by submission | Jun 22, 2008 | Story
Author : Glenn Blakeslee
I was in the flight center when the first probe went out. The heavy lifter rose on the obligatory pillar of flame, tracked across the south sea, ejected its boosters, and achieved orbit.
I was still in the flight center when the probe left Earth orbit, bound for the outer planets. Damon was at the station next to mine, monitoring the telemetry for the coolant temperatures on the sunward side of the probe. Everything was nominal.
“Well, they’ve done it,” Damon said.
He was referring to the fact that this was the first of several probes designed and built completely by non-human systems. The agency that we worked for had developed, after two decades of work, a process in which machine intelligences developed subsystems, robot manufactories produced the system components from raw materials and assembled the spacecraft, and huge automated gantries delivered the payload, on the lifter, to the launch pad.
It was a boon to the rapid prototyping and delivery of inexpensive spacecraft. Redundancy made the whole deal relatively error-free, and as the intelligences always designed along similar lines, the cost was very low.
All we had to do, as humans, was to enter the basic parameters desired for the probe. In this case a single engineer sat at a terminal at the start of the process and typed in:
>search for life
#
Damon and I were in a bar in South Miami when the news came in.
He and I were both laid off, living on unemployment and free-lance telecom jobs in the greater Miami area. The launch systems and flight monitoring had been turned over to the machines, too, as the success of the machine-driven spacecraft development process had been proven.
The television over the bar displayed a single all-caps headline, “LIFE FOUND,” and Damon and I both watched the live, albeit delayed, feed from the successful probe.
The feed was high-definition and the detail was magnificent. On the screen was the sunlit limb of a planet, green-gold, the hazy shroud of the atmosphere thickening as it diminished toward the horizon. In the foreground was a chaotic scene: a large artificial satellite teeming with the rapid, frenzied activity of machines, their silver metallic carapaces glittering in the harsh sunlight.
“It’s the wrong damn kind of life,” Damon said.
by submission | Jun 21, 2008 | Story
Author : Summer Batton
“Oh look! They have grass ‘n water ’n little huts, too!” squealed the little girl as she ran to press her face against the glass and get a closer look.
“Milly, get back here!” demanded the Nurturer with a click of her tongue. “Don’t scare them. They won’t show themselves if you frighten them away.”
“Do you see ’em?” asked Milly, ignoring the command. Her eyes scoured the dimly lit grasslands that lay beyond the 2 inch glass wall. The glass seemed to slide into a stone slab on either side which formed into the tunnel through which all the tourist could pass by with their brochures and sticky treats to see the exhibit. The cage was illuminated by a greenish-blue light that gave Milly spots in her vision. A hand-painted sign to the right read: “Feeding Times: ⅜ Ω, ⅞ Ω, and ⅝ Ω”
“Nothing visible yet,” said the Nurturer. She turned to a lengthy paragraph in her brochure scouring it. “It says here that they are shy creatures that don’t like excitement…easily scared…and mostly inactive, even during the height of the outer lights.”
“Do they even let ’em out to see the outer lights?” Milly asked as she pushed harder against the glass and gazed up at the stone ceiling which appeared to be all part of the same walls, floor, and background.
“I don’t imagine they care about the outer lights. I’ve heard they don’t much like anything except eating and sleeping and are rarely awake long enough to notice anything except just that,” murmured the Nurturer who seemed to forget herself momentarily and pressed her own face against the glass hoping for a glimpse.
They both stood there for several minutes as if trying to summon the animals from their hiding through mind control. Presently, the Nurturer shook herself and said sharply, “Come, Milly. We’ll have to see other animals. They aren’t going to come out.”
“Awww, but this is why we came,” whined Milly, “it’s the most—”
There was a rustling behind her—even through the glass plate, Milly heard the distant sound of an ancient bamboo door climb up on its hinges and she croak open. Both Milly and the Nurturer waited—their breath momentarily ceased to fog up the glass.
Slowly, out he came; out on all fours—his belly swinging down low in between. He had a coarse brown hair growing around his head, in between his nose and mouth, and down his chin. He was naked except for several clay-colored smudges on his mane from where he’s slept. He descended down to a small stream that was herded through the grass by fake-looking rocks. Upon arriving at the water’s edge, he lowered himself again into a laying position and let his foot and tongue dangle into the water. His eyes closed again.
“Wow,” said Milly, “so that’s a Homo Sapien?”
“Apparently,” returned the other, “that’s it.”
by submission | Jun 18, 2008 | Story
Author : Guy Leaver
For days I was kept there. Held prisoner within a tailored cage, unable to move a muscle. Incarcerated into solitary confinement, with only my thoughts and emotions for company. No food did they give me; I knew not how I was sustained. I knew only that with each passing day, I began to feel less and less. It began with my extremities. I struggled, but couldn’t move an inch. Nothing I tried to do did anything the stay the inexorable advance of sickly warmth. I wondered if I was being devoured by some foul creation of the invaders, my living tissue being dissolved to feed whatever vile beings lay beneath those terrifying suits of armour.
As the days went by, I grew accustomed to my fate, resigning myself to the fact that when the warmth reached my head, I would die. I was not afraid. I was a warrior. It would take worse things than death to break my spirit. I worried only for my family; for my younger sister, and our baby brother. I wondered if they had survived, if they had fled into safety. When the invaders had come, the people of the village had been given no warning. Despite their towering suits of armour, the terrible beings somehow managed to get within the confines of the settlement unnoticed. Only ten… and yet, they destroyed everything in their paths. Implacable juggernauts carving flesh and stone with long energy swords. The people panicked. Those who could, fled into the forests, and those of us brave enough to fight charged at the looming machine-people, anger in our eyes, and fire in our hearts.
The last thing I remember was running towards our enemy, weapon drawn, ready to defend my home. But the screams…oh God, the screams. The very memory of such a sound chilled all but the inflicted parts of my body. Still, it is torture to my soul. As the being facing me down emitted the dreadful cry, I felt myself convulse; in horror, and in revulsion. My last memory of being free is seeing all my fellow warriors, my comrades, my friends, panic and fall about themselves in loathing and fear, as the other invaders took up their terrible battle cry.
I was a warrior. It would take worse things than death to break my spirit. As I felt the warmth creep over my face, I felt sick. I was filled with hatred for the plague upon our world that was our attackers, and I took solace in the fact that soon I would be dead. But as I finally felt my body fully succumbing to the transformation I had been subjected to, I was not greeted with death. Instead, I felt sensation flow back through my body, and light poured into my prison, blinding me. For an instant, I thought I was going to be free again.
Then I felt myself moving, but it was not of my doing. In a moment of shock, I realised that I was not in control of my own movements, and as my eyes adjusted to the light, I trembled at what I saw. In front of me was a battlefield. Another settlement was being attacked by the invaders. As I watched, a man came running towards me, screaming a battle cry, and wielding a weapon. In horror, I felt my arm move to intercept him, and I saw him cut in half by a long energy sword. The burning, the cracking his bones, the flow of his blood…feeling rushed up my arm.
I screamed. Oh God, how I screamed.
by submission | Jun 15, 2008 | Story
Author : JT Heyman
Joe Zimmerman was walking down Main Street when the Cken Confederation teleported him aboard their ship. He found himself standing on a small dais in the ship’s central chamber, surrounded by the staring eyes of several dozen Cken council members.
A Cken arbitrator, atop a much higher dais, called for order in a singsong voice. Slowly the noise of the council subsided.
“Where am I?” Joe asked. Not the most clever words he could have said in his first contact with the Cken, but then not many humans had actually met Cken by that point.
A tall Cken , standing between Joe and the arbitrator, handed him a translation module and said, “You are here as part of a survey to confirm that Humans are complying with the Cken-Human Peace Treaty. I am the Cken Advocate.”
“I haven’t broken any laws,” Joe said.
“We’ll see,” the Advocate said. “State your name and place of residence, for the record.”
“Joe Zimmerman, Oldbridge, Massachusetts,” Joe said. “Earth,” he added after a moment’s thought.
“Are you familiar with the terms of the treaty?”
“I know some of it,” Joe said. “No military ships in orbit without announcement. You got some planets and we got others. I’m not a lawyer but it was in the news last week.”
“You know enough. You will be the Human Advocate.”
“What? Wait!” Joe turned to the arbitrator. “I’m not qualified.”
The arbitrator peered down at him and said, “Under the terms of the treaty, all Humans were to be made aware of its contents. You were made aware. You are the Human Advocate.”
“Where were you going when we subpoenaed you?” the Cken Advocate asked.
“What? Oh, the grocery store.”
“Do you have a list?”
“Yeah … I mean, yes, I do.”
“Present the list as evidence.”
Joe suspected he was being set up. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. The Cken Advocate took the list, read it quickly, then gave it back. Joe couldn’t read the Cken’s expressions. They were too … alien.
“What is the first item on your list?”
Joe looked at it. “Cake mix. My wife is baking a cake.”
“Baking. How … quaint,” the Cken said mockingly.
The Cken councillors whistled in derision. Joe recalled that Cken ate their food raw.
“The second item?”
“Milk.”
“Milk!” the Cken crowed. “A liquid produced by mammalian mothers for their young, taken by the Humans for their own consumption!”
The councillors called their disbelief in their singsong voices. Joe knew this was not going well.
“It’s soy milk!” he shouted.
“That may be,” the Cken Advocate said, “and we will certainly investigate your claims. Cooking food, though distasteful, is a Human fashion, and therefore irrelevant. Your consumption of milk does not violate the treaty, although it reveals Human willingness to use other species for your own benefit, which is troubling to anyone who signs a treaty with you.”
Joe began to relax.
“However, I dare you to explain the final item on your list, in direct defiance of the treaty! Read it!”
Joe looked at the list and his eyes widened. He read it softly.
The arbitrator said, “You will read it so we can all hear, Human.”
Joe Zimmerman never wanted to be famous He never wanted to have schoolchildren know his name and his place in history. Sometimes, you get what you don’t want.
He gulped and said, “A dozen eggs.”
The Cken councillors flapped their wings in horror amidst the calls for war.
by submission | Jun 14, 2008 | Story
Author : Aaron Springer
Papa said that they had to give us gifts. I like gifts.
The big dirty man gave Papa a basket of plants and Papa smiled.
Papa promised to go back to the sky and make it rain for them. I liked watching Papa make it rain. All the colors on the machine were pretty. Papa said rain is like water falling from the sky. I wanted to see it, and Papa said I could.
I looked up, dizzy because I couldn’t see the ceiling. Papa said there wasn’t a ceiling, only sky, but I didn’t believe him. There is always a ceiling, otherwise space gets in.
I looked at the kids in the group of dirty people that had come to meet our shuttle. How they could be so dirty I didn’t know, but the smell made my eyes hurt.
When I looked back down, one of the kids had gotten very close. He looked funny, with pieces of cloth on his arms and legs, and dirt all over him.
On our way, Papa explained that they worked dirt like he worked the sky, and, together, they made all of the food. He said sometimes the “Grounders” didn’t understand how important we were, and had to be taught a lesson. He said that sometimes they would stop sending food up the elevator, and he would turn off the rain, or worse.
Papa raised his arms, and a I felt a bit of water hit my face just below my eye. I looked up, and saw puffy white things. They were dropping water. That must be rain. I liked it.
On the way back, Papa explained that the people called us Rainmakers. He said that one day I would make rain, just like him. He handed me a yellow plant. He showed me how to split it open and eat the pale meat inside.
I was reading in school about something they had a long time ago.
I wonder what the Grounders would think of snow?
