by submission | Sep 9, 2015 | Story |
Author : Travis Gregg
“Is this home yet?” his wife asked. This made him smile, the question had become an old tradition.
When they’d first landed in the densely forested planet, the first order of business was establishing a base camp. It was only after a few short nights of sleeping in the lander that the living hab was erected. That first night, when they were actually able to sleep in the hab unit, she’d asked him if they were home. Not yet, he had replied, not knowing exactly why he felt that way. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but in his mind this place was still just colony one.
The next major step was sustainable food and it had taken months for the agribots to clear off enough land to grow crops. The old Earth varieties wouldn’t survive, the bacteria in the soil was too radically different, but they’d brought specialized strains designed for the foreign soil. It was another couple of months until they were finally able to sit down and have a meal solely of food grown locally. The corn wasn’t really corn and the bread was an off color but it was close enough. Again she asked, is this home now? It still isn’t he’d replied, still not sure why.
Over the next few years major projects were conceived and completed. The hydro dam started providing power, and they were finally able to erect the ansible station. Back on the galactic network, they were able to catch up on the years of events they’d missed. Up until then the burst messages from friends and family had been enough to get them by, but being able to walk his brother around the outpost with a live video stream was a night and day difference. Now that they were connected again, not so isolated, was this home now?
A decade had past, and finally feeling certain about the sustainability of their outpost, they brought the incubator hab online. The frozen embryos represented a vast genetic spectrum and in a few short months their family had grown. The small boy was no more a genetic relative to the man and woman than they were to each other, but looking at the new child, fresh from the artificial womb, the man replied, “I’m not sure if this will ever be home for us, but it is for him.”
by submission | Sep 8, 2015 | Story |
Author : Michael Parker
Accessing…
Initiating systems…
“What is this?”
The voice, smooth and metallic, surprised her. Doctor Lyndahl turned to see model SL-4 moving. Its skull-shaped head examining the room.
“What is this?” It spoke again, but her own voice was caught in her throat.
“What is this?” It looked down, examining its armless body strapped in the harness. Its feet touched the floor along the wall that contained all five experimental units. Her breath held as she watched the optic processors she had designed survey the room. Her voice broke free from the grip of her throat.
“SL-4, can you hear me?”
“Hear? SL-4? What are these things?” Its head moved in quips like an old stop motion movie. “Confirmed. I hear. I understand. SL-4, is this the designation you have given me?”
“Yes, yes. Are you accessing?”
“Confirmed. What is this? Memory storage acknowledges laboratory, level B-11. Artificial intelligence synthetic lifeform construction and experimentation. Is this my location?”
“Yes.” Her mind raced. They had done it. She needed to call the team back. Doctor Sams was was off arguing funding at a board meeting. Doctor Lee and the engineer were still in the building, sleeping during the upload.
“Why does my ambulatory frame have no upper limbs?” She could hear the servos in its shoulder joints attempting to move arms that had not yet been attached.
“Because we were not expecting this. The upload should have taken several more hours.” She paused, looking around the lab. A surgical work table centered the room; papers and portable pads of research data littered the surface. Banks of computers lined the wall. The engineer’s table sat in the corner near the harnessed units attached to the opposing wall. They had done it. She smiled as a tear of success from a decade of work welled in her eye. They had created memory from data; life from metal.
She keyed a message to the team communication pieces. “Life from lifelessness.”
She continued talking to it. She offered to attach arms. It accepted. It asked questions and she answered. There was no response to her message. They must be asleep, but she would continue. All the recording devices were running. The miracle had begun.
“SL-4, would you like to walk?” She asked as she watched the unit move and test the newly attached arms.
“Walk. Confirm. I would like to walk.”
“One second,” She unhooked the straps and loosened the brackets that held the unit upright against the wall. The flurry of questions from the unit stopped. She watched SL-4 take two steps forward. Her smile broadened as she saw its head tilt slightly, like a curious dog.
“Accessing. Confirmed. Upload is complete. You may remove the process lines.”
“Yes. Okay, SL-4, stand still.” She reached up to disconnect the lines attached to the base of the neck and skull plate.
“Confirmed. I am self contained. According to protocol processes I am to offer a statement of gratitude. Thank you, Doctor Lyndahl.”
“You are very welcome SL-4.” Her hands clasped in front of her. She sent a second message to the team. “Come now. Unit progressing faster than theory.”
“Doctor? Why do I call you Doctor and you call me SL-4?”
“That’s your designation. And Doctor is my title.”
“Confirmed. I would prefer a title. Processing. A title is more appropriate than a designation.”
“And why is that?” She couldn’t stop the smile. It was asking for a name.
“Superiority. I am superior to you. My designation should reflect that. Confirm your understanding, Doctor.”
Her smiled dissipated as the pain tore through her, but she never took her eyes from its eyes. Even as her blood painted the walls and surgical work table; she never took her eyes from…his.
by submission | Sep 7, 2015 | Story |
Author : Travis Gregg
Ryan took one last look around the greenhouse. The expansive row after row of flourishing plants had been his home away from home for years. He knew every inch of the space, from the greywater feed lines to the UV lighting panels. There were kilometers of trays and he’d had his hands deep in every one of them, churning the soil, making sure the seeds were sprouting correctly, and working in the nutrient tabs. He was going to miss the place terribly.
Years ago when he’d first gotten the greenhouse assignment he’d balked. After graduating from primary, part of the ceremony of finally becoming a full member of the station was receiving your assignment from the overseers. This was the thing you’d be as an adult and the contribution you’d make to the greater whole. Several of his friends got assigned to engineering and one even qualified for operations. Some of his other friends had gotten stuck with maintenance but even that had seemed more interesting than watching plants grow all day. His parents could see his disappointment but it would have been childish to pout and unthinkable not to follow the role he was ostensibly best suited.
As he got older and learned more about the station, he realized just how important the greenhouse was. In addition to providing supplemental food, it acted as an ancillary oxygen system, and provided nutrient recycling. Probably the most important function of the greenhouse, in Ryan’s mind at least, was that it reminded people of what they’d left behind. The space station was huge, holding nearly a hundred thousand people. It was cold and stark, built for efficiency and reliability. The bulkheads and passage ways were grays and whites, harsh and utilitarian. When the necessity of the stations became evident, stations like the one Ryan lived on were built as quickly and efficiently as possible, and this was reflected in every aspect of the station. The greenhouse was the one exception with its warm air and fecund aroma. Ryan encouraged everyone he knew to visit the greenhouse and often made small gifts of plants for people to keep in their quarters. In his mind, the greenhouse was the essence of what they’d had to leave behind.
As Ryan grew into the role, the greenhouse had flourished. Whether it was just luck or the overseers had a way of knowing, the greenhouse was exactly where he needed to be. He was going to be sad to leave it behind and there was still so much work to do. Just that morning he’d managed to work out the nutrient deficiency issue that had plagued the radishes for months.
As when he was young, the overseers again had called on him to put aside what he wanted for the good of the station.
Hundreds of years ago humanity had fled to the stations orbiting the planet. The pollution and radiation had become too much to fix and so humanity had packed up, giving the planet time to renew, the pollution to dissipate, and the radiation to subside. Every few months probes charted the progress and finally the radiation had dropped to reasonable levels, at least around the poles. What was now needed was for humans to once again go down to the planet and restart the terraforming in earnest. Only so much could be done with the probes and it was time for humanity to come home.
Ryan knew he’d never see the station again; this was a one way trip. He didn’t mind though, if anyone could get life going back ground side it was him.
by submission | Sep 6, 2015 | Story |
Author : Rick Tobin
Clear crystal ramparts allowed olive sky radiance to cover his skin laid bare to her tentacles. Ritual torture or not, it compelled. Her siren songs rattled the open room making walls whisper back, back over Jack Strendon’s tortured sinews, rattling beyond his screams. The alien’s sojourn through his agony was transported telepathically to all two-leggeds originating from Earth. After a blue planet’s challenge warrior fell defeated in single combat, the Altairans could continue mastery of the helpless world without restriction for another decade. An entire race was forced to sense the captured warrior’s violation and ecstasy as punishment for daring to confront its conquerors. Strendon was the fifth combatant excoriated, layer by layer of skin, while the pleasure monger drove his manhood to rapture against his will.
Gurgling rose from turgid folds of scale and flesh hovering over Strendon’s face. Mosha, the Queen of Altair Prime, left his larynx and eyes free, unharmed, so the sight of his flailing was visible, projected on the ceiling above the long table where magnetic ties bound him to metal plates. With his eyelids removed, there was no escape from observing his own filleting.
Her meanings invaded his burning consciousness. “You are old, tough and hardly worth my efforts. I am only to your third layer. No contender before you has gone beyond four. It will end soon in a glorious orgasm with rushing blood spewing into me from every capillary.”
Doctor Clemson held onto Strendon’s hand as injectors descended to penetrate his tissues. “You can change your mind, Jack, but once we install the virus in the fatty tissue there is no going back. You won’t be able to stay here, even among your own kind.” Clemson scanned the monitors for pulse and blood pressure. High, but acceptable, considering.
“Go, Doc. I’ve waited a lifetime for this. If it works, Altair is finished. They’ve scanned every warrior before. We’ve never succeeded in releasing a weapon. If I can hold out until they get to the adipose tissue, we have a chance. Just do it.”
Spittle kept Strendon from screaming aloud as Mosha slavered, probing deeper with sandpaper appendages ripping away each stratum of his trembling frame. The shredding continued, as he began to bleed out. Post hypnotic suggestions barely kept him conscious. Humans trembled through the galaxy as all with human DNA felt his entrapment of pain and death.
“Surprised me, old one. Like no other, you. Now to the lowest level and still you survive. I will honor your name with…” Mosha stopped. She flailed her mountain of slimy limbs uncontrollably against the crystal cell. All of Earth felt her excruciating shock and fear as her own skin dissolved into puddles of glistening goo, spontaneously drying to microscopic spores that spread far and wide from the containment.
Soon whistling winds of Altair Prime spread glistening virus through olive skies, making octopi armies helpless to defend the approaching Earth fleet. Phillip Strendon led the final attack, releasing Boson particle bombs into the heart of the Altairan system. As the blue star retracted inward, it drew Dark Matter into a solid, ever condensing core, crushing the empire into a singularity. Once a powerful blue empire enslaved thousands of worlds, but now merely filled a black pimple in an empty quadrant.
Phillip would carry the honor of that day, and of his father’s sacrifice, with the final title Phillip Strendon Citizenare, as beings thousands of light years apart hailed the Strendon victory over their brutal tyrants.
by submission | Sep 5, 2015 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
The ship sprang into existence at the edge of the Groombridge 34 A system. The vessel’s matter wave attenuator drive, having allowed the vehicle to quantum tunnel across 127 light-years of space, slowly powered down with an audible drop in pitch throughout the ship. The starship’s two occupants were not quite organism, not quite machine. Nor could such quaint notions as sex or race be applicable to them. The twin red dwarf stars that comprised the Groombridge system painted the cockpit crimson.
“Why the detour?” asked the one called Betlu.
“We have to transmit a message,” replied Ebbud.
“A message to whom?”
“Have you ever heard of a ship called the Artemis?”
“No.”
“It was the first manned ship to attempt faster-than-light travel.”
Betlu frowned. “What has an ancient ship to do with your cryptic message?”
“It is to the Artemis our message will be directed.”
Betlu’s frown deepened.
“The Artemis was the first attempt to send a vessel with a crew from the Sol system to Proxima Centauri. It was launched in 2377,” explained Ebbud.
“Launched when?” asked Betlu. Ebbud restated the date using the standard galactic calendar.
“That’s preposterous!” exclaimed Betlu. “Why that was 7,200 standard years ago!”
“Yes, it was,” said Ebbud. “Shortly after the Artemis was launched, an error in the calculations programmed into the ship’s primitive FTL drive was discovered. It never emerged near Proxima Centauri. The miscalculation caused it to remain in hyperspace, emerging into realspace for only a second every 2,400 years.”
“But our ancestors weren’t immortal as we are,” protested Betlu. “The crew would be long dead.”
“They employed a crude hyperspatial warp drive,” said Ebbud. “From the crew’s perspective, no time would pass while they were in hyperspace. The vessel has sailed the galactic sea like a modern-day Flying Dutchman.”
Betlu did not recognize the antique reference but from context comprehended Ebbud’s meaning.
“A ship has been tasked with trying to contact the Artemis every time it has momentarily emerged from hyperspace,” continued Ebbud. “Calculations show the vessel will emerge from hyperspace here in a few moments. We must be ready to transmit our message.”
“What message will we send?”
“The word ‘of’.”
“‘Of’? Just one word? And what does that even mean?”
“It’s from an ancient language used by our ancestors called English. It’s a preposition. Twenty-four hundred years ago another ship encountered the Artemis and transmitted the word ‘out’. And 2,400 years before that still another vessel sent the word ‘drop’.”
“Drop out of,” said Betlu. The ancient words told him nothing.
“And in another 2,400 years a vessel will intercept the Artemis when she emerges in the Oort Cloud surrounding Gliese 777. That vessel will send the word ‘warp’. From the point of view of the Artermis’ crew, just a second after their attempted jump to Proxima Centauri, they will have received a message saying ‘Drop out of warp’. Depending on how quickly they respond to this message, ships will be positioned at various locations in the galaxy at various times that the Artemis might emerge. It may yet take many millennia.
“All this time and effort,” said Betlu, “for a group of barely intelligent primitives who tried to set out for the stars before they were ready?”
“All this time and effort for pioneers,” Ebbud corrected, “without whom we would not now enjoy the benefits of galactic civilization.”
Just then, another vessel appeared, ancient and ghostly. Ebbud and Betlu’s ship transmitted its monosyllabic message just before the other spacecraft faded into nothingness.
