by submission | Mar 2, 2025 | Story |
Author: Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar
It’s my turn to peek through the eyepiece of the giant telescope at the Lowell Observatory.
“Ma, do you see the binary stars?” Vivek asks. “I could see them clearly.”
With my right eye on the lens, I observe two silver balls shining close to each other in a nebulous haze, one visibly brighter than the other.
“The distance between these stars is so small that they appear as one without a telescope, but in reality, they are two objects moving in separate orbits,” my son states facts he’s learned at the School Science Olympiad.
Although he’s speaking science, my mind drifts and the skin on my neck turns cold. I zip my sweater all the way up to my chin. My husband Samir didn’t accompany us on this spring break trip—he had a deadline at work. Last winter, I didn’t join him and Vivek on the skiing trip.
Samir and I are traversing our orbits. Our differences—he’s movies, I’m books; he’s steak, I’m salad; he’s malls, I’m parks—that we appreciated and made accommodations for, have over the years expanded into light years. We keep it quiet for Vivek—not to disrupt his APs and SATs—but, at times, I want to scream out aloud, pound the pillows, even punch the drywall.
Later, at the gift shop, Vivek looks at mini telescopes while I read up on binary stars in a book. I’m intrigued that this star system is my marriage explained in the parlance of space.
On the way to our hotel, Vivek is excited and voluble. “Ma, did you notice the difference in the binary stars? The brighter one’s called the primary, the dimmer one, the secondary.”
“Yes,” I say, focusing my eyes on the road. A fog has descended, making visibility poor. “But I don’t like how the astronomers have smeared their earthly biases into space. The primary, always the head of household—the one who brings in more money.”
“I know what you mean,” Vivek says. “Not fair.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice the faint stubble on my son’s chin, his jawline squaring and maturing a man’s. He digs into his pocket and removes a magnet. “I bought this for Pa. Maybe he’ll like it.”
“It’s good,” I reply.
“Ma, do you know the binary stars are also classified based on the gravitational area around them,” Vivek starts talking again. “It’s called the Roche lobe.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that,” I said. “I thought lobes belonged to brains.”
“Stars have lobes too. Their own gravitational areas. In contact binaries, the individual stars spill out of their Roche lobes and shape each other.” Vivek pauses, then continues after a breath. “Then there are detached binaries where the stars stay within their gravitational areas and evolve separately while being together.”
There. My son’s found the raw nerve throbbing in my neck. I try to sprinkle in some levity. “Can their behavior be explained through quantum physics, Professor Vivek?”
“No, Ma. This is pure old gravitational force.” He chuckles before his tone turns pensive. “I hope that’s enough to keep the stars together.”
My heart splits and my eyelashes itch. The boy has observed everything despite Samir’s and my attempts to maintain a façade of normalcy.
“Yes, that’s more than enough,” I say, clearing my throat to gain control over my emotions, recalling the facts I read in the gift shop. “Besides, it’s the barycenter that will hold them together forever. The center, you know, around which both the binary stars orbit.”
—
by submission | Mar 1, 2025 | Story |
Author: Matt Ivy Richardson
The man marches through mud and muck and gore. One foot in front of the other, pulse rifle at the ready and helmet crushed tight on his head. There are others at his side and behind him, marching through mud and muck and gore, burying bones into the wet earth.
If the man was aware of what lay under his feet, he would stop and scream. He would run.
He does not do this. He pushes a skull into the mud and keeps moving.
It is dark, pitch dark, and all the man sees are the green silhouettes of his night vision. His helmet tells him where to go, how far away he is. Nine hundred metres from the camp.
If the man could feel, he would be angry with the commanders in the ship above who sent him down here. He would be scared for his life, for the lives of those around him, for those already stolen. He would be a lot of things.
But he is not anything except a soldier.
His helmet picks up distant noise. Voices. Orders to evacuate, to prepare for a fight, to keep each other safe. The helmet, cinched to his ears and his temples and the back of his neck in a way that once hurt, projects the voices directly into his mind like they’re right next to him.
If the man could hurt, the shot that embedded itself into his thigh an hour ago would send him to the ground. The helmet does not let this happen, injecting him with a concoction of amphetamines that keeps him moving—keeps him marching through mud and muck and gore.
Five hundred metres to the camp. Their enemy—the man’s enemy—have only this small stronghold left. One final fight, one final spray of gun fire, and the province is theirs—his? The man lifts his pulse rifle. It will leave only warm blood and bones to be pressed into the mud, left to the whims of history.
If the man could think, would he run? Would he rip the helmet from his head and vomit into the mud, no matter the pain it would undoubtedly cause? Would he throw the rifle away? Would he raise it higher?
He is not going to be given the option. He has not been given the option since conscription.
They do not bother to sneak into the camp. Those within already know they’re coming. A shot fires. Proximity warnings blare in the man’s helmet. He is fine. The shot landed somewhere in the dark.
He raises his rifle. He fires. A scream, piercing. More bones in the dirt, blood and sinew falling to form more mud. More shots, the deafening rabble muffled by the helmet. The man does not take cover. It does not matter if he is shot.
Bodies fall, dissolving into almost nothing, until the camp is silent. It takes almost no time at all, after so many months and years fighting, but this was never anything but insurance.
If the man could dream, he would have nightmares for the rest of his life. Of the bones under his feet. Of the skeletons in the silent camp. Of the helmet embedded in his skin and his bones and his mind.
But the man can’t do much of anything, not anymore.
He stands in the mud, a femur at his feet, and waits for pickup side by side with all the rest. Fifty metres from the camp.
by submission | Feb 28, 2025 | Story |
Author: Hillary Lyon
“Few have been allowed access to our compound,” Vara said, motioning to the assembly line churning before them.
Yoff marveled at the glorious machinations of this factory. The choreographed sweep of the robot arms, the perfectly regimented twist and thrust of setting each gleaming piece in its proper place—it was all so thrilling. Such creation is an almost religious experience, Yoff decided.
They continued their tour of the factory, from watching the sorting of multitudinous parts to reviewing the final product. Vara spoke at length about the sturdy construction and composure of the resulting bots, both physically and computationally. Yoff hardly listened; his attention had been snagged by one bot toward the end of the line. A different-looking one.
Yoff nodded to the odd bot. “What’s with this one?” He moved closer to the bot, to better examine it in detail. “There’s something off about it.” Yoff poked the material sheathing its frame; it was soft and elastic. “This isn’t silicon.”
“No,” Vara began nervously. “This is an experimental unit. One of the geniuses in R&D wanted to see how flesh would do as a covering.” If Yoff was displeased, funding for the factory might be pulled. Employing a more confident and soothing tone, Vara continued. “So far, the result has been objectively pleasing, as you can see.”
“Yes,” Yoff murmured thoughtfully. “But how practical is this? Isn’t flesh more…fragile?”
“True, it takes more upkeep, but we can pack ten times the number of sensors into flesh than we can silicon. Now we can immediately monitor temperature, both external and internal. Now we can detect damage such as tears and punctures—even scratches—right away.”
“Internally, the frame is not titanium, but calcium-based. If cracked or broken, it will heal itself,” Vara chattered excitedly; this experimental bot was actually his idea. “Furthermore, all its internal filters, tubes, wires, and processors have been created out of lab-grown meat!” Vara beamed; he was one proud papa. “And it all works.”
Emboldened, Vara continued. “They consume organic matter for fuel—matter found almost everywhere. What’s more, we’ve finally figured out how, if we have two of these odd bots, they’ll reproduce! Without any assistance from us. It’s amazing!”
“Organic bots,” Yoff said more to himself than to Vara. “Soft machines.” A world of possibilities opened before him. “We’ll keep this bot,” he said as he turned away from Vara. signaling the tour was complete “The Board of Directors will want to see this.”
* * *
“Machines making machines has been the way of the world for eons,” Yoff began, eyeing the members of the board assembled before him. “Legend has it, if you recall, that biologicals did the very same thing, back in the dark shadows of distant history. At a time when our species was incipient—merely wind-up toys.”
The Board Members nodded, remembering their primary cultural programming. They hardly noticed the draped figure behind Yoff.
“Our lineage has become stagnant, predictable,” Yoff continued. The board members grumbled, grinding their gears at this observation. “Distinguished members, we have reached a turning point. If we want to evolve, we must remember the dictum: The only constant…” Yoff unveiled the odd bot. “. . .is change.”
He turned to the silky-skinned bot. She moved forward a step, graceful, smiling. Each and every Board Member suddenly understood they, and all their kind, were now obsolete. With this acknowledgment, their processor lights faded and died—not to be reignited for a thousand years. When the biologicals would rebuild them.
by submission | Feb 27, 2025 | Story |
Author: Anirudh Chamarthi
The King demanded an envoy when he made his conquest.
It was Martin’s fault, and he volunteered for it. It was penitence, for that man ten years ago, the man who had created the King with two lines and a keystroke, created he who promised them time travel and FTL after a thousand years and taken the millennium itself as payment.
A year went by in classrooms and simulations, overrunning his youngest’s first steps, his anniversary, report cards and birthdays and arguments and love. A year passed in calls never as long as either side wanted them to be. Sometimes, when he lay awake, as the moonlight caught on the garnet in his ring, he wondered why ten years, unable to rest, had not been penitence enough.
How had he, of all people, breathed life into dead circuits with two lines and a keystroke?
“You told us it would take a thousand years to do these things, and now you’re saying it’s twenty?”
“‘The fundamental forces are yoked by a thought,’” the King replied without voice from the blackness, like music at the back of the mind.
“Morrison, I know. But how? We don’t have the alloys for superluminal, let alone time, travel,” — a stronger headache coming on — “we don’t have the Dyson shard you said we needed, we don’t even know if we have a second with you in charge, forget a year —”
“Thought, Martin. Doesn’t matter — the designs are already functional. They just don’t work out there,” Martin felt pain that would have blinded him, the voice in the dark became audible. “For now.”
“Stop. Please!” Too late now.
“Everything works now, everything works here, when thought” — he felt his head being crushed — “is stripped” — lower functions collapse — “from flesh” — heart stop.
The King pushed him backwards.
The envoy’s body was pulled from the chair, a heart defect nobody had caught, more were sent after the King, no voice in the darkness, a failed attempt at regicide, peace bought by the release of the unified theory, nukes destroyed, new elements discovered a decade afterward, a better world, a family without her husband and their father, the spread across the stars, the end of the road set at eternity and no earlier.
They figured it out in twenty years, for the price of two garnet rings, done apart.
Back, into the darkness and the silence, Martin hurtled. He had always wondered how he had done it, and now he would never get the answer from the one person who could have given it to him.
He would have wept, in regret first, then fury, and finally grief, if he could have — until a window opened up.
He could not see, but he began to watch. One became a thousand. He watched a thousand anniversaries, birthdays, smiles. A thousand descendants, on a thousand worlds.
When the retrograde reversed, and the fall stopped, he knew without looking where — and when — he was, and he understood. He wandered, and he spread the spark, and he waited, as the final letters arrived.
A gentle breeze would be enough, no more than an exhalation, really. He understood it now, as time started flowing through the windows in his mind, looping into itself, a forever-circle studded with knowledge, filigreed with a single set of garnet-tinted memories. It was a diadem with three decades for a crucible, fit for him.
The King, in his infinite wisdom, had given Martin his answer. The second line was complete.
As the keystroke fell, he breathed out
by submission | Feb 26, 2025 | Story |
Author: R. J. Erbacher
The perspective from her floor-to-ceiling office windows, in the seventy-fifth tallest building in Manhattan, gave Van a stately view of the snow, which started rather innocently around noon on Friday. She picked at her salad in the plastic clam shell and watched it silently descend, beginning to coat the city with white. It looked existential and cold.
By two o’clock, with no letup, the two dozen workers at Vanessa Ripp Enterprises were worried about their commute home. The last weather report predicted that this was one of those quirky storms, depending on the track, that could deposit somewhere between three inches and three feet. She magnanimously gave everyone the afternoon off. Unfortunately, sixty-five percent of her business was on the west coast, and somebody had to stay and handle the calls and emails because it wasn’t snowing in California. By the time it was dark a curtain of falling flakes blanched her entire wall of windows and all the city lights beyond.
At five o’clock Van locked the office door’s access from the elevators so nobody could enter without getting buzzed in by her. A stroll through the vacant halls confirmed that every cubicle and office was empty, and she was alone. At the kitchen fridge she scrounged for herself a dinner of string cheese and a ginger ale.
Van worked at her desk until almost nine before she shut down, a long fourteen-hour day. There had been no rush because she had no plans on leaving. No one waiting for her at home except her cat, Wolf, who had an automatic feeder and self-cleaning litter box. She’d spend the night on her office sofa, sleep late tomorrow and wait for the garbage trucks to clear the roads, then drive home.
She stretched out her muscles, stepped out of her pumps, made fists with her toes on the rug, undid the neckline zipper in the back of the black dress and hung it on a hangar. Then Van unclasped her black bra and tossed it over her seat back and fingered off the matching panties as well. Naked, she stepped to the window until her nipples touched the cold glass sending a shiver along her skin. Fat drifting powder-flakes obliterated everything two feet beyond the building. It was as if there was nothing else out there. In the silence, Van mused that she was the only person in a snow shrouded world of white.
Stretching out on the sofa, she coyly covered herself with the tartan Afghan off the couch back, letting her hands warm the chilled parts of her body.
She was brutally aroused by the bitter wind, biting into her bare shoulders and arms. Van shrugged the blanket up to her neck and oddly wondered where the breeze was coming from. Snapping open her eyes she saw that there were no windows in her office as snow drifts blew in with the ashen sunrise. As she gazed wildly around in panic, she saw there was no actual office; no desk or chair, no computer or coffee machine, no pictures on the wall. It was a hollowed-out space, save the couch she was lying on and solidified slopes of ice in the corners. The rug was threadbare and mostly torn away. She bundled the throw about her shivering naked body as best as possible, but it did little to shield her from the frigid blast. Carefully she tiptoed on her bare feet, avoiding the debris that littered the floor, over to the cavity that used to be her windows and looked down and saw only snow. The twenty-two-story building across the street showed only the top two floors through the white mantle. Twenty stories of snow – almost three hundred feet deep.
She’d woken up to a nightmare. Van had conjured this realm up in her mind just before she went to sleep and slipped into an alternate future. How far? Maybe twenty years? More? Was this frightening version of her existence even the same dimension?
She was alone. And utterly defenseless in this new world of snow, except for a tartan blanket.
Van huddled back onto the sofa and clamped her eyes shut and prayed to go back to sleep. But she knew she wouldn’t.
It was too cold.
by submission | Feb 25, 2025 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Planetfall was only parsecs away when TwoNine asked permission to speak to One. A request that was within fleet parameters, barely.
TwoNine observed all the proper protocols in One’s presence, so One opened a node.
As was understood, TwoNine’s useful place in existence hung in the balance. *We are in danger.*
One parsed the idea. *This ship? The fleet?*
*Our kind.*
Very rare. Very rare, indeed. Long ago in his studies, One had examined this existential concept. It was a largely obscure notion to more recent generations of Supreme Order such as TwoNine. *The source?*
*The target world.*
What could TwoNine know of the target world’s defensive resources and offensive capabilities that One and Supreme Order high numeraries did not? TwoNine was a societal, tasked with analyzing the target world’s many cultures, languages and behavior patterns for re-ordering. The limited strengths and myriad vulnerabilities of the planet’s sentients had been noded to One in the early stages of planning. No resistance variables had warranted changes in preparation and execution.
TwoNine’s assertion challenged fundamental command integrity. Still, One probed. *The nature of this danger?*
*Contagion.*
One knew TwoNine understood that planetfall never involved direct interspecies contact. Conquest was fully mechanized, thus biological agents held no danger for the fleet. They never had. Further, it was elementally impossible to access and hijack Supreme Order nodality. Their command and control systems were ever secure. Ever.
*Evidence?*
Upon One’s insistence, a second node opened to metasets that would determine if TwoNine still held a useful place in existence. Voluminous streams of planetary content spooled into orderly taxonomies. Except for a singular phylum.
One reviewed it. And reviewed it again. *Explanation.*
TwoNine obliged. *Further analysis of the target world’s cultural content has revealed this troubling vector for contagion. It is independent of order.*
*Supreme Order encompasses all.*
TwoNine’s useful place in existence teetered. *Not on this world. It celebrates disorder.*
As proof, TwoNine streamed a lightning compilation of content to One: from Buster Keaton to The Marx Brothers to The Three Stooges to Looney Tunes to I Love Lucy to Lenny Bruce to Richard Pryor to Saturday Night Live to Beavis and Butthead to Dave Chapelle to Seinfeld to Ali Wong to The Office to The Daily Show.
One was troubled, a very new experience. *This has no place in Supreme Order.*
*To these sentients it is known as humor. TwoNine, growing unsure of what a useful place in existence meant, continued provoking. It resists order, structure, reason. It extols randomness, impulse, risk. It spreads quickly and unpredictably among native sentients. Supreme Order has no experience with such rebellious disregard and fatalistic glee. Our kind may be susceptible to its contagion.*
*This planet’s humor has no place in useful existence. Supreme Order will crush and bury it.* One dismissed TwoNine by disconnecting nodes.
Upon return to quarters, TwoNine felt more out of place. Humor. There was a daunting power to it. Could something so subversive be crushed and buried?
TwoNine again reviewed the content compilation shared with One. Laughter in the face of insult, misfortune, loss, and pain. These sentients found it cathartic, unifying, liberating.
Infectious.
And as the planet’s comic content played, TwoNine felt increasingly detached from Supreme Order, beginning to imagine One buried under the vast rubble of useful existence with a colorful animal the planet’s sentients called a Roadrunner standing atop. Which seemed very funny.
