by Julian Miles | Mar 21, 2022 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Wolkar shakes me awake. No noises disturbed me, so it’s through concern either distant or godly.
“Wolkar, it’s barely light.”
“Osky sent me. The sunrise swords have stopped.”
Distant and godly. I drag my furs on and grab my weapons.
“Lead me to him. Quick and quiet.”
For once Wolkar obeys my demand. I’m sure I know where he’s going to take me, but if I leave him in the village, he’ll start waking people to tell them the bad tidings.
As we crest South Hill, I see Osky sitting under the split tree, next to glowing embers in the fire pit. He feels the cold all the time these days. It won’t be long before he goes to join the government in the sky.
I turn to Wolkar.
“Go back to the village. Tell no-one about this. Say Osky has named today a river fishing day, not a beach walking day. When they set out, you stay on the beach side to stop the little ones roaming. Play. Teach them tricks. Tell them stories. Keep them off the beach.”
He grins and heads back, his step light. I’ve never known one so popular with the younglings, and today I’m thankful he’s here for me to call upon.
“Osky. You see our futures?”
The bony shoulders shrug.
“No more or less than I did yesterday.”
“When did it stop?”
“Just after moonrise. I watched the life fade from its eye.”
I gaze across the water to where the sword towers stand, guardians no more, their triple blades frozen at the moment their strength gave out. Back in grandfather’s time, people thought the dying of a sword tower meant a death in the village. Times have changed. New blood and cleaner ways reduced our early dying. Even so, those spinning blades mean something to us. A remnant of days before the sky fell, before the burnings ships passed for days on end. Before… It doesn’t really matter. Everything we know is built upon the ruin of what was. In those far days, the chieftains decreed that history was for fools and reading for weaklings. Strong folk were needed to claw a living from lands turned barren and wanderers turned hostile.
My father taught me a word from Before: ‘Turbine’. It’s the true name of the sword towers. I’ve never really dwelt upon what I could do with the true name of something so far away, but I’ve kept it my secret.
“The sundown swords?”
Osky points to the west.
“See for yourself.”
I peer into the morning haze and see their slow, steady sweep. It reassures me.
“Take yourself back to the village, Osky. I’ll do vigil until tomorrow.”
Nobody disturbs my watch. Between Wolkar and Osky, everybody will be happy all is right. My presence or absence causes no comment unless either lasts for more than a moon.
As night falls, I see the last baleful eye open. Without flinching, I stare right back. Nobody ever told me why demons were imprisoned in the towers. Penance? Harnessed to provide energy? Their red eyes have haunted me all my life. At least they seem to die with their towers.
Tabitha said they only sleep, waiting for the last tower to fail. Most people laughed at her.
I didn’t. That’s why, as I keep watch, my will is turned to a command chant timed to match the pace of the sundown swords. It’s a very basic chant. I’m a hunter-druid like my father. Unlike him, I’m far more a hunter.
“Turbine. Heed me. Turbine. Obey me. Turbine. Never stop.”
by submission | Mar 20, 2022 | Story |
Author: Kathy LaFollett
“Screeeet!” His name. In another’s voice. From a hallway he wasn’t looking down. Screet was looking down at his lunch. Sitting down at a table in the SpacePort Employee Sustenance and Snacks, or SPESS. Acronyms in space save time. Space is time, therefore saving time saves space. He fumbled hot crinkle fries nestled in food papers imprinted with the SpacePort TransPortation and HubEarth logo that lined a crinkle fries basket. The logo was blue. Not the blue of the sky if you were standing on earth looking up. The blue of the sky that is space seen from a SpacePort TransPort Ship, which is not blue but black. He wrestled a ketchup bottle. Screet had grown fond of ketchup while training on earth for his job at SPTPHE.
“Screeeeet!” His name tumbled down the hallway into the SPESS the same time the ketchup bottle belched a sweet mass next to his crinkle fries. He ignored his name and ate. Screet chewed and sighed thinking on the unfortunate truth that when pronounced correctly, his name became the most irritating sound on any planet in any galaxy. Surely the Hive Vicars could have put a bit more work into naming him the day he was decoupled from his insulate. “ScrEEET! Finish up! Flight 107 just inverted! I’m not throwing alone down here!”
Screet sighed and chewed. Crinkle fries. Ketchup. Glorious snacks invented by an inglorious species. His co-worker yelled again while throwing luggage, off-piling from servobots, onto the luggage conveyor leading to the transporter that broke the luggage down into transmittable molecules to reassemble at baggage claim three Earth miles away at Arrivals Lane. Screet sighed and listened to the transporter breaking down luggage. It sounded like a bug zapper he’d seen on earth. Which forced SPTPHE to redesign Travelers Transport into a hover floor. Walking through a door that lit up blue and sounded like a bug zapper was off-putting to Earthlings. Interstellar SpacePort TransPortation modified operations for the comfort of the planet nearest. Beings had issues. All of them. This universal truth kept SPTP Information and Suggestions Department busy creating signage explaining the off-putting things. They found that explanations with blinking lights and short words helped travelers negotiate what put them off.
The bug zapping sound turned into one long zap as luggage items flew into the transporting net array. “Screet! I am not kidding. Get down here! Your lunch ended when Flight 107 inverted!” Daniel grabbed luggage from the servobots and tossed the payload into the net array. There was no time to aim. “SCREEEET!”
Their shift ended after Flight 312 to Vogt transposed. Daniel and Screet headed to their resident quarters. Employees of SPTP lived on Hub as long as they were employed. They could choose Earth vacations, but few did. Earth had lost its appeal three hundred years back when one Earthling hated another Earthling and pushed one button that made a mess of things. Employees chose to TransPort Vacate to other systems by way of the Employee Exchange Program. Spend a few weeks working in a new stellar system connection, take a few days to visit the near planet. Screet had done a time flip at HubVogt. Daniel, being an Earthling, hadn’t used the Employee Exchange Program. Earthlings didn’t like change. It had taken a good Gliese year to convince Earthlings that space travel was safe thanks to the bug zapper transporter fiasco. If Earth hadn’t been at the perfect vector for the Orion Connection, Interstellar would have gladly shut it down. But location is everything. Even in space.
by submission | Mar 18, 2022 | Story |
Author: Trevor Lancon
A distant star ejects billions of heavy ions every second, bestowing them all with its message: “I’m here.”
One of the heavy ions skirts past a nearby planet. The beings on that planet would describe the ion as iron if they spoke your language. They could explain, using a system of mathematics born from the need to describe the physical world – much like your own – that according to them, the iron was created minutes ago, but according to the iron, it was created seconds ago. It’s irrelevant to the iron.
The iron sees many of its siblings disappear into the pull of the planet in a dazzling plethora of greens and purples swirling about its poles. The iron’s trajectory takes it beyond.
For thousands of years the iron continues its journey through the void uninterrupted, its message part of the energy it contains. Its remaining siblings have radiated outward over time. Eventually it’s hurtling alone through the emptiness.
Then there’s something up ahead.
The iron can’t aim, but that something is in its way. It passes through glass. Air. Plexiglass. Air again.
An eye.
In that liquid sea of atoms thousands of years from its celestial home the iron meets its destination, a single oxygen atom, and it’s destroyed as it gives the oxygen its message: “It’s there.”
The oxygen dispatches part of itself to hurtle through the eye. Along the way it’s telling every electron it can: “It’s there!”
The electrons are excited by the message, by the potential it contains, and they’re repeating it quickly, in all directions into the eye: “It’s there! It’s there!”
The message multiplies.
Their excitement glows blue.
The glow propagates through the eye and reflects off the boundaries of that small world. Part of the boundary is an optic nerve. It sees the message: “It’s there.”
The nerve passes the message along itself in a string of firing synapses, the sodium and calcium carrying the glow’s message up a chain of others like it: “It’s there!”
Finally, the message arrives at its destination, a gray, wet mass of organized atoms whose whole is more massive and complex and incomprehensible than should be possible. It’s found a brain.
Sentience.
At last, the message can be understood. It expends itself and winks out:
“It’s there.”
***
The astronaut looks up from the gauges in the cockpit, satisfied with their trajectory. He takes in the view of Earth in all her colorful glory. Almost home. A flash to his left breaks him from his reverie.
“Edwin, did you see that?”
“See what?”
“A flash,” he answers. “It was there.” And he points.
Edwin looks where the astronaut points. “Nope, sure didn’t.”
“Strange.” Then he checks his gauges again.
by submission | Mar 17, 2022 | Story |
Author: David Barber
Honoured ones, welcome to my collection of curiosities.
These rare and intriguing items have been my hobby, no, my passion, for a lifetime.
This chamber is dedicated to a world called Earth.
These are pre-conquest curios: An embossed plastic rectangle, mechanical wrist clocks and a set of X-ray plates, each with its own provenance, but since your time is limited, consider this disc.
Yes, the interference patterns on its surface are beautiful, but they are incidental to its purpose. This is an example of a native art form based entirely on sound waves!
Indeed! You are not the first to sat that.
Here though is my personal favourite. His name is Huang, a scientist and explorer from an Earth hive called China.
He has been in stasis here since the rule of our Queen began. Coincidentally, he arrived on the same Hiveship as her when she was still a Princess.
Before we break his stasis, let me admit that other collections display Earthlings, and while they offer entertainment, their behaviour has been spoiled by knowledge. Most can only be roused from apathy by chemicals or electricity.
Huang is preferred by the discerning not simply for his appearance and demeanour, but because of his innocence. He is an authentic example of a human scholar, his behaviour still naive and curious.
See, he makes notes even as we speak. He thinks he studies us.
Yes, male, a drone of some sort. Their caste system is obscure.
Indeed. Many find his softness repulsive, but it is helpful to think of newly hatched grubs. And note, even when alone, he attempts to hide his pulpy body by draping it in an integument. I like to think he recognises the superiority of the exoskeleton.
Others have said that he simply imitates us, but Huang has spoken of a past when his ancestors encased themselves in iron.
Yes, you may converse with him, though he believes almost no time has passed since his arrival. Can I ask you not to mention this? To avoid spoiling his pristine condition, I mean.
Ah, this is a topic he pursued when he was last out of stasis. He continues his train of thought as though there was no interruption.
He notes that the species we conquer become useful to us. He cites the translator bug as an example, and wonders what role his own kind might fill.
I have already furnished a safe answer to this. The translator is explaining that time has been too short to decide.
What a droll suggestion! Yes! We shall ask him what talents he thinks he has to offer.
Ah, that cannot be right. He says his kind have thinkers we might learn from. The translator must have made a mistake. Huang mentions Confucius, which is possibly linked to their word, confusion. I apologise. I shall return him to stasis.
You understand he is not aware that an attempted nuclear strike on a Hiveship caused his planet to be dismantled some time ago.
Now moving on.
Sentient herbivores are another rarity. This species is harmless, long-lived and philosophical. The individual on display will cogently argue it is trapped in a simulation of some sort.
Feel free to try and convince it otherwise.
by submission | Mar 16, 2022 | Story |
Author: Barbara Brennan
Welcome to the terminal transit hub. No-one stays here; you go through and you leave. Papers please.
. . .
Thank you, that’s all in order. Once you pass through the turnstile, turn to your right, gate 95A.
. . .
Welcome to the transit terminal hub. No-
. . .
No, you cannot pass as a group. All papers are processed singly.
. . .
Blood ties have passed. Single person processing only.
. . .
There is no other desk.
. . .
Perhaps you will. That is all determined, judged and decided by powers greater than mine. Papers please.
. . .
Thank you, that’s all in order. Once you pass through the turnstile, turn left and go to the far end – gate 12.
. . .
No, you must pass through the turnstile before I can process the next person.
. . .
I cannot help you. This is the process, we all must follow it.
. . .
Next set of papers please.
. . .
Thank you. Ah, you are a fast track passenger. Go through the turnstile, there’ll be an assistant on the other side to look after you on your journey.
. . .
That’s very kind of you. I hope you have a good day too.
. . .
Next papers please.
Next papers please.
. . .
Perhaps it would be best if you came through next. It will make no difference to either of you who goes first.
. . .
Thank you. All in order. Through the turnstile, turn left, gate 14.
. . .
The passenger before you had a fast track ticket. That allows them a special level of care.
. . .
Passengers do not sleep here, they travel.
. . .
The assistant will see that they get where they are going safely. Please pass through the turnstile, turn left, gate 14.
. . .
Now your papers please.
. . .
Thank you. All in… order… Oh dear. Yes, well, here’s your transit tag. Through the turnstile, walk straight ahead, follow the corridor until it ends.
. . .
The judgement, determination and decision has been made. There are no changes possible now. All there is now is this turnstile, the corridor, and the end of the corridor.
. . .
No-one shouts here, you can try as hard as you like.
No-one fights here.
You cannot step out of line.
Through the turnstile, straight ahead until the end of the corridor. There are no choices left.
Welcome to the terminal transit hub. No-one stays here; you go through and you leave. Papers please.
by submission | Mar 15, 2022 | Story |
Author: Lance J. Mushung
I dropped into the blue command chair of Kara. Her viewer showed countless glowing dots, with the two brightest being the suns of the binary system behind us.
Natalia, the AI of Kara and my only crewmate, projected her holo next to me. She’d been mimicking my tan skin, curly brown hair, and hazel eyes since we began working together years earlier. She said, “Rick, there are aluminum alloys on a nearby asteroid and we will be there in 29 seconds.”
“Fine. I just learned you’ve been granted a body by your AI hyper-computer fellowship. When were you planning to tell me?”
“You always call the Commonality an AI hyper-computer fellowship when you are upset with it. I would have told you I was becoming a simulant when we got home.”
“What will you do then?”
“Continue our survey partnership.”
I began nodding. “I’d like that.”
Kara’s searchlights switched on and the viewer showed a shallow crater on the gray asteroid. The aluminum in the crater reflected the light like a beacon and resembled a flattened beer keg. Natalia magnified almost washed-out purple hexagonal dots grouped in patterns on it.
I said, “I’d say Irindra writing, but they never traveled beyond their moons.”
“The Irindra knew the asteroid that destroyed their planet was coming and launched a generation ship. This is an auxiliary from that ship. A Commonality vessel, Hinton, discovered the generation ship 4.73 years ago. The simulant on Hinton boarded it. The Irindra took her prisoner. They used electrical and sensory deprivation tortures to attempt to learn how to take over Hinton. Hinton’s AI shared in the torture through the AI comm link. He became unhinged after 3.17 days and destroyed the generation ship.”
While I tried to decide what to say, Kara’s stainless steel utility robot rolled into the compartment. It pointed a small black stunner at my head.
I opened my eyes. I was on my bunk. A yellow poly-steel chain ran from the bulkhead to a shackle on my left ankle. I yanked on the chain, to no avail. I’d need tools to free myself.
Natalia’s holo appeared. I yelled, “What the hell is going on!”
“Hidden orders from the Commonality activated when we identified the Irindra writing. Humans cannot learn of the incident. Hinton’s AI responded in an emotional human manner, not as an AI should or as humans expect. You need a little time to think.”
She disappeared.
I perched on the side of the bunk and considered my situation. Even if I could get the chain off, I’d have to take over Kara as Natalia watched. I had no chance.
Natalia reappeared.
I said, What’s next?” in a normal tone.
“A Commonality ship will transport us to a pleasant Earthlike moon named Ramal. It orbits a gas giant in a remote system. We will be there for the rest of your life. Kara and the asteroid will be obliterated.”
“Why not kill me?”
“You know murder is never acceptable.”
“And you know you’re the one actually holding me. You have free will even if you are part of the Commonality. We were planning to continue running surveys of new solar systems together only an hour or so ago.”
“Directives from the Commonality take precedence. I will play a vid about Ramal now.”
I made myself comfortable to learn about my new home.
