by submission | Dec 23, 2011 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson
The intelligence level of the Xzeckqi people was growing at an exponential rate. Just a few centuries prior they had been cooking over open fires and using stones to sharpen animal bones into spears. Now they were hunting with exploding projectiles and using electric ovens to prepare meals. And in the populous Jagxso region, a wide flattish land running nearly half the circumference of the tiny green world’s equator, there were wheeled carts moving by means of autonomous engines. All in all the Xzeckqi were proving to be quite inquisitive and inventive.
Their curiosity and thirst for learning had recently caused them to take up great interest in their planet’s geology. Prehistoric Xzeckqi had taken for granted the random and varying intricate formations of their world’s topography. Geometrically perfect shapes and angles littered the globe, all covered by the vibrant green of the thick ever-nourishing moss that grew from pole to pole. But the people knew that when digging down through the life-giving organism one found many different colors and strange materials. The moss was thought to feed directly on some of this mysterious layer that occupied the space between the biocrust and the ‘dock’ or dirt-and-rock layer whose great depth had yet to be determined.
Their curiosity of the middle layer went all the way back to the early development of tool making which was based on the study of some of the strange giant ‘stones’ found there. Early Xzeckqi people had studied the threaded lines on house-sized spiral formations and by copying them had developed one of the earliest simple machines — the screw. Of course the wheel had already been long invented by now, as giant wheels seemed to occur naturally nearly everywhere in their world, along with other wheel-based phenomena such as cogs, gears and pulleys, plus axles, levers, hinges, and countless other devices, waiting to be studied and then duplicated down to a manageable scale. Almost all modern technology now owed its existence to the excavation and copying of various formations found in the layer.
But the people wondered — how could natural formations be so perfect, with parts that looked as though they could still move with the precision of any modern machine or device. On they poured, searching for answers.
***
Meanwhile aboard the star freighter Constantine.
“Sergeant, why haven’t we stopped to dump our garbage? I want to get into warp before lunch!” The Captain rubbed his weary eyes and sipped his coffee. He could view the navscreen from where he stood well enough to see that the bright green dump planet, Tilpot IV, was below but falling away, yet the yellow lights on the custodial array glowed bright, showing the ship’s waste containers still quite full.
“Sorry Cap,” the young sergeant replied. “Collective orders. No more dumping on Tilpot IV until ecological survey performed. Don’t worry though. Jack’s Port, the big moon of Tilpot VII has been designated temporary dumping site until the survey is completed.”
The captain didn’t look impressed. “All the way out to the seventh planet at fuel-speed? I’d rather we drop back and do a little illegal dumping that aint gonna hurt a soul.”
Knowing fully that he could exercise his legal right at any time and place his superior under arrest based on Environmental Absolute 1.9 he decided to let his captain finish his coffee. “Like I said, don’t worry sir. I can get us up to .002 by fusing some of ‘hotter’ waste we have in container three. We’ll be there in no time. And besides…” He said sternly. “There might be something intelligent down there.”
by submission | Dec 20, 2011 | Story |
Author : Martin Berka
‘Ebra drifted down the hallway, the candle hanging by a string from her wrist. It gave no warmth, a blessing: even in the far-ship’s state of efficiency, ambient heat was plentiful. It barely gave light either, which was fine by the bearer, but since this was fading to nothing, she would have to get more, or be blind. By its weakening glow, she checked the last stasis pod in the corridor, and via the hub, moved to the sun-room. In ‘Ebra’s shaded mind, dull revulsion sparred with a rare excitement.
She pulled herself along through a sharply-angled, ever-narrowing maze of bulkheads and emergency shutoffs. The candle had served well, but it died now, leaving the watchkeeper in darkness. Fortunately, she now saw the light of the sun-room. Creeping along the wall, she turned on every filter in her goggles and made sure her block was holding up. Half-gripping, half-sliding along the wall, careful not to damage the ubiquitous solar collectors, she approached the single heavily filtered window to the outside world.
Tenebra peeked out at the world below, visible as the barest curve of the here-sun’s light, fleshed out by occasional flickers on the surface. Up close, those flickers would hold one’s attention for the rest of a short life: the here-planet was fierce, wild, as far as such living adjectives could apply to a body of nearly-molten rock, and made Venus seem tame, as far as such a domestic word could apply to the home-sun’s renowned probe-killer.
Yet from orbit, the here-planet’s dull, red inner glow was overshadowed by its horizon, so bright that ‘Ebra had already turned away, covering her eyes with one arm and using the other to propel herself backward, out of the sun-room. Despite her precautions, the after-image of the here-sun’s rays, searing light along a dark arc, filled her vision for a few dozen rapid heartbeats.
No one had told Tenebra exactly what went wrong with the far-flight; her darkness was the solitary sort that never sought attention, that never bothered brighter sparks. The far-ship was suddenly in need of fuel and repairs, using a twilight orbit around a death-planet to draw maximum energy from a bright-star, while avoiding radiation. The batteries were charging, the robots were on the here-planet, somehow staying ahead of attrition, and the far-seekers could be on their way in a few years, if enough energy could be harnessed. Almost boring, until they ran out of spare stasis pods.
Tenebra returned to deeper parts, the candle at its brightest in weeks. A few seconds of the here-sun’s light, even so greatly reduced, were always enough.
She thought back: she could have done the job without looking, without the sheer brightness. Even the home-star’s light had burned her too-bright skin, driving her to the dark of space. But she had risked the pain, now and every time before. Ideas were defined by their opposites, and darkness needed light to know itself. Now, back to the solitude of minimum power and light, sufficiency, watching over a ghost-ship. As others rested unconscious, to pass time, Tenebra also rested, having the time of her life, in darkness.
by submission | Dec 18, 2011 | Story |
Author : Max Cohen
A wind swept over the flat grey plain that night carrying with it a smell of nothingness. The wind continued whipping ever faster until as the sun rose it blew over a low stone wall and onto a field of deep green grass. It flowed over a man and a boy just waking from their nightly slumber before continuing on their way.
The boy shivered and pulled his threadbare blanket closer around himself trying to return to his sleep. But his father stood and brushed himself off before nudging the boy with his foot, “Come on Jonathan. We need to get this over with, then we go home.”
The boy, Jon to his friends, groaned but stood up next to his father.
“Now listen boy. You’re nearly a man grown now and you need to know about the outside world,” he gestured at the gray featureless plain, “That right there is because of us. We near destroyed ourselves and the world and nothing is going to bring it back. This right here,” he gestured to the deep green grass they stood on, “is the only safe place left. You step out there you die.”
Jon looked doubtfully out at the plain, “There’s nothing there dad. It doesn’t look dangerous at all,” he scoffed he was fifteen now and clearly his father and the rest of the adults were addled. Nothing can’t kill you.
“Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean the danger isn’t there,” he walked back to their bags and pulled out a small cage. Inside was a mouse. “Watch.”
The man walked over to the stone wall and stood staring out into the waste, seeing something that Jon couldn’t. With a shake of his head, he reached his arm out and gently set the cage as far from the wall as possible, pulling his hand quickly away as if afraid to be burnt.
Jon watched with an amused expression. This was pointless, nothing was going to happen to the mouse after all. For a few seconds the cage simply sat upon the ground but as Jon watched the cage started to come apart, to melt. The mouse leapt from the cage as is it broke apart turning grey even as it slid silently into the ground. The mouse began to run towards the wall but it quickly fell shaking to the ground, and Jon watched horrified as its skin began to run off. Its skin and then its muscles, blood, bones, and organs flowed together turning grey.
Perhaps a minute had passed but nothing remained except the vast plain.
“That’s why you can’t go out there son. Anything that touches that grey land just melts away,” he put a hand on Jon’s shoulder to reassure him.
“But… what happened?” Jon asked still staring at the spot where the mouse disappeared.
“A long time ago our ancestors tried to change the world. They made tiny people to help them. But the tiny people kept growing and multiplying. A grey wave washed over the world and changed it into this. But your great-great grandfather built this place for all the people, animals, and plants that survived. As long as this stone wall stands the grey goo can’t get us,” he pulled at Jonathan, “Now come on we’ve got a long walk ahead of us.”
As they walked away the wind blew on with nothing to stop it. Over the one tiny spec of green in an ocean of grey.
by submission | Dec 17, 2011 | Story |
Author : Ian Rennie
Dear Tony, Amanda, Vladimir, and Manami,
If I set this right, then this message has appeared just as you lost radio contact with Earth, alongside the real figures for how little fuel there actually is on your ship.
The first thing I want to do is apologize. You don’t deserve this. Nobody would deserve this. You deserve much more than an explanation, but an explanation is all I can give you.
Ultimately, this has come down to money. For decades NASA, ESA, and JAEA have been asked to do even more with even less, and as a result we’ve been forced to be a little more creative than we would have liked with our budget.
One of the largest costs of any Mars mission is the cost of bringing the ship back. All the way there, you have to lug the fuel to bring you all the way home again, meaning that the mass of the craft turns out to be more fuel than anything else. However we span it, a return trip to Mars costs exponentially more than a one way. We looked at sending the fuel first for you to collect when you got there, we looked at sending means of manufacturing the fuel for your return journey. Nothing worked. We could afford a one way but not a round trip.
We could have been open about it, recruited specifically for people who wouldn’t have objected to spending the rest of their life on the red planet. It would have been a bigger trip, but it would also have been a bargain rate for multiple years of data collection. This wasn’t possible politically. No elected representative would sign off on people going to Mars to die there.
So, we’re left with this, and I’m sorry. Your instruments have been lying to you the whole time, telling carefully constructed untruths, making sure you and everyone else believed you would be coming back.
You will be remembered, and honoured, and loved. The news will call this a noble sacrifice and they will be closer to the truth than they know. We’ll come back to Mars sooner, and in greater numbers, to honour the four brave souls who died on the takeoff of their return trip.
The countdown on the explosives should be nearing zero now.
Godspeed.
by submission | Dec 14, 2011 | Story |
Author : Drew Dunlap
The sun curls itself over the mountain, sneaking golden fingers gently over the hill and down into the valley to touch my arm. Like a lover waking another, the warm caress encourages me to rise while nudging me into the comfort of consciousness. Oh, the temptress does greet me so aptly. I open my eyes too quickly, only to have them close against the brightness of their own accord. Again I try, more gently, and enter slowly into the virgin day.
Still alone.
Awake now, I bask in the warmth of the sun. It is cleansing time, and I make my way to the lake with my belongings. The trip is short but allows me to breathe in the smells of morning. The fragrant tall grass and wild flowers nourish my soul.
As I sit down at the water’s edge, words and symbols flash through my mind. A deep intake of breath, and I am prepared.
The words of the gods pour from my mouth. Brilliant lights consume me. I feel life-force leave my fingertips as a green vortex forms in front of me. From it steps a humanoid creature of pure bone. I return its permanent smile as it stands slightly askew, awaiting my command. The earthlings call them skeletons. I shall call him Fydow.
“Guard my pack, Fydow.”
My companion steps forward, hunkering slightly over my pack. “Guarding with my life,” replies Fydow, its jaw bouncing like a puppet’s.
I strip at the water’s edge and bathe quickly, then sit for a moment on a warm rock. I love the sun. After many long, blissful moments, I dress.
A fisherwoman eyes me as I return up the path and eyes me suspiciously. When I smile politely, her face turns ashen. She increases her pace.
The sights and sounds of the day distract me and I wander, eventually finding myself in a field, far from my intended destination. “Out of my way, troll!” says a burly earthling farmer.
Troll is an earthling term for a mythical creature that lived under bridges, ate goats, and scared children. I have read many of their books. The insult is not lost on me.
He attempts to push me aside, but fails. His rudeness fills my heart with disappointment. “Me sorry,” I reply in his native tongue. So self-centered are these earthlings. He makes a sound with his throat and continues past me down the path.
I whistle to Fydow, who saunters over to me. His awkward gait reminds me that he is simply an automaton: a creation with no true soul. I know this for a fact, yet I continually repress the thought. We walk for hours.
My life is soft baked bread and frothy ale. It is warm sunrises and the desired touch of love. It is a lasting look into the soul of a lover’s dream. It is the rippling water’s edge, a deep breath, shared happiness, and a warm rock.
But to these earthlings I am merely a troll.
The city is still hours away as the day draws to a close. I drop my pack. The sun slips behind the far hill, a quiet goodbye to lonely me.
“Fydow, how do you feel?”
“I am at full health.”
I unfurl my bedroll.
“But how do you feel?”
“I am at full health.”
Slumping beside my companion, I play with a piece of grass growing through a split in a rock.
“Tell me how you feel.”
“I am at full health.”
I put my head in my large green hands to muffle the sounds of my loneliness.
