by submission | Sep 27, 2013 | Story |
Author : Carl Poffley
“Nothing.” grumbled Amado irritably. “Absolutely nothing!”
“Why does that annoy you?” Kia replied, fiddling with the instruments.
“We came all the way out here to a planet that’s unbelievably similar to Earth and not a single sign of intelligent life! Just some dumb animals and trees! Lots and lots of trees!”
“Well the trees are interesting aren’t they?”
Amado looked at the tree, the one that had been dubbed “Specimen G-42371”. It was a strange shape, like some strangely formed pot, and the top was crowned with a messy cluster of branches with leaves of various colours and shapes. At first it had been novel: a real life alien tree! But there were hundreds, thousands of them for miles around, clumped together so tightly that it was practically all he had seen since they had arrived on the planet.
“They look different, yes, but they’re still just *trees*, Kia!”
“Their root networks can go on for miles, linking hundreds of thousands of them together and we have absolutely no idea why. Doesn’t that excite you at all? Like, not even a little bit?” she checked the equipment and frowned. “Y’know, it’s weird: our instruments are picking up complex chemical processes where the roots intertwine, but there’s no rhyme or reason to them. Just seems completely random…”
“Probably just anomalies caused by equipment malfunctions. Most likely boredom induced malfunctions because they’re as sick of these trees as I am!”
Kia looked at him quizzically. “Boredom? We’re on a whole new world and you’re *bored*? Seriously? I’ll be honest, you’re not really acting much like a man of science. Where’s your scientific curiosity Dr. Kalawakan?”
Amado paused for a moment, then sighed. “It’s just… I just… I spent my entire life dreaming of meeting aliens. Intelligent aliens I mean. I can remember when I was child, and the sheer excitement I felt when we learned that, against all odds, this planet had all the criteria for life. The whole reason I went into science was to head here and find new alien cultures and civilisations! You wouldn’t believe the amount of hoops I had to jump through in order to get onto this mission, and now that we’re finally here… there’s nothing! I just… I feel like… like I’ve wasted my life on some stupid impossible dream…”
“*That’s* what this is about?”
Kia felt herself begin to laugh, but suddenly noticed that Amado looked like he was going to cry. “Hey, don’t worry about it.” she said warmly. “I mean, just because this planet doesn’t have any intelligent life, doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re alone in the universe right?”
“Yes but… It’s just…”
“Don’t worry about it. Come on, let’s head back to base camp. Get something to eat.”
Slowly, the science team began to head back, leaving the trees alone. Specimen G-42371 stood still, its leaves rustling in the evening breeze. Beneath the ground, its roots began to release a series of chemicals into those of the trees surrounding it, so subtle that each one lasted less than a moment, yet so intricate that it took several hours before the whole sequence had emerged. When it was finished, those trees that had received it began to transmit it to the trees *their* roots were in contact with, and so it went on for miles and miles across the planet’s surface, passing from root to root, from tree to tree…
They would later consider it one of the greatest poems in history.
by submission | Sep 26, 2013 | Story |
Author : Morrow Brady
The Norwellians were the eighth interstellar race to join the Galactic Cabinet. A millennia of experience had refined their intelligence and powers of diplomacy orders above all others.
And so, an unprecedented era of peace reigned across the stars.
The Cabinet’s reliance on the Norwellians was emphasised during the Phase – a short period every year, when the Norwellians would take leave from all duties and return to their home planet. The Phase was explained as a time for reflection, where they must not be disturbed.
Immediately following their departure for the Phase, an attack commenced on the Seethe home planet of Jerrin by a race called the Lins. It was timed perfectly to maximise the duration of damage through the Phase.
The Cabinet failed to resolve the conflict and watched in despair as Jerrin’s lush green surface became bruised and torn. In desperation, they reached out and demanded the Norwellians perform their Cabinet duties. The reaction was unexpected.
Like dragonflies over a pond, Lin battleships hovered over Jerrin. Warping beside each battleship appeared Kray stars, devices long outlawed by the Cabinet. Instantly each battleship folded inward, forming a white hot sphere. Each sphere then accelerated away from Jerrin towards the Lin home planet of Hy. Nearing the speed of light, they impacted, pushing the planet’s core to its surface. Lin became unmade.
Across galactic space, a silent assassin pulse decelled the biology of every remaining Lin.
The esteem held for the Norwellian’s, gave weight to their response. However, this was not enough to silence the roar of the public voice that demanded reasoning.
The Norwellians remained silent.
Patiently, the Cabinet waited for Phase End. Too fearful to disturb the Norwellians again. Too self conscious of their own inability to understand.
At the end of the Phase, a cruiser launched from the Norwellian home world and arrived carrying a sole passenger, the Norwellian Chief.
Through live galactic cast, the Norwellian Chief stood as expressionless as the stone plinth below him.
“Cabinet members and universal life. We are a proud and peaceful race. Our position within the Cabinet has given us a stage to share our knowledge of harmony and good will. For this we are grateful”
The chief slowly bowed his head and an expression of discomfort appeared across his long face.
“As a Norwellian, we, like all races, have genetic frailties. Biological coding so intertwined with the essence of our making that it cannot be separated. Our pride shrouded this weakness and now you hear the truth”
The chief rested a shaking hand on the stone rostrum.
“The time known to you as the Phase, is not a time for reflection. It is a time where we mentally regress to a primitive and instinctual state. A being so adverse to what you have come to know, that we must lock ourselves away for fear of its escape”
He looked upward and gazed momentarily, drawing in a deep breath.
“During our last Phase, you sought help from a different Norwellian. A dark Norwellian, bound in fear and hatred with no means of expressing that terror. Our action against the Lin was a violent release. A natural expulsion of hate, expressed using weaponry we have tried to forget. In reprising our Cabinet role, we have determined the only solution for this unforgivable act is this”
The Chief pulls his hand from his robe and discharges a hand weapon into his mouth, collapsing lifeless on the podium.
The audience screamed in silence. The tension interrupted moments later by a projected image of the Norwellian home planet exploding.
by submission | Sep 24, 2013 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
TRANSCRIPT OF THE FIRST OFFICIAL MEETING BETWEEN UNITED NATIONS SPACE AMBASSADOR JEFFREY CHATMAN AND AMBASSADOR VELDRIK-ORAN OF THE IMPERIUM OF ZETA RETICULI.
UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS, NEW YORK, 15 JANUARY 2086
CHATMAN: On behalf of the peoples of Earth, it is an honor and a pleasure to meet you.
TRANSLATION ROBOT: Your greeting cannot be literally translated into your counterpart’s language. But I will try to convey the basic sentiment.
[ROBOT speaks to VELDRIK-ORAN in an alien language. The Zeta Reticuli ambassador responds.]
TRANSLATION ROBOT: Today, the people of Zeta Reticuli and the people of Earth are like prisoners in the same detention camp.
CHATMAN: What?
TRANSLATION ROBOT: That’s the closest translation possible in English. The connotation is that your people and the ambassador’s share a strong bond of friendship.
CHATMAN: Oh. I am confident that both our worlds will benefit from the foundation we build here today.
[TRANSLATION ROBOT and VELDRIK-ORAN converse.]
TRANSLATION ROBOT: Our feet are all stuck in cement.
CHATMAN: I beg your pardon?
TRANSLATION ROBOT: The ambassador shares your hopes.
CHATMAN: Oh. Humanity looks forward to learning about your people and their culture and history.
TRANSLATION ROBOT: My bank account is overdrawn.
CHATMAN: Huh?
TRANSLATION ROBOT: By this he means he lacks the means to express how hopeful he is of a cultural interchange.
CHATMAN: Ah. Would you be willing to join me in a press conference later and allow our journalists to ask you a few questions?
TRANSLATION ROBOT: The service at this restaurant is horrid.
CHATMAN: What?!
TRANSLATION ROBOT: The ambassador will attend your press conference. His expression implies that if one wants something done, one must do it for one’s self. In other words, he is willing to do this.
CHATMAN: Are you sure our conversation is being properly translated?
TRANSLATION ROBOT: Sir, both you and the Zeta Reticuli ambassador have radically different biologies, cultures, and histories. Translation under such circumstances is an art, not a science. I am trying to balance communicating what each of you is literally saying with rendering the translation linguistically and culturally comprehensible. Just a moment…
The ambassador says you must have gotten your clothes at a fire sale.
CHATMAN: I beg your pardon! This suit was a gift from my wife.
TRANSLATION ROBOT: Human beings are like a rash the doctor cannot treat.
CHATMAN: This is ridiculous. We need a different translator.
TRANSLATION ROBOT: I assure you, Mr. Ambassador, the conversation is being rendered as precisely as possible within the cultural and linguistic limits.
CHATMAN: Alright. Ask the ambassador if his people have encountered other intelligent life in the cosmos.
TRANSLATION ROBOT: Ambassador Chatman, I couldn’t ask that! Ambassador Veldrik-Oran would almost certainly interpret such a question as a lewd double entendre.
CHATMAN: That’s it! I’ve had it! I can’t do my job under these circumstances. Tell Veldrik-Oran he can take his diplomatic mission and stick it where the sun don’t shine.
[TRANSLATION ROBOT and VELDRIK-ORAN converse. VELDRIK-ORAN gets out of chair, walks over to CHATMAN and gives him a warm embrace.]
TRANSLATION ROBOT: That was very well received, Ambassador Chatman. Just a moment…
Ambassador Veldrik-Oran says…the light’s been green for ten seconds, for the love of God hit the gas pedal!
CHATMAN: What the hell does that mean?
TRANSLATION ROBOT: He wants to establish a warp gate in orbit around your world so the people of Earth and the people of Zeta Reticuli can visit each more easily. Congratulations, Ambassador Chatman! Your diplomatic mission is a complete success.
END TRANSCRIPT
by submission | Sep 21, 2013 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
“The Path Not Taken”
Author: Quintus Caecilius Cordus
Rigel Kentaurus Press, MMDCCLXVI AUC
Reviewed by Domitius Felix Andronicus
Mars Literary Review, Amazonis Planitia
Quintus Caecilius Cordus’ latest book may raise an eyebrow with readers expecting the grand old historian of Rigel Kent to gratify us with another “The Punic Wars Re-Examined” or “The Discovery of New Europa”. In “The Path Not Taken,” Cordus reimagines rather than relates the history of the Empire and thence extrapolates an odd and unfamiliar world both fascinating and frightening.
Cordus begins in the year when Vetus and Nerullinus were consuls (modern calendar: DCCCIII AUC) with the advent of the aeolipile steam engine by Hero of Alexandria. But in the historian’s alternate past, the Greek engineer and mathematician becomes not the father of the Industrial Revolution, but merely a comparatively obscure inventor, both the man and his machine relegated to historical footnotes. It is here that Cordus imagines history diverging into a bizarre parallel world where steam power would remain an undeveloped art for nearly MM years.
The chapters that follow this introduction reveal a strangely static world in which technology advances with agonizing slowness. The Germanic Wars, to take a single example, continue unabated for centuries, leading ultimately to the Empire’s collapse. With frequently poetic prose, Cordus describes a nightmarish world of war without end fought with weapons unchanged from the pre-industrial era. No steam tanks roll across Thrace during the Battle of Philippopolis to defeat the Goths. No airships drop bombs to end the Siege of Mainz. And, needless to say, there is no atom bombing of Germania resulting in the surrender of the Germani and their assimilation into the Empire.
Cordus envisions a millennium-long dark age in Europa after the Empire’s fall with the center of civilization shifting to the south and east. He speculates about a great monotheistic empire originating in the Arabian Peninsula holding sway over much of Asia and extending in Europa as well. But at last, the author postulates Europa waking from her thousand year intellectual slumber as various polities rediscover the heritage of Classical Antiquity. It is this hodgepodge of nation-states, not a unified Roman Empire, that discover and then conquer New Europa.
Somewhat amusingly, Cordus pictures Britannia ultimately rising to Great Power status and even has the island creating a globe-girdling empire of its own as Hero’s steam engine is finally reinvented after MDCC years. This is one of a number of flights of fancy in the book that will undoubtedly prove controversial. This hypothetical Britannic Empire itself is eventually superseded by a New Europan successor state.
Perhaps the oddest speculation in which Cordus indulges is the rise of an obscure messianic sect of Judaism eclipsing the gods of the traditional pantheon with a distinct monotheistic faith. He takes this conjecture to rather ridiculous lengths, going so far as to develop an alternative calendrical system based on the birth of the Jewish Savior. More curious still, he renders these alternative dates parenthetically next to the conventional years using Arabic numerals. Thus, Christophorus Columbus lands in New Europa (rather than, as he actually did, on the surface of Mars) in MMCCXLV AUC (1492). The current year is written equally incomprehensibly as “2013”.
This book will doubtless divide Cordus’ readership with some applauding the historian’s fertile imagination while others long for an examination of the Caesars or a treatise on the Empire’s early interstellar expansion. “The Path Not Taken” is available for quantum entanglement download throughout the Empire via the Imperial Hypernet.
Mars Literary Review. Copyright MMDCCLXVI AUC.
by submission | Sep 19, 2013 | Story |
Author : Glen Luke Flanagan
Pain tugged at the edge of my consciousness like a forgotten memory, bringing with it a collage of broken images and angry words. Without warning, sterile walls hemmed me in, and voices washed over me like a sea of panic, none of them intelligible.
“John.” One voice forced its way through the clamor, pulling me back to reality. “John, snap out of it.” I was daydreaming again.
Kaylee was looking at me intently, worry plain in her big brown eyes. “That’s the third time today,” she said. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
I shook my head yes. “I’ve had these for a while. They come and go.” I couldn’t tell her I had only begun daydreaming since I met her, or that each time it happened I found it harder to focus and remember.
She hesitated, then smiled. “Okay, if you’re sure. Let’s get you home and out of the sun. I think I’ve had enough of the beach for one day.”
In the car, I watched as she carefully navigated the ins and outs of our little seaside town. I loved the way her brow furrowed slightly in concentration, the way her fingers lay languidly on the steering wheel. We had been dating for almost nine months now, but sometimes it seemed like I had just met her yesterday.
She caught my eye and blushed. “It ain’t polite to stare at a girl like that, Mr. Finnegan.”
I grinned and planted a kiss on her cheek. “Can’t help myself sometimes, little lady. I think it’s love at first sight every time I lay eyes on you.”
She laughed and punched my shoulder gently as we turned into the driveway. “Such a charmer. You say that to all the girls you take home?”
“Only you,” I promised, kissing her again. “Now, how about I throw our beach gear in the garage and we go to bed early?”
Cold metal bit into my side, and the panicked buzz of voices grew louder. A face hovered over mine, and gloved fingertips pried apart my eyelids, but there was no feeling. The face said words, and this time I understood a few.
“Hallucinogenic parasite.” The meaning evaded me, but I could make out the sounds. “Burrowed deep. Deadly if we can’t help him shake it off.” Then I was back in my own bathroom, sweating profusely and clutching the sink with a death grip for support. Kaylee’s voice came through the door, muffled but plainly worried.
“Baby, you alright in there?”
I sucked in a breath and looked in the mirror, wincing at my pallid, feverish reflection. “Yeah, I’m good,” I lied. “Be there in a sec.” Then the world went dark, and the walls closed around me once more.
“Not looking good,” the face murmured in a voice that sounded like angry bees. “Whatever it’s feeding him, he likes too much to let it go.” The words were starting to make sense now, and I fought against it. I didn’t like what I was hearing. Have to get back to Kaylee, I told myself. Focus on Kaylee.
The bathroom slowly came back into focus. I turned on the faucet, splashed my face. In the bedroom, she was waiting, reading. She glanced up and patted the spot beside her. I slipped under the sheet and pulled her close, looking into her eyes.
“Sometimes it feels like I just met you yesterday,” I whispered. “But I’m never going to leave you.”
