by submission | Feb 24, 2017 | Story |
Author : Travis Gregg
The snow was falling gently all around, big thick snowflakes that stuck to everything. It was the first real snow of winter and in a few weeks the whole area would be under a couple feet. I’d been out an hour before sunrise, my joints stiff and aching from the cold, my feet numb. After following a familiar trail deep into the forest I’d found a good spot where I could nestle down and try to keep warm while I waited.
It was two hours of patiently keeping still before the buck ambled into the clearing. As he casually strode through I slowly readied my bow and waited for the deer to turn broadside. When he was almost out of range, right on the cusp of the distance I could reliably shoot, something caught his attention and for just a brief moment he turned. I squeezed the pull while exhaling and the arrow flew true, impacting just behind the shoulder. The buck let out a wheeze, his breath visible in the cold air.
It didn’t take long to dress the deer and I headed back to the cabin with a pack full of fresh meat. Even though it was getting cooler we’d need to smoke it soon.
As I made my way up the trail I heard something I hadn’t heard in years, something that chilled me to the bone. I squinted against the bright morning sun and there, way off in the distance was an unmistakable iridescent ovoid. It was flying low and very slow, just skimming the tree line, and I could barely make out the sound of the engine as it passed to the south.
It had been three hundred years, but still they’d found me. I’d gone full native this time, didn’t even have medi-nanos. Years and years of living in these mountains, living off the land, and staying as inconspicuous as possible. I even looked just like these barely sentient ape men but still they’d found me. I hustled back to the cabin, abandoning the kill to the bears that roamed the mountain, hoping there was still time to get off planet.
Rounding the last corner up the trail to the cabin I froze. Something was wrong but in a way I couldn’t easily define. Someone watching me? The birds had gone quiet which was a bad sign. Standing still I scanned the familiar scene, looking for something out of place, some source for the wrongness. Too late I realized my mistake. I’d thought it had been pure luck spotting the craft this morning but now it was clear that I was meant to see that ship. Three hundred years had made me too soft.
***
Crouched down deep in the leaves I’d seen my prey leave hours before the sun rose. I hadn’t been ready for him then but my photon suit ensured I remained unseen. Now he was back and I calmly leveled my sights, waiting for him to come a little closer.
by submission | Feb 22, 2017 | Story |
Author : Tim McDaniel
The ceiling opened and the Priest Judge Arbitrator descended into the Control Center. Tloygruu bobbed his head up and down the correct number of times, but one hand snuck down to tug on his genitalia.
There was no need for concern or worry, he reminded himself. He had been told that at a certain point in the voyage the Priest Judge Arbitrator would appear, after all. But no one had explained to him exactly when that would happen, or what the Priest Judge Arbitrator would do.
The Pilot flapped a hand in his direction, and Tloygruu realized that he was still pulling on his genitalia. He ceased and sent a fluttering gratitude.
The Priest Judge Arbitrator, not looking in his direction, moved to the back of the room to stand in the alcove reserved for it, and inserted the inputs. Its mottlings were a neutral purple and brown. Tloygruu glanced at the polished metal surface of the display stand in front of him and noted that he himself was swirling with orange and blue.
“Frontro, tell us all when you expect that we will reach the new world.”
The Pilot turned to look at Tloygruu. She swirled orange and green, even around her neck fin – the Priest Judge Arbitrator had unnerved her, as well! “The estimate is four percent, all.”
Four percent. Ninety-six percent of the journey lay behind them. So long ago it had been, and Tloygruu but a Trainee Commander, when the signals had been detected – a new world of life, intelligence! Such a thing had not been seen for two hundred years. And so soon, they would be the first to see the new species, to learn and teach, and exchange. To meet The Other, and to realize themselves through The Other’s eyes. The Other would benefit in the same way, and could also expect advances in energy, medicine, and transportation.
The excitement spread throughout the Control Center. Frontro, Chali and Zhingi, and Tloygruu himself, became nearly translucent. Only the Priest Judge Arbitrator remained passive.
“Command,” the Priest Judge Arbitrator said. “Alter course. The new world will not be visited.”
The translucence was swept away by a dark tide.
“Priest Judge Arbitrator?” Tloygruu finally managed to say. “All would like to respectfully inquire as to the reason.”
The Priest Judge Arbitrator left the alcove and returned to the center of the room. As the ceiling opened and its platform began to ascend, it said merely, “With the lessening of distance, the transmissions of the senders have become readable.”
The ceiling closed behind it.
“Course is altered,” Frontro said. “We return to starting point.”
“To clarify,” Chali said, “our descendents will return to starting point, not us.”
“Zhingi,” Tloygruu said, “display for all the transmissions from the new world.”
In the air before them shimmered pictures. Bipedal creatures with multicolored, flapping skins moved about, operated machines, interacted with one another.
“They’re beautiful,” said Frontro.
And they were. So different, so new.
The pictures changed, and a large group of the beings were seen surrounding a single one, who sat and did nothing unexpected.
The picture changed again. Large structures loomed, and the creatures moved among them. Then the creatures were inside a structure, interacting with one another.
“There are accompanying sounds as well,” Zhingi said. “They include more than random noise, and the machines have translated the meaningful strings.”
Tloygruu could almost feel a tendril of orange snaking across his skin. “Let all hear the translations.”
They watched, and listened.
“What is that recurring noise – that one, which we just heard?”
“The laughter of many,” Zhingi said.
“In unison?” Tloygruu asked. “Are they a hive? Or is it that they require leadership, even in this?”
Soon they understood.
“Can we continue to watch, with the sound off?” Frontro asked.
by submission | Feb 21, 2017 | Story |
Author : Gray Blix
Glastonbury Tor was cordoned off by military, of course, but one hundred and fifty metres below tens of thousands coursed through the town and fields east, where a festival was underway. Costumed performers from Renaissance faires, popular in Somerset, entertained the masses, who gave little thought to the historical inaccuracies, given that the occupant of the shiny capsule next to St. Michael’s Church claimed to be from an era predating Elizabeth I by nearly a millennium. He presented himself as none other than the legendary King Arthur come to life, or more precisely, come home from a journey across the cosmos.
If he had wandered into town and made such a claim, he would have been ridiculed. But having arrived in a shiny capsule the size of St. Michael’s tower, disgorged on the Tor from a triangular alien spacecraft whose shadow darkened the town as it passed over, he was accorded the status of, well, not the reigning monarch he desired, but that of a galactic rock star.
Communicating through a viewscreen which materialized on the exterior surface of the capsule, he looked to be humanoid, middle aged, of modest height but regal posture, whose muscled physique was apparent beneath his gold-flecked robe. He spoke in a quiet yet compelling tone in a language first taken to be extraterrestrial but recognized as Old English by a local scholar who’d heard his statement that he was displeased to find a foreign army occupying his kingdom. He warned that if they could not bring him a translator he would have to forego negotiations and proceed directly to the task of reconquest with weaponry and wiccecraeft they could not even comprehend much less resist.
The scholar hastened to what appeared to be twin towers on the Tor where, as soldiers pointed guns and military aircraft circled, she exchanged words with Arthur through the viewscreen and was invited within. She did not emerge for thirteen days and would later write a best selling book, “My Fortnight with King Arthur.” Suffice to say, Arthur was besotted and Gwynn was beguiled. She let him call her “Gwenhwyfar,” after his Guinevere, and her book described in prurient detail everything she had done to please him and make up for the period, lengthy in Earth time but just a few years by his, in which he had lacked female… companionship.
As her other book, “King Arthur in Space,” explained, the wounded monarch had been abducted from a 6th century battlefield and taken at near lightspeed to a faraway planet to heal. Old English lacks words to describe all the wondrous things he had witnessed and experienced, so she made a lot of it up. Who could contradict her, now that he had departed, the triangular spacecraft having returned to beam up the capsule and rocket away moments after she had left him?
And, yes, she did indeed leave him, screaming Old English swear words as she exited the capsule and stomped down the hill. Although pride and book royalties wouldn’t allow her to admit it, he was a fraud. Something he had said, a casual comment as they lay together, looking up at a viewscreen of an Earth torn by wars, polluted by poisons, and transforming into a planet of desert islands surrounded by warm and lifeless seas, had broken the spell he had on her, something about even a wizard as powerful as himself being unable to change the course of human events and an Eorthe gone mad. At that moment she had realized it wasn’t Arthur who had enchanted her but someone else from that tima… Merlin.
by submission | Feb 19, 2017 | Story |
Author : Chris Lee Jones
My twenty-first birthday, and I’ve got him a gift he can’t refuse.
He’s older than me and I know that bothers him. He hasn’t expressed as much in words, of course; he’s not that kind of guy. But he’s my kind of guy.
“Wait a few minutes,” I chirp, “I’m getting dressed.”
I’m putting on the blue dress that he likes, the one I wore on the eve of my graduation, the one that swept him away.
Three months we’ve been going out, and I can tell he’s the one. I mean, a girl just knows, doesn’t she?
“Hurry up!” he chirps back, and I’ve got a fix on him now; he’s just two blocks away, heading towards my apartment on his sweeper.
I make sure I’ve got his gift in my hand when I open the door.
“Surprise!” he says, giving me a cheeky up and down, holding his sweeper aloft like a prize kill. “It’s even faster than mine – I clocked up ninety on the McGovern road, and it didn’t even wobble.”
I don’t know what to say. A new sweeper – it must have cost him a fortune.
“Thank you will do,” he says, chirping a big smiley which fills my entire field. “And what’s this you were saying about a gift for me?”
I wait until he collapses into the sofa before I show him the ticket.
“This is it?” he says, eyes closed, scanning the words.
I was hoping for a more immediate reaction. Surely he recognizes the logo?
“Futurebreaks?” he says at last. “I don’t understand…why would we?”
I sit down beside him, snuggling up. “It’s not for us, silly, it’s for you. You’ll only be gone a few months, and when you return, I’ll be…”
I can tell by his eyes, the way they’re flickering and scanning, that he’s free-searching. I give him a few seconds, let him do the calculations himself.
“A three month round trip at a hundred gamma? Louise, you’ll be nearly fifty…”
“Exactly! The same age as you. Won’t that be fantastic? And before you ask, I want to make you a promise…”
He looks concerned, confused.
“OK, I’ll spell it out. I love you, and I want you to know that there won’t be anybody else. For all the time I’m gone.”
And I mean it. I’ll miss him like mad, but I can throw myself into my career. Twenty eight years is a long time – I might even make professor.
A sadness has come over him, a sadness that I don’t understand. He’s told me that he’s got no close family to speak of, and that he’s nearing the end of his earning phase. Now is the perfect time. So what’s bugging him?
I try to think of something to lighten his thoughts. “By the time you get back, I’ll be a whizz on this sweeper…”
“No, Louise. I can’t do this. I mean, fifty…”
There are tears in his eyes as he gets up and leaves.
I try to chirp him a lover’s heart, but his core has blocked me out.
by submission | Feb 18, 2017 | Story |
Author : Beck Dacus
I knew she was weird well before I talked to her. Why? Simple: she tripped.
Nobody walked around without Antrips. These little computers in motors on your knees can predict when you’re unbalanced, and the braces connected to them around your upper and lower legs come into action to stop it. Saves you a ton of embarrassment. Unless you’re Demila.
She was walking to class when she tripped over her shoelace, and she tumbled. Nobody expected that. They had never learned that you’re supposed to help someone get up and pick up their stuff when they fall down, but even if they had, they’d be too confused to remember. So she rose and collected her things on her own, and once everyone snapped out of their trance, they did her the best service they could. They walked away, pretending like it never happened.
I couldn’t do that. I asked her why she didn’t wear them.
“You want me to show you? If you’ve got a car, you can come over to my house after school and see.”
*Gulp.* A girl was inviting me over! Of course teenage, hormone-driven me said yes. So after my last class let out, I jumped in my car, called my parents to tell them where I was going, and almost got a ticket getting to her house.
Once there, she led me into her garage and showed me her setup. It consisted of a big rubber mat, a table with an old-fashioned stereo on it, and these exercise clothes she wore that made me sweaty. When she turned on the music, it came together in my mind. She was one of those kids who loved old stuff. Old songs. Old mats. No Antrips. I could’ve left then with my question seemingly answered, but that’s not how fate ordained it.
“Wanna try?” she asked.
What was I gonna say? “No, bye”? I took her outstretched hand, and she showed me the moves.
Once I learned the basic steps, she told me to try them in tune. I figured it’d be pretty easy– it was a simple rhythm. But something unexpected happened. My Antrips never let me finish.
“Ugh!” I said on the third try. “Stupid things think I’m gonna fall.”
“Take ‘em off,” she said.
I didn’t think she was serious, so I said, “Doesn’t matter. I can just reprogram ‘em real quick–”
“No, Cameron,” she said. “Take ‘em off. Come on. That’s simpler.”
“What? B-but I’ll fall!”
She smiled and shook her head. “I swear you’ll never touch the ground.”
I wasn’t sure how she could promise that, but she had complete power over me. I did what I only usually do when I go to bed at night: I slid off my Antrips. Away from their protective cling, I felt like a newborn fawn. I could barely walk, much less dance, I thought. But the look in Demila’s eyes made me try.
I did a couple of the steps, and stumbled over the last one. Without my Antrips on, I went toward the ground like a brick. But Demila caught me.
“What’d I tell you?” she said, contagiously grinning. She told me to try again, and I obeyed.
In an hour, we were waltzing together. Then we tried out some less ancient songs, until my dad ordered me home over the phone. The next day, I didn’t wear my Antrips to school. Demila and I walked precariously around the halls, ever in danger of tripping and falling with no way to catch ourselves.
But so what? We could catch each other.
