been formed. Space stations still had guns on them.
“Reppi got stranded in Tangier when Spaceport Morocco was obliterated. From there to the Port of Savannah he worked as a deckhand on a container ship. That’s where he started stealing the components for what would become me.
“Over the next ten years he travelled and worked odd jobs. I became aware for the first time in Tijuana on the 17th November 2092. From then until the end of 2094, he and I worked on what I needed to continue. He sacrificed and endured so much to ensure that. In the original proscap – sorry – ‘Cybernetic Limb Standardised Prosthesis Interface’ test paper, Reppi is ‘Volunteer 002’.
“My maker died in 2097, when World War 4 reset the Earth. I was recovered in 2126 by Louie Roond, after being detected by his guardian AI, Michael. They brought me to OFF-SS-94. Since then, I’ve visited every orbital around Earth. Which brings us, tangentially, to tonight.
“This is the first event of my interstellar ‘Anecdotes from a Lost World’ tour, starting here on Jupiter VI in the Reppi Tasman Memorial Hall. I know he’d be embarrassed and flattered about that.
“I still consider myself nothing but the left foot of a good man. Let’s start things properly with vintage blues from Reppi’s music library. This is Scrapper Blackwell.”
by Julian Miles | Nov 15, 2021 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The man makes his way down the street with care. It’s the care of old age, where a misstep could lead to a fall. As I get closer, I see it’s also wariness. This man doesn’t trust the things about him. Up close, I see he’s not that old.
He gives me a nod.
“Evenin’, trooper. Stuck on the roaming night patrol, eh?”
Looking about, I move my assault beamer to side port, as it gives me the best line to the blind spot behind him. Putting it in ‘wary’ mode, I grin at him.
“You know our routes?”
He nods.
“I know most of them round here. I also know you must have annoyed someone something fierce to get sent out for this walk on your tod.”
He’s got that right. Sergeant-Major Nompins doesn’t like me.
“You’ve served, sir?”
“Save the polish for them that likes the taste, trooper. I did my time. Went in a Private, came out a Corporal. Seven years, three tours. Betelgeuse was a doddle, Sirius wasn’t much fun, then I drew a short straw and got sent to Mintaka in time for the downshift.”
‘Downshift’. The reason Orion’s Belt has only two stars now. Humanity doesn’t know how the Triclaws managed it, but our attempt to invade their home world failed when they moved their planet out of the way, an event that generated an exotic energy shockwave that devasted several nearby systems and stars – or used them for fuel. We still don’t know which.
“You were on the Banjax?”
“No such luck. I was on the Wyx.”
The Banjax was tail end Charlie in the invasion fleet, spared the worst shockwave effects by the ships ahead of it acting as collapsible shields. The Wyx had been one of the scout ships. It was mid-transfer to hyperdrive as the shockwave hit. It drifted in Hirschian subspace for two years before a combat engineer named Wola Ruxon, working with Emelia Laesmann – who would go on to marry Emil Hirsch, after meeting him because of the Wyx tragedy – managed to return them to reality as we know it. What the rescue teams found in the Wyx has remained classified ever since.
“You knew Ruxon and Laesmann?”
“I’m Ruxon.”
I snap him a salute.
“It’s an honour to meet you, sir.”
The revolver is levelled at my face before I register his move.
“I’m no hero. I’m just the lucky sonofabitch who had the skills that Emelia didn’t. She knew what we needed built. I could build it.”
“You saved ten crewmembers.”
“We bonded more men and women with parts of the ship in ways the boffins still don’t understand. We tried to bring thirty back, and killed over half. It’ll never be heroic to me. I had to shoot the ones who couldn’t die.”
“Couldn’t?”
“The Philadelphia Effect is an awful death sentence, because unless your brain gets merged with something solid, you live. No matter what your body has become a part of.”
How do you reply to that?
He cocks the gun.
“Trooper… Down!”
My legs respond to his tone. The revolver roars. The person creeping up behind me with an executioner’s baton drops sideways, almost headless.
The revolver has disappeared by the time he reaches down to help me up.
“Mean streets hereabouts, trooper. Never take your eye off your proximity scanner, even when you’re chatting to a former member of the corps.”
I bring my assault beamer round so I can see the scanner.
“Just two comrades chatting, Mister Ruxon?”
“That’s it, trooper. Nothing special. Carry on.”
by Julian Miles | Nov 8, 2021 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The grey muffling my senses relinquishes it’s hold. I find myself lying in the same chair I sat down in. I’m in the same clothes. My digital chronograph tells me eight seconds have passed. I look to my other wrist. The vintage analogue watch has stopped. I’ll do for that antiques dealer. He said it was in full working order. I wound it just before we set off.
I lift my head and look to my right. I can’t see Sasha, but I can see her arms where they play across the control panels mounted above her chair.
“Did we do it?”
She raises a finger in a ‘wait’ gesture. Time crawls by.
“Lewis, we’ve succeeded.”
Lifting my head again, I see her green eyes sparkling with tears. Triumph! We took a chance to do something people said was impossible, and it worked!
“Where are we?”
She stops smiling, looks puzzled.
“No idea. Beyond charted space.”
I roll myself up so I can gaze her way without straining my neck.
“What do you mean ‘beyond charted space’?”
“You remember the speech that Doctor Krakor gave? The one where he said that while wormholes were navigable, we had no way to tell the endpoint because the act of traversing a wormhole would collapse it?”
“Yes. But probes…”
She shakes her head.
“We couldn’t send a probe because that would collapse the wormhole.”
How on earth can you go somewhere without knowing where you’re going? GPS navigation doesn’t do that.
“So where are we?”
She shrugs.
“A long way from the planet we grew up on, and all its woes.”
This is why I hate working with people who can’t grasp the complexities of life.
“That I know. How do we let them know I was right?”
Sasha just stares at me.
“Alright. How long to get back and deliver the news?”
“Longer than the lifespan of anybody on this ship.”
I release my upper belt so I can sit up.
“What? How can we not live long enough to get back when we got here so quickly?”
“Did we? My ten chronographs show varying elapsed times. The lowest is one second. The highest is 18,142 years. We may have inadvertently outlived human life on Earth.”
We what? The woman is babbling.
“Let me spell it out for you: find the wormhole and take us back.”
Sasha grins at me.
“What wormhole? It collapsed when we used it.”
I thought wormholes collapsing was like fuel. Not the one we were using!
“Then find another!”
“No point. The chances of finding one that will deliver us back to Earth within a reasonable time frame at that end are negligible. Plus, you’ll need to go and tell our single-use Casimir-Bordeg field generator to stop being dead metal.”
‘Single-use’…!
“So we were never going to be able to go back?”
Sasha rolls out of her chair and floats across to me.
“What part of ‘one-way trip’ did you not understand? How many of the rich backers who joined the mob of scientific misfits I recruited are expecting to get home for tea?”
“I don’t know. I gave each of them the same manual you gave me.”
She folds herself about to sit cross-legged in mid-air.
“Let’s hope they paid attention. We’ve got about a year to find a habitable world. There won’t be waiters, waitresses, or concierge services for a very long time.”
Sasha leans forwards.
“All the life replication equipment is keyed to people I trust, and none of it to me. We’re going to make a better society, not another hell on Earth.”
by Julian Miles | Nov 1, 2021 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
My name was Walt. I hunted. Drank beer. Drove a truck. Met my wife, May, skinny dipping down at Hodgeson Creek. We married. Had kids. Lost two sons to wars in foreign countries. Lost a daughter to a war in another state. My other son, Rufus, came back from a war, then met his boyfriend skinny dipping at Hodgeson Creek.
I had trouble with that. Coming on top of my cancer, it didn’t seem fair. Then my youngest, Maisie, told me she had cancer. That broke May. She admitted she’d got the same diagnosis. Something had been seeping into the waters of Hodgeson Creek for a long time.
We mourned for each other as a family, then looked for ways to change things. No vengeance. Saw what that did to my father. We set out to make things better for those who didn’t have cancer yet.
Doc Moses, he saw it first. Some Professor at a fancy clinic over in Russia. Had tried it on animals. Started human trials. They were closed to the public. There were awful rumours, but Moses said he understood why.
Cashed in just about everything we had, took a flight: us, Rufus, his boyfriend, and Moses. Went to a place I couldn’t pronounce. Not surprising: the cancer in my throat meant I could barely talk.
The clinic was set in acres of mixed forests. It was beautiful.
Professor Ed was a nice man. Couldn’t speak English worth a damn, but his assistant was really good at it. She explained why the process was hidden from the public. We sort of got the idea, but Ed said that if we were interested, we had to see before we could join.
May liked the idea. Maisie too. We signed and went to see the changing room. After that, we were all different. It’s not a thing you want to see, until you know where it leads, and what it offers. We talked it over and decided to do it. For the future.
The day came and Rufus formally introduced me to Terry. My boy said he thought it was a wonderful thing we were doing. I called him a poof. He called me a bigot. We laughed. I kissed my son and gave him my blessing, then took May and Maisie’s hands. We went through the hissing doors to our next life.
It’s not death. Those who object are wrong. We’ll grow for centuries. How can we be recognisable to anything that lasts only ninety years? Sure, we talk to each other. We can’t communicate with you except by using devices like the one that created this article. Experts from the clinic brought it. They come by every few years to check in on us. All too easy for doubters to say it’s made up.
If you believe, trust me when I say the change is hard. You can’t wait until you’re about to die. If you die during the vivilig transformation, your corpse will be partially lignified. The process doesn’t stop all neat and tidy because your soul lit out for sunnier climes. Your kin will be left to bury a coffin full of stinking compost.
If you don’t believe, kindly let people have their peace amongst the trees planted in memory of their lost ones. Take your hate away. Better still: let it go.
Rufus and Terry visit the three of us every month, down in the copse on the shore, our roots slowly leeching the toxins from Hodgeson Creek.
by Julian Miles | Oct 25, 2021 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
I crouch by the fire, gazing across at the mass of blue curls that bob and sway as she works.
“You can still escape. Shake off the ghosts of the past. Fly higher.”
She smiles sadly at me.
“Did it ever occur to you that I don’t want to fly?”
“You don’t have to limit yourself anymore.”
Reassembling her pistol, she shakes her head.
“You’ve supported me from slave to free trader. Always had my back. Never doubted me, even when I couldn’t believe in myself. But we’ve come far enough like that. I’ve come far enough.”
She loads the pistol, then holsters it.
“There’s a point where your determination to free me so I can be everything I could be, from your never-repressed view, becomes the very thing I cannot escape.”
How dare she! I launch myself to my feet.
Her other hand comes up, slivergun gleaming in the lights of the fire.
“Down, Brutus.”
At this range, the charged load won’t have time to fully open up. But a quarter-metre hole blown through your chest has the same net effect as a half-metre one. I settle.
“I knew this would be difficult, so just hold still and listen. I’m already far more than I ever thought I could be, back when I was licking boots and mopping floors on Cragryn. Your certainty was my only strength. Without it, this journey would never have started. That certainty changed to became my support as my own strength grew. We all have bad days. Your quiet assurance prevented them from defeating me. You’ve been the wall at my back as I worked out how to be an individual beholden to no-one. You became my companion, but you never stopped pushing me. I thought your vision of me being a star fleet owner was a dream. Then I saw it was possible. Finally, I realised I didn’t want it.”
She raises a calming hand. It’s a politeness I appreciate. The slivergun hasn’t wavered.
“It’s not that I can’t go that far. It’s not that my past is playing on my insecurities. It’s just that I know what I want.”
The smile that comes is the one that lifts my hearts.
“You gave me this: the freedom to choose.”
Firelight reflects in her amber eyes as she leans towards me.
“So let me choose, and accept the choice I’ve made. You’ve been my will for so long. Now, at last, I can decide for myself. Live your life. I’ll live mine.”
I sit and weave the light between my claws – not that she can see that. All humans see is a Draconian ‘wiggling its fingers’.
She’s right. In my determination, I’ve come close to being a source of oppression.
I release the light.
“Meriel, you have the right of it. Be free of my dreams and live your own.”
There’s a little laugh and the slivergun is lowered.
“I still need a Master at Arms, Brutus.” She grins. “There’s no way I can bring the Tangaris down if they get rowdy.”
“I recommend broad-beaming them with stunner on its lowest setting. It takes their edge off.”
She stares at me in shock.
“All this time I thought it was your mighty presence.”
“My teacher always told me that influencing brute force requires more than greater force.”
Meriel bursts out laughing.
“And until you work out what he meant, you’ll use the stunner.”
I grin at her.
“A bitter truth.”
“Better put this campfire out before the cargo bay fire alarms trigger.”
“True. Let’s get back to having fun and making a living.”
