by submission | Sep 23, 2007 | Story
Author : Debbie Mac Rory
We have no choice, they said. We have to leave. We don’t know where we can go, or even if we can survive out there, but we can’t live here any longer. But there isn’t enough room here for all of us.
And then it became clear that the “we†and the “us†indicated in the news broadcasts, referred only to the healthy, the fertile, the educated among our peoples. Those who had been born without genetic abnormalities or physiological conditions which science should have long since cured.
The selection process was as short as the world government was able to make it, but it still stretched into months. Riots broke out worldwide, incited by those terrified of being left behind and those made bitter by tests results that rejected their chance of passage, even though they considered themselves healthy.
Paranoia took its place in the proceedings and only those who had a place ensured were allowed to prepare and load the ships. I suppose they believed that we, abandoned as we were, would yet try to poison the food, or infect their ventilation systems with some pathogenic substance. I know there were some that would have done so, and some that tried through the layers of security that surrounded the airbases. Most of them lost their lives on the lasers of the defensive grid.
When the ships had at last completed preparations, few were at full capacity. The medical AIs, calling on all the worlds collected knowledge, rejected all children under 12 in the belief that the exposure of such young bodies to the unshielded radiation outside the atmosphere would render them infertile, and useless as colony members. Even allowing for the families who opted to stay together on a now barren planet, or the parents who kissed their children goodbye, leaving them with crippled aunts or grandfathers too old to qualify, the numbers were far fewer than expected.
Most of the ships have left now, but the security grid around the airfields is still active. The children who were left come here most days to throw rocks against the fences, and watch the lasers turn them to dust. I still come to watch the last of the ships, assisting those others who try to hack into the abandoned bases so we can siphon the remaining power for ourselves.
The little girl with me clings tighter, burying her face in the cloth of my garments as the dust clouds raise from yet another launch. I adjust the gauze around my face with one hand so I can keep watching, while gently stroking the child’s hair with the other, to comfort her.
When finally the rockets flare has faded beyond what I could follow in the brightness of the noon-day sun I take the girls hand and turning, we walk together into the echoing streets.
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by submission | Sep 22, 2007 | Story
Author : TJMoore
The path to the discovery of intelligent non-human life was, for me, a life’s journey. SETI had invested billions in high tech telescopes and antenna arrays, thousands of personnel hours and miles of red tape, without a single positive result. I had done it at the cost of just over five hundred thousand dollars, twenty five years of my own life, my own sweat and tears, my family, my friends, my reputation and my respect. The last two or possibly three items I have since recovered, depending on your definition of “friends”.
It all started with the artifact. I had found an artifact that I believed to be part of a larger artifact that was lost or discarded by prehistoric visitors from another world and time. It ended with my excavation of a site that I had purchased with the proceeds from the sale of my house, my land, my entire estate and personal wealth. The excavation resulted in the discovery of a mechanical devise of unknown origin, composition or purpose. Scientists have analyzed the metal like material and have determined that nothing like it exists in the world as we know it and the material has yet to be reproduced by any known process.
The discovery site was the southern edge of a quarry where decorative marble was occasionally mined for its unusual color, transparency and high concentration of fossils. The fossils were so numerous that the strength of the stone was unacceptable for most building materials so the quarry had been dormant for many years. I had little trouble purchasing it.
I had great trouble finding it. It took years of searching through paper invoices and inventories, work schedules, logs and shipping documents. The final link was actually an artist who had ordered some slab marble for a pedestal he was commissioned to build at a museum. He had personally scouted out the stone to be cut from the quarry, deliberately choosing the brittle stone for its interesting fossils. Unfortunately, the museum changed the color scheme of the atrium and the stone was sold to a tile company to be cut into floor tiles. The tiles sat in a warehouse for several years until it was sold at auction to a wholesaler who shipped it to another warehouse where it sat for another few years. When the wholesaler went out of business, it was sold, again at auction, to a distributor who sold it to a contractor whose business was building and remodeling for small businesses. The contractor had used the tile in the restrooms of a new office building.
So we arrive at the beginning of the journey where I, sitting on the bathroom throne, caught a glimpse of something unnatural beneath the polished surface of the floor tile beneath me. It was a tiny spring with a tiny fossil passing through the coils. A spring deposited in the ancient muck when the now fossilized shellfish was still alive. A spring made millions of years before man.
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by submission | Sep 21, 2007 | Story
Author : Viktor Kuprin
Any starship could request a flyby. Popik received them all the time from the Customs Patrols and the Space Force when they needed to eyeball our ship. If they wanted a bribe that day, they’d come aboard Popik’s old Mod One. He would shake hands with the thug-in-charge and discretely pass some rubles or gold kopeks he’d gotten from here and there.
That’s what you had to do if you were a free trader like Popik, especially if you occasionally hauled illicit cargoes on the side like bootleg vodka or tobacco. The Americans treated tobacco like it was some kind of fission-grade plutonium. But the colonists on the Fringe Worlds gladly paid for it sight unseen.
Maybe Popik was curious to see the ship or, I suspect, he just wanted to give me a surprise. He keyed up the code for a flyby request, transmitted it, and to his surprise the reply came back giving the okay. Back then, before the wars with the Helgrammites and the others, there weren’t so many alien starships in human space. Not like now.
When he called me over the comm, I was playing with dolls in my cabin. I raced to the cramped control center, dragging my favorite teddy bear behind.
“Sit down, Vika, and watch the big televisor,” Popik said. “We’re going to see something special.”
“Is it Poppa or Momma calling? Are they coming?” I asked.
“Not this time, my heart,” Popik replied. “We’re going to see a Tsoor ship, an alien ship. We’ll fly past it in a few seconds. Watch.”
“Da, Popik.” I should have known it wasn’t my parents. Poppa was on duty aboard a warship somewhere in deep space. Momma was away, too, always working in some company office on Getamech. So, when I wasn’t in school, I got to travel with Popik and live in his asteroid domik between our trips to the stars.
A strangely-shaped orb appeared on the televisor screen and began to grow in size. Popik grinned and fired the retros, slowing our approach.
“It’s a Class-4 Tsoor starship. They call it a ‘Porpita,'” he explained.
“That’s a funny name, Popik!” I bounced and giggled, hugging my teddy bear.
The Tsoor ship was a cluster of four huge connected spheres glowing bluish green. Bars of brilliant violet light circled the globes’ equators and vertical axes. I saw no portholes, no windows, no one looking back at us. To me it looked like some giant, magical New Year’s tree ornament.
“Can we flash our lights for them, Popik?” I asked.
He shook his head. “We probably shouldn’t, my heart. The aliens might not know what to make of it.”
Then the beautiful Tsoor starship receded into the distance and was gone.
I watched and re-watched the video Popik had made of the flyby. And all these many years later, I still have that recording. Just a few seconds long, but it takes me back to those happiest of times, back to my dear grandfather.
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by featured writer | Sep 20, 2007 | Story
Author : Todd Keisling, featured writer
Mr. Serling entered the cafe and took a seat at the bar. He ordered the lunch special which, for that day, was a bowl of vegetable soup, carrot sticks and a peanut butter sandwich.
His arrival did not go unnoticed. Rob watched from his booth table while his girlfriend, Mary, nursed her coffee.
“Rod Serling is an alien.”
Rob chewed his lip as he made his confession. Mary set down her cup of coffee, glanced around the cafe and lit a cigarette. She blinked.
“Your neighbor is an alien?”
“Yes, I’m telling you, he’s a damned alien and he’s right there.”
Mary took a drag and exhaled a plume of smoke. She regarded poor old Mr. Serling’s aged back and smiled.
“You’ve been smoking too much, man. Not the ciggies, either.”
“No, Mary, I’m serious. Here–”
Rob produced a brass pocket watch. Mary smirked.
“It’s a watch, Rob.”
“No, it’s not just any watch. I found this in his front yard.”
“You were snooping in that poor old man’s front yard?”
“No. Well, maybe. Yeah, anyway, look–this watch stops time. Just like in that old Twilight Zone episode.”
From his seat at the bar, Mr. Serling uttered a low belch and opened up a copy of the morning newspaper.
“Rob, you’ve been doing more than smoking. Did you drop that acid last night after I left?”
“I’m serious, Mary. Look.”
“Rob, it’s a damn watch. Now, I want you to go over there and return that man’s property. Tell him you found it and think it belongs to him.”
“But Mary, he’s an alien!”
This last outburst attracted the attention of several cafe patrons. Mr. Serling was too absorbed in his newspaper to notice.
Mary put out her cigarette in the ashtray and placed her hand on Rob’s.
“Honey. I love you, but I swear to God Almighty, if you don’t stop watching those reruns on TV, I’m going to kick you in the ass. The real Rod Serling died in the 70s. You know that. That guy–”
She pointed at old man Serling.
“–just happens to have the same name. That guy’s not even related. You know that. I know that. Now go return his watch before I smack you.”
“Mary, you’ve seen the shit that goes on next door some nights. You’ve seen things float into the sky and hover and the flashing lights and–”
“Rob, I’ve been stoned out of my mind and seen elephants eclipse the sun. He is not an alien. You’re just paranoid and weird. Now go return the damn watch.”
Rob snatched the watch from the table and rose. He marched over to the bar where his neighbor Mr. Serling sat chewing a peanut butter sandwich.
“M-Mr. Serling?”
The old man swiveled in his seat and faced Rob.
“Yes?”
“I, uh, well, see, I was walking along and I found this–”
Rob held up the watch. Mr. Serling’s eyes brightened.
“Oh, thank goodness. I thought I’d lost it forever. Thank you, young man.”
Mr. Serling took the pocket watch. He opened the cover, stared with gentle amusement at its ticking face, and then pressed the stop button.
Everything froze.
He rose from his seat, left a couple of dollars on the bar and left the cafe in its frozen state. Above, birds hovered still in the air, while cars and people stood in place.
Rod Serling surveyed the street corner, smiled and nodded. His work here was done. He pulled back his sleeve, tapped his wristwatch, and promptly vanished into another dimension..
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by Duncan Shields | Sep 19, 2007 | Story
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
Annette sways forward and for a second it’s like there’s no bonesetter in her bloodstream. She’s languid again. Graceful and alive. Pre-soldier.
We’re friends. That’s hard to come by this far out in the rings. Most of the other folks float silently around me in a stellar hermitage braid. Small living quarters from many different ages float amongst the wide thin ocean of spaceborne glittering rocks.
Some of the stones are boulders. Proximity sensors take care of those ones and automatically keep my ship safe. It’s the dust that’s worrying. Clogged injets or filters can mean slow death out here. They need constant maintenance.
Annette is here to double check my work. It’s not necessary but it’s nice to have another person to talk to once in a while. I’ve turned off the grav to make it easier for her. She hitches a smile back at me and with a little smirk I realize that I was checking out her body. We’re developing a little relationship here.
We’ve markered each other’s ships with private SOS position beacon tags. There’s no buddy system out here for the permanents but we felt like starting one up. We’re really bucking the bell curve of loneliness. There’s a silent amusement between us that I know we’re both enjoying.
I get a cheerful mock pout thumbs-up from her and a sarcastic grin goodbye. Emotions last for days in this timeless darkness and I’m smiling for days. With the silent hiss of the ringsand expanse rubbing the hull, I deliberately wait. It’s like I’m living inside a bell being sanded by wind.
Later that month, I call up the map. There’s a burst of three dimensional static and then I can see the planet floating flat in front of me like a milkspider’s eggsac framed by the rings. It has a red eye like Jupiter that stares at me from the center of the projection at the planet’s north pole. Maybe that’s why the founders named it Taurus. With the rings and the storming bullseye, it looks like a targeted dartboard.
I turn off the dataflow and config the custom holo to just show me Her and Me. I kick back in my chair and smoke, watching the two red dots float far apart in the rings of Taurus. I let my affection grow like a cancer inside me and I wonder if she’s doing the same thing.
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by Patricia Stewart | Sep 18, 2007 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
My head was throbbing. I pinched the bridge of my nose in an attempt to ease the pain. It didn’t help.
“Try rubbing your temples. That seems to work for me,” suggested a gravelly voice to my right.
Prior to that instant, I didn’t know anyone was with me. In fact, I didn’t even know where I was, or how I got here. Although the room was on the dark side, I couldn’t open my eyes wider than thin slits. I decided to keep them closed. “What’s that?” I was able to say in a raspy voice that was barely louder than a whisper. “Where am I? I demand to know what’s going on.”
“Well, buddy, I don’t know where we are. But I know it ain’t no place good. It seems we’ve been kidnapped by Spacemen. We’re in some kind of flying saucer. They picked you up yesterday. I’ve been here about a week.”
“Spacemen? Flying saucer? What are you talking about?”
“I know it hurts, but think hard. What do you remember?”
He was right, it did hurt. But I fought through the pain. “Let’s see. I remember being in a large room. Something like a hospital room, or maybe a laboratory of some kind. Oh my God. You’re right. I do seem to remember seeing aliens. At least I think I do. I can’t be sure. Maybe it was a dream?”
“More like a nightmare, my friend. Try again. Can you see them?”
“I can’t really see anything. But I do have some vague impressions. Oh God, their smell. I remember their stench was awful. Especially their breath. It was like decomposing flesh. It was horrible.” I tried to concentrate, but everything was still blurry. “I sense something. Yes, they were ugly. Discolored teeth. A big nose, at least that’s what I think it was. Two evil looking eyes. And they had things growing on either side of their heads.” I struggled to focus on the fleeting images at the edges of my consciousness. “I also recall this metal contraption attached to the top of my head. It stung me with burst of electric shocks.” I grabbed my temples, and fought the pain. “I also remember thinking, ‘boy are these guys stupid. They’re a race of idiots. Ugly ass idiots. We should do the universe a favor and kill them all.’ I remember thinking how it made my skin crawl just being in the same room with them.” I shuddered. “How about you? Did you see the same thing?”
I couldn’t see my companion, but I could hear him chuckle. “Yeah. It was exactly like that. Well, on the first day, anyway. But not now. Not after I figured out what they’re doing. That thing they put on our heads, it’s some kind of mind reading device. They put one on you and another on one of them. Then they sit across from you and suck your thoughts right out of your mind. All those things you remember about how disgusting and hideous they were. Well, that’s not what really happened. You see, that mind contraption works both ways. You’re actually remembering what they were thinking about you.”
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