by submission | Dec 6, 2017 | Story |
Author: Sam Matey
Nnenna Inkar Uzoma, first human consul to the Empire of Mhunghelvardh, walked out of her spaceplane onto the dais and into a fantastical wonderland. The palace gardens of Mhunghelvardh spread out below her, kilometers of alien vegetation in every color. A few meters from her face, purple tentacle-vines were gently waving in the breeze, flicking out every few seconds to snatch one of the circling swarm of songbird-sized, fluorescent pink five-winged insect-like creatures. On the other side of the slabs of jet that formed a path through the garden, about twenty pulsating yellow organisms squatted low to the ground. They looked a little like brain coral, with their wrinkly network of fluid-filled crisscrossing crevices, and a little like toads, as they were covered in pustulous-looking warts filled with gray pus under a transparent lining. They appeared roughly circular from the top, with a diameter of about a meter. Four tiny, flexible tentacle-feet emerged from under their bodies, plunging deep into the reddish earth. Nnenna inhaled deeply: she detected a faintly floral and saccharine scent from the purple creature and an acrid, tar-like tang that she could almost taste from the bed of yellow ones.
“This is…incredible.” she managed, pausing to collect her thoughts while she heard her translator locket repeat her words in the guttural Shqir Pakh language. She looked at her Shqir Pakh guide, a senior Palace Guard named An!k’yrek. “May I touch them?”
“Hrel’uhkt/aa!k nhrukht.”
“Yes,” her translator locket said in perfect Globish. “But be careful. The purple one would eat your hand and the yellow ones would leave spermslime on your fingers. Try this one.” An!k’yrek indicated a cantaloupe-sized gray bulb poised at the top of a long, thin red stalk.
Nnenna reached out and stroked the bulb, feeling its soft, velvety contours. To her shock, the bulb instantly turned itself inside out, revealing a shining turquoise interior, with a central dodecagonal structure that seemed to be woven from hundreds of tiny golden threads.
“What is it?” she murmured in awe. Her datalens could find no match for it in the Shqir’pakh’ik’la’druhn’no biome files, but humans still knew very little about the life-forms of this world. She’d only just set foot in Mhunghelvardh, and she was already on the verge of a new discovery!
“Hreg’oh!k.” “Listen.”
As Nnenna watched in wonder, the threads began to twitch and curl around each other, moving faster and faster until a humming began to emanate from the structure, an ethereal sound that was vaguely reminiscent of the tuning of a harp, the cry of a bird of prey, and the hiss of water on hot metal. It was utterly strange and harshly discordant, yet somehow the clashing sounds seemed to complement each other. It was the strangest and yet most beautiful sound Nnenna had ever heard. As she listened, a tear ran down her cheek.
“What is it?” she asked hoarsely.
“It is a Basin of Song,” An!k’yrek answered softly. “The rarest and most melodious of the Music-Globes family. Its singing season only comes twice in its 300-year lifespan. You are very fortunate to have been here to experience its melodies.”
Nnenna watched the Basin of Song curl back in on itself again and go silent.
by Julian Miles | Dec 4, 2017 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
We’d been down for a long while before Commander Bramson came up with the idea of linking to the orbiter, getting it to swing into low orbit and tractor beam us off this damn rock. I objected on the grounds that humans can’t extract oxygen from vacuum; the orbiter couldn’t enter atmosphere thick enough to breathe.
“Sure, the ship’s beat up, kid. But the crew section is solid.”
“How the hell can anyone verify that? Our diagnostics and scanners were mangled when the control module got flattened!”
“That’s not the attitude we need. You go ‘bout your duties and leave the serious stuff to us.”
As I leave, Kristin grabs my arm and drags me behind a cargo pod.
“Will you stop kicking off at him? He’s not going to listen, even if you’re right. Always has to be his idea. You know that.”
I know that. But, Bramson’s last ‘bright’ idea planted us in a cliff face that collapsed on us after the ship fell out of it. Which is why I don’t trust his latest piece of inspiration.
Everyone else works like maniacs, morale improved by Bramson’s conviction. Meanwhile, Kristen, Tommy, and I hide what supplies we can as rationing has been abandoned. The pair of them trust me, which, in some ways, scares me more than the situation we’re in.
The moment comes and they all pile in, then peer out at the three of us.
Bramson steps back out: “Come on, Kristen. I know he’s a pretty boy but don’t you let your needs set you on a path to ruin. Tommy! Lars ain’t right. You come here, right now.”
Tommy shakes his head vigorously. Kristen calls Bramson so many names so fast he actually steps back.
“I see you’ve been learning manners from him. Okay, you’ve made your choice. Live with it.”
He steps inside and shuts the hatch. We backpedal quickly as the tractor beam fills the air with pinpricks of light.
I watch it rise through the monocular and well, damn, it looks like Bramson was right. There are no trails of leaking atmosphere. I’m just wondering how to apologise to Kristen and Tommy’s when the crew section pops. It was airtight, but with its reinforcing removed to lighten the load, it wasn’t strong enough to contain the atmosphere.
We stand under a beautiful clear sky, watching the awful result.
As the shock releases us, the monocular beeps: it’s uplink acknowledging the orbiter’s loss-of-life check. The crash and fall out of the cliff hadn’t killed anyone, so as far as the orbiter was concerned, all was well – which caused our problem. But, with a sudden loss of life and confirmed survivors, the orbiter’s rescue beacon will have assistance here within a week.
Kristen turns to me: “Did you know about this?”
“I hadn’t thought it that far through.”
She nods: “Good. Keep that in mind because, in an absence of heroes, the debrief panel are going to be looking for culprits.”
Tommy raises his hand: “Bramson did it. Left us behind.”
We look at Tommy.
“Not strictly true, Tommy.” Kristen smiles at him.
Tommy looks at the sky, then back at us: “Lars disagreed. That’s only insubordination.”
“Tommy, it’s -”
“Irrelevant, Lars. Wasn’t mutiny, so nothing justifies him abandoning Kristen and me. It’s clear dereliction of duty. Throw in crashing the ship in the first place and Bramson will be found incompetent.”
Kristen claps her hands: “Lars saved us!”
“By accident.”
Tommy stares at me: “Accident, luck, whatever. You’re good by us.”
by Stephen R. Smith | Dec 3, 2017 | Story |
Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Baxter found the fortune teller at the very back of the carnival grounds, as far away from the entrance as one could get without leaving the sprawling complex. It was either an afterthought or the origin point, which exactly was unclear.
The ancient tent canvas was greasy grey, the surface the texture of stiff leather, pulled tight over the center pole. The guide ropes stiff as iron keeping the walls at right angles to the ground.
The sign, carefully lettered in a bold calligraphic script, read simply ‘Futures Told, Inquire Within’, and hung beside a black tear of an entranceway which beckoned through the mist.
Baxter stepped into the darkness and followed a soft glow left, partway around the inside of the tent, until he emerged into the interior proper.
A low ceiling of sorts was composed of hundreds of light bulbs suspended by lengths of string stretching up into the darkness. Some were familiar incandescents of various shapes and sizes, some long skinny chandelier styles, and some large clear bulbous affairs, all unlit, having no apparent wiring. Each was tied by their metal base such that their bottom faces were at the same level and spaced equally about a shoulder’s width away from the next nearest in a grid that filled the room.
In the middle was a simple table, and on either side, there was a single straight back chair.
“Come, sit.” The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, and Baxter jumped despite himself, so focused on the decor he’d forgotten there would be someone else here.
From the darkness on the opposite side of the tent, perhaps fifteen meters away, the bulbs started to glow above a figure emerging from another entranceway.
He moved slowly and deliberately across the room to stand behind one of the chairs, and as he did so, a meter wide circle of light followed him, the hanging bulbs brightest at the point directly above his head.
Baxter walked to the table, hesitated for a moment, then pulled out one chair and sat. The parlour trick impressed him. The table had appeared weathered and worn as he approached, but he could see the top now was, in fact, a vivid green dressed in immaculate felt. The man remained standing for a long moment before sitting down himself, the lights above him dimming slightly as he did so.
Baxter cleared his throat, and then started “I’d like you to tell me–”
“I will look into your future, and I will tell you what I see,” the man interrupted as though Baxter himself hadn’t spoken at all, “what you do with what you learn is not my concern.”
Baxter sat back and crossed his arms, the man, in contrast, leaned forward, placing well-manicured hands flat on the table, crisp shirt-cuffs pinned with shining gold links. The light cast strange shadows, hiding the features of the man’s face, and when Baxter looked down, he would have sworn for a moment the man’s trousers were frayed at the edges, his shoes nearly worn through, but then the light changed and reflected back off highly polished oxfords below sharply creased slacks.
“Your hands,” the man said, turning his own palms up. Baxter paused, then leaned forward to place his hands on top of the man’s, and…
Jacob relaxed and sighed. The customer before him sat frozen in place, eyes fixed and pupils fully dilated. He took a deep breath, focused intently on the darkness inside the man’s barely visible irises, exhaled and then…
They were in a kitchen, seated at the table where Baxter was reading a letter in his shirtsleeves, a mug of coffee forgotten, a piece of toast in mid-flight between plate and mouth. Jacob stood and quickly scanned the letter over his shoulder, a ‘Dear John’ from a Vanessa expressing her frustration with his persistent indiscretions, informing him that she’d taken the kids, and he would hear from her lawyer.
Jacob filed the information away and looked cautiously out the kitchen window. They were here, too. Shadows of men staring back at him, unseeing at a distance, but here. Clearly, this wasn’t a viable exit either.
As he turned back to the kitchen table, he reached up and carefully unscrewed the light bulb from the hanging fixture, and then…
“You are going to lose Vanessa if you choose to womanize.” The man was sitting back now, and Baxter blinked twice before snatching his hands back from where they’d been suspended in the air over the empty table.
“Vanessa?” He said, his voice rising, uncertain. “From accounting?” Uncertainty turning to disbelief.
“There will be children, and happiness, a home, but you’ll throw it all away on frivolous affairs.”
The man stood, the lights overhead glowing with his ascent, and they followed as he walked back towards the edge of the tent, where he paused only for a moment to reach above and tie the new bulb to a dangling bit of string.
“See yourself out.”
And with that he was gone, leaving Baxter almost completely in the dark.
by submission | Dec 1, 2017 | Story |
Author: Kim Kneen
“It’s rare but sometimes Saplings simply fail to thrive.” Dr. Moran peels off her gloves and drops them into a bin labeled Hazardous Waste.
Moran hands me a leaflet entitled Recalls: your obligations and I stuff it into a pocket and bundle Saffy up in her coat. Desperate to get her away from Moran I do the buttons up wrong. Saffy is skewwhiff. Half-cocked. A scruffy scarecrow with blackberry eyes and fine flyaway hair. Spindly legs planted in yellow wellington boots she insists on wearing though it hasn’t rained for nineteen years.
I take Saffy’s hand and coax her to the exit. I can see Moran’s reflection in the glass pane of the door and I pause before trying the handle.
“She’s three years old,” I say.
“Unfortunate.” Moran replies, though she doesn’t even look up. “You have five minutes to say your goodbyes.”
#
I think back to the first time I saw my daughter.
The pick-up point was a grand, Georgian house seized by government six years into the dry spell.
Fertility was in rapid decline before the drought struck, so when it did, and the few babies born in the early years perished, women were advised not to conceive. Scientists had come up with a compromise. Substitute children for those who could afford it. Child-like creatures who could survive the arid conditions on earth. Hybrids: acceptably human but whose DNA was woven through with that of drought-resistant plants.
I’d chosen a reputable grower. Ethical. Expensive. I’d read all their literature, knew what to expect, but the first glimpse of my daughter still came as a shock.
My new baby lay in a transparent cot. Roots sprouted between her fingers and toes and grew down through layer after layer of enriched vermiculite.
A nurse was removing a series of wires from the cot. She opened a drawer and selected some scissors.
“The baby looks terribly thin,” I said.
The nurse replied, “I read on your notes you gave birth to a human child once.”
“Leah.” I whispered.
I’d cried out her name so many times over the years it had lost the power to move me. How could a flick of the tongue convey anything of who she once was and what she had meant to me?
The nurse held out the scissors, holding onto them far longer than necessary, causing me to look into her face.
“Try not to compare,” she said.
#
Moran’s security staff don’t let us leave and they usher us into a holding suite.
I sit Saffy down and ease off her welly boots, roll down her socks. The silvery veins that used to pulse beneath her skin have almost faded. Once I could trace them as high as her knees. Roots still sprout between her toes but crumble into dust when I touch them. My little girl is fading.
I don’t need to read Moran’s leaflet to know what the future holds for a Recall like Saffy. In this world of scarce resources every last scrap of her will be pulped and pressed for fuel, or shoe soles, or bedding for livestock.
I kneel at her feet: gather her into my arms. She twists my hair round her fingers. Once the sweet palm-flower scent of her skin had the power to perfume the sour stink of the air, but now she exudes wet earth and wood smoke, decay.
I’m reminded of a time when earth still had seasons. Of Autumn. Granite skies and raindrop bowed branches. The clutch of a long-lost child’s blackberry stained fingers.
Losing Saffy will break me.
by submission | Nov 30, 2017 | Story |
Author: David Henson
My daughter is marrying a goddam Martian. They’ll probably end up living with me and Edith ‘cause he’ll never hold down a steady job. Martians is lazy. Just ‘cause Mars was the first to be terraformed, they think they shouldn’t have to work, that everything should be given to them because of the hardships in the early days. That was a long time ago. Get over it.
“Edith, doesn’t Sally have that dress on yet?”
Of course, my daughter’s trying on the most expensive wedding gown in the shoppe. She’s worth it though. Sally’s a good daughter. Even if she’s marrying a goddam Martian. At least she didn’t fall for a Mercurian. Vainest bastards there ever was. As long as they got a perfect tan, they don’t care about nothing else.
“Edith! Sally? Get a hurry-on. We’ve still got to go make arrangements with the minister.” I suppose I’ll have to give him a big tip. I never knew a Venusian that wasn’t a money grubber.
The reception’s the thing though. Gonna cost a fortune. That’s ok. Nothing but the best for my little girl. We’re even having Europans do the catering. Great chefs, the whole lot of them. And the bartenders are Saturnian. If things get dull, they’ll know how to put on a show. Singing and dancing are in their blood. Never seen anything like it. Don’t want them mingling with the guests though. I wonder if we ought to have a bouncer? A few of Sally’s friends are Plutonians. Everybody knows they can’t hold their liquor. I’ll get somebody from Jupiter. They’re good fighters.
“There you are finally…. How do you look? You look beautiful, Sweetie. That Martian doesn’t deserve you…. Yes, Edith, I know the Martian has a name…. Sally, if that’s the dress you want, you can have it; we want you to be happy….Yes, I’m sure we can afford it. I’ve got a Neptunian stockbroker. You know how good they are with money.”
Speaking of wedding clothes, I’ll have to get my tux altered. Too bad the only good tailors are from Uranus. They’re all assholes.
I guess it won’t be so bad if Sally and the Martian live with us. At least Edith and I won’t have to leave earth to see them. Earthlings — us you can trust. Except for the left-handers. Shifty bastards.
by submission | Nov 29, 2017 | Story |
Author: Thomas Tilton
Hard, mean knocks at the door. That would be Mr. Farcus, the landlord. Chuck was already two months behind on rent, and today was the fifth day of month three. Mr. Farcus was coming to collect.
“Just a minute!” Chuck said, opening his closet and digging through the pile of clothes.
Where the hell was it? The thing was insentient and as big as he was — it couldn’t have just wandered off or gotten misplaced.
He kept digging.
At last, he found it. He did a quick check of the face, made sure there weren’t any giveaway blemishes on the synthetic skin. Satisfied, Chuck switched the thing on by poking it sharply in the left eye.
Slightly weirded out to be talking to a replicant of himself, Chuck instructed the avatar. “Landlord, Mr. Farcus, here to collect. Do not have money. Deal with.”
The avatar stood, walked mechanically to the front door of the apartment, and opened it.
For the next fifteen minutes, Chuck listened to himself get berated by Mr. Farcus, told that he was “an irresponsible fool,” “no good,” a “freeloader,” and a “layabout.” As Chuck listened, he imagined those insults had quotation marks around them, which helped to make them sound untrue.
While Mr. Farcus was laying into him, Chuck’s avatar remained silent except for a few minimal encouragers such as “Uh-huh” and “Yes, you’re right, Mr. Farcus.” His expression was one of contrite weariness calculated to appeal to the landlord’s sympathies. Only his hand, gripping the doorknob so tightly the knob was changing shape, gave any indication that Chuck’s avatar was having any kind of unscripted emotional response. And Chuck couldn’t see that, hidden as he was behind the door.
Finally, Mr. Farcus had enough and headed back to his apartment, all the while assuring Chuck’s avatar that his days were numbered, Farcus was no bleeding-heart, and if Chuck couldn’t make rent by this Friday he had better find somewhere else to squat on Saturday.
Chuck’s avatar looked none the worse for wear.
What did Mr. Farcus know anyway? He was more than likely bluffing about the eviction. The crazy old man lived off his army pension and probably didn’t spend his days any more productively than Chuck spent his. At least Chuck had the avatar around to deal with the landlord when Farcus decided to show up in person.
He tussled the avatar’s hair affectionately. For a peculiar moment, Chuck thought he saw the thing wince.
No, couldn’t have been.
Chuck poked the thing in the eye again and watched himself collapse haphazardly to the floor. If that were real flesh and bone, Chuck’s double would have broken his ankle in the fall.
He kicked some throw pillows onto the thing — he didn’t like looking at his own face when he was just hanging out at home, it was too uncanny.
