by submission | Jan 18, 2013 | Story |
Author : Daniel M. Bensen
“Ta zemya.” The lookout cried from the crow’s-nest like a muezzin. “Ta zemya~a! Kapitane, eto ya~a.”
Hristo Galabov gripped the plastic gunwale of his ship and squinted over the heaving Atlantic. “Ta zemya,” the sailor said. Land. The last time, Hristo had leapt with joy at that cry. Now he only closed his eyes and gave a brief prayer to Ta Melarva Miriya. “Thank you. Thank you, Mother of God, for bringing us home. Some of us.”
Hristo stared out at the ocean until even he could see Africa bulking green and fertile on the horizon.
“Kapitane, you seem troubled.”
That was the voice of father Mehmet, with his beard and klobuk and crucifix.
“I am troubled, ebre,” said Hristo.
The priest stood beside him. “You are thinking about what to tell them in Gibraltar Palace.”
“I am thinking about what not to tell them.” Hristo rubbed his thumb against the place where his right pointer finger had been.
“Of course you must tell them the truth, ebane.”
“What truth? That we rediscovered Lost America? Or that it is more Lost than we ever guessed?”
“There are many ways to be Lost, and only one way to be Saved.”
Hristo snorted, “by which I take it you advocate going back to that blasted land and converting the heathen?” The Americans, Hristo meant, although they did not call themselves Americans.
“What else can I advocate?” Father Mahmet stroked his beard. “The truth is always best, ebane. But if we are to help those poor souls…perhaps the Glorious Princess does not need all the facts.”
“Such as the fact that Lost America was lost for a reason.” Hristo sighed, “and the old stories were lies.”
“They were stories, ebane, not lies.”
Hristo gestured at the sea, and his shoulder throbbed. “Streets of gold. Plains of fruit. Wise metal gods and maidens transformed into stars. I wish I could still believe.”
“Then believe, for we made those stories true by our faith and good work. The myth of Lost America was the rope we used to pull ourselves out of the darkness. And those still lost in that darkness…” Father Mehmet’s scarred hand went to the place where his left ear had been, “…Even they are children of God.”
So this was how the priest had made sense of the things they’d seen, convinced himself away from suicide. Hristo had wondered. “I am afraid the Princess has better ways to spend her money than to throw it at degenerate savages on the other side of the ocean.”
“So her advisors would surely say.”
And if they did, if the Princess withdrew her support, then Hristo could turn his thoughts to his own self-murder. Pain and broken promises, past sins and future redemption.
Hope, and in its absence, death.
“What was it the witch-doctor said?” Hristo asked, remembering the cannibal with his teeth filed and the lens-less glasses before his eyes.
“Go West,” said Father Mehmet.
“Go West,” the savage had said, blood on his lips, cold wind in his hair, “Lalaland, Kingdom of the Zombie God, the Gold Mountain.”
Hristo rapped his knuckles on the plastic hull of his ship and the ghosts of his eaten fingers ached. “I know what I will tell Her Majesty.”
“Yes?”
“I will say: ‘Our mission is a success. I will ask: ‘please furnish us with ships, that we may take the benefit of our civilization, our Holy Church to the new-old shores.’ I will say that we have rediscovered America,” Hristo Galabov nodded to himself. “And it is indeed a land of opportunity.'”
by submission | Jan 17, 2013 | Story |
Author : Meg Everingham
In the night Tom rolled over and opened his eyes. Through the dark like a ghost floated the low sound of his mother crying.
She had arrived home earlier, from the airport; she had stared past him like a blind person and disappeared into her bedroom.
Tom followed a light down the hallway. He found her bent into a chair in her office, lovely dark head in her hands, all sharp edges of grief. He stood in the doorway and whispered to her. She looked up and held her arms out to him, red eyes terrible. Tom moved to her obediently, in awe of her sadness.
She settled him on her knee and turned him, so they both faced her desk where she spent so much time working when she was home, away from the ocean. Lying on it was a photograph.
‘Look, Tom,’ his mother whispered, and she traced a finger along the blue lines of the image.
Tom recognized the picture of the humpback whale. He looked up to the empty space on the wall, where it usually hung alongside other luminous images of the deep.
‘The very last one died today,’ his mother said. ‘In a sanctuary up north, where I work.’
‘Why?’ Tom said. Her arms around his waist were hard, cold.
‘He was always going to,’ she replied, speaking into his hair. ‘But it was mainly because of people.’
She stopped working. She spent a lot of time curled on the floor of her study, hemmed in by the walls of photographs. She was silent and lost to the world. Deep underwater.
One morning, some men in suits knocked on the door, and asked Tom politely if they could see his mother. He showed them to her office, where they disappeared inside. Tom sat near the door, his cheek resting on the cold steel. There was the low murmur of questions and answers. They were there for several hours.
Soon after there came an afternoon when Tom got home from school, and his mother was gone. He searched the house, calling softly. He was hungry.
Something had happened in the office. Papers were littered across the room. Framed images from the walls lay crushed on the floor, fragments of afternoon sunlight caught in the splinters of glass. The chair was upside down.
Tom tried to ignore the cold feeling in his chest. He shut the office door and wandered around the house for a while before turning on the television.
She was on it.
Out the front of an important-looking building, the strange men in suits were holding her by the arms as she struggled like an animal. They were restraining her from a nearby knot of angry people, who were throwing objects at her and shrieking. They used the words monster, heartless, murderer.
Tom kept his stare on his mother’s face. Her hair was in her eyes. The camera zoomed drunkenly in on her as she said, over and over again, ‘He was lonely, he was lonely.’
Later that evening, Tom’s grandmother came and helped him pack his things into bags and boxes, and he went to stay with her.
by submission | Jan 15, 2013 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
The members of the Galactic Security Council watched on the viewscreen as the bipedal alien in its bulky, white spacesuit erected a rod with a rectangle of cloth into the regolith of its planet’s satellite. The starred and striped flag, the computer noted, represented the planet’s predominant nation-state. The council members exchanged concerned glances.
“Am I to understand,” asked the violet-colored gelatinous being representing the Upsilon Andromedae star system, “that this is the same species that just a few years ago had yet to discover electricity and employed animals for transportation?”
As soon as the Upsilon Andromedaen’s gutteral language was translated for the various other council members, an insect-like creature from the Mu Arae system responded. “That’s correct. These aliens went from agriculturalism to industrialism to the beginnings of interplanetary travel in the shortest span of time ever observed.” The insectoid’s antennae moved in a pattern indicating astonishment, the dance of the appendages stirred the green chlorine atmosphere inside the Mu Araen’s sealed chamber.
“But this is fantastic!” exclaimed an aquatic council member representing the Zeta Reticuli system, its carapace involuntarily opacifying due to the creature’s excitement. Somewhat embarrassed, the being quickly composed itself, returned its carapace to a more dignified translucency, and went on: “We must move to admit these — what are they called? ‘humans’? — into the Galactic Security Council. They’ll be a galactic power within a few centuries. Better to start grooming them into a decent and responsible galactic civilization now.”
“But look at their history!” said the cyborg council member from Psi Serpentis whose organic components consisted of plant tissue. “They recently developed nuclear fission and then adapted the technology into a weapon. Two cities on their planet were devastated by fission bombs.”
“They created nuclear weapons?” asked the Tau Ceti representative. No other intelligent species in the Milky Way had ever conceived of such a thing, let alone done it. The squid-like creature added, “They must be contained. Or, failing that…” He let the sentence trail off.
A silence fell over the chamber. What could be done with these humans? Brilliant, but savage. Enlightened, but violent. Not other civilization had ever demonstrated such a paradoxical combination.
“We could dumb them down,” came a voice across the translators. It was the oldest council member, a shapeless field of high energy plasma from the HE 1523-0901 star system, who had spoken.
“You mean, make them mindless primitives?” asked the Mu Araen.
“Nothing so gross,” responded the flickering particle field. “Just imagine if we used nanomachines introduced into their brains to subtly blunt the human intellect. For example, what if their politicians became gradually inept, their business leaders incompetent, their art and entertainment coarse and tawdry. Nothing dramatic at first, just a nudge here and there.”
The council members considered the suggestion. A silicate being from Beta Canum Venaticorum asked, “How would we know if such a plan worked?”
“Industry would deteriorate. Economies would stagnate. Over time, their governments would become increasingly inefficient and malignant. Culture would become vapid and moronic. Rational thinking and commonsense would be impaired. Human expansion into space, the odd robotic probe or tiny planetside space station aside, would stall,” replied the plasma being. “They wouldn’t expand out any further than their moon. It’s conceivable they might even lose that capability.”
Ultimately, the Galactic Security Council implemented the suggestion of the old plasmatic from HE 1523-0901. They monitored Earth’s television and radio signals. They soon learned they’d succeeded beyond their wildest expectations and that the galaxy was quite safe from mankind.
by submission | Jan 13, 2013 | Story |
Author : Katrina Johnston
Within the Caves of Lozac under jagged vaulted ceilings, Razie Tay ventures eastward. Explosions crack like gunshot. ‘Sharding’ echoes bounce. Razie adjusts her helmet, snugs it tightly. Razor stalactites loom high above and sharp. Mineral icicles cleave and report reverberations through the distant mother rock. Plunging daggers fall. Then, directly above her, a claw-like structure groans, detaches – rockets down. She ducks, hoping the helmet provides adequate deflection. Slivers of stone ricochet from her head, showering, falling before her face. If she is knocked cold here, death ensues. No rescue – none. She’s too far deep.
Globular udder-like formations encrust the walls. She pushes beyond rock portals, ignores the wet. She skitters over protruding remnants of razed stalagmites, chunks left-over after pulverization by the Steckman robotic grinder. Mineral-rich liquids bounce like hail. She scrapes by a dripping barricade, enters the saturated open space and stands to her Limited height, reaching inside the Royal Chamber.
“Best chance,” she says. “No one dares to gash this deep. I claim.”
Earlier, at crimson dawn, her overseer, the normal-sized Prasha Dah, had gathered his band of LImited for the morning’s instructions. He chanted as was custom. “The time of leniency is finished,” he sang in monotone. “Failure means you’re finished. Look, understand: Five craiguns by shift-side nigh. Obligation. I follow the Dealers and the Traders. If you fail, my little dollies, you will be traded to another hextant where you could better serve. Or, you could be ….” He stopped.
“Exterminated,” Razie said.” Silence brooded. No one sang.
Pasha stroked his long red beard and towered over them. He saluted to mark his finish. “Chom!” He said. “Back to work.” He slipped away.
A young neophyte, a Limited named Falia Dos, tapped Razie on the shoulder. “Well, what do you think of that old sola?” she said. “He’s Mr. tall and nasty. Spreads his chant like sooth.”
Razie shrugged away. ”Leave off! Don’t bother me.”
Inside the Royal Chamber, Razie stretches to her Limited height, one meter – the standard genetic modification for her kind – all she’s ever known. In here, she wishes she were normal-sized; the ceiling spreads thick and unreachable at the apex, presenting a forest of razors. “The craigun-clusters will prosper here,” she says. “Rife – a whole stone family.” Sulphuric gases roil. She gags, then spits.
A ‘Limited.’ She speaks again: “Owned and enslaved by the overseer. I’m forced to mine within the caves where the normal-sized won’t dare.”
She’s estimates the magnitude of her gash, lifting her oversized and freakishly strong hands. She assigns the standard grid, employs the methodology to locate the lumps of calcium carbonate known as craiguns that cluster like cancerous rock nodules amongst the sharpest stalactites. Inside each nodule, a rare gem – Kalide. Mysterious and not yet understood, Kalide is the reason for her presence. Gemstone or drug of choice? Elaborate debates ensue. Razie decides she doesn’t give a damn.
She locks her fingers onto a craigun and yanks it free.
by submission | Jan 12, 2013 | Story |
Author : Ray Daley
It’d been a great day in Red Zone. We’d been first to apply for passes since it was classified safe.
800 years is a long time. Even then, it was ‘droids doing the rad sweeps. Residuals had dropped below the safe limit so The Council lifted the blockade. When we reached the barricade, troopers were waiting to process those crazy enough to want to be first to enter Red Zone.
“Okay Citizens. You signed waivers so you know the risks. Laws of Salvage apply within Red Zone but everything returning through this checkpoint will be scrutinized. It will be manned until 23:59 when it will close until 06:00 tomorrow. Science Division highly advises not staying after dark.”
As the timer above the checkpoint rolled over to 06:00 the troopers opened the barrier and started checking the groups through.
Rule #1: You may only enter Red Zone in a group of two or more.
“Here’s your detector, Citizen.”
Rule #2: Rad detectors must be worn in plain sight at all times.
We walked the mile into the outskirts of the old city. The more cautious carried hand detectors which remained silent. I felt safe enough, my research had trawled up a few useful points from some of the oldest databases. Most thought the old dirty Nukes had been used in the Conflict. My findings said otherwise. Red Zones environs had been hit by what they used to call “Smart Bombs”, weapons that killed people but left buildings and infrastructure intact.
They had minimal fallout and the shortest half-life of any bomb. The danger had been gone for well over 700 years. Ignorance and fear kept Red Zone closed. That and propaganda.
We left the group, heading down a side alley off the main streets. We’d found a few maps so had some points of reference. Most of the people we left behind hung around for up to an hour. They were lookey-loos, just there to say they had been.
Some snagged small souvenirs, we were here for bigger game.
Just before noon when we found what we were looking for, the building clearly marked, its function carved into the stone facing. We knew we didn’t have long to gather much, the journey back to the checkpoint would take us as long to do and we didn’t want to be stuck in here overnight.
There was no specific target in here, everything was equally important. I filled my bag and started on a second when the voice behind me reminded me “We can only carry one bag each.” Jax, dependable and logical.
“Attention! Five minute warning!” I’d programmed the chrono as our only safeguard.
“Jax, time to go!” I called to him.
“I only half filled the bag!” he replied.
I threw him the second bag I’d started, hoping what he’d gathered plus my enthusiasm would equal the Salvage limit.
We were running now, back through Red Zone. No time to enjoy the beautiful old architecture. We ran hard for the first hour then had to slow to a fast walk, all the time keeping to the reverse of our outbound route.
Our headlamps lit the way through the last few dark blocks, the checkpoint visible in the distance. Another hard run to beat the clock.
The troopers scanned us, checking the bags. “At weight.”
We’d keep our booty.
“Open the bag”. Time to see if our risk had been worth it.
“Anything on the forbidden list? What are these?” asked the Trooper.
“Just books.” I said.
“Never heard of them. Salvage passed.” replied the Trooper.
Treasure. And more waiting.
