by submission | Apr 21, 2018 | Story |
Author: Neil Otte
“What a strange way for an Arkansas farm boy to die”, he thought. He could imagine Gramps shaking his head and saying, “Son, you are a caution”.
Of course, his love of numbers, ability to fix mechanical systems, and delight in growing things – all traits he got from Gramps – were the reasons he ended up here. When he saw Hydroponics Lead as one of the positions on The Foundation’s roster, he knew he had to apply. Not that it wasn’t hard to become one of the “crazy, selfish dreamers” as the vocal deriders of the Foundation’s plans called the ones who signed up. Although Hebert’s implementation of the EmDrive made interstellar travel possible, the multi-decades voyage was a high-risk proposition. Years of acceleration to a large fraction of light speed, followed by years of deceleration gave large probabilities of failure in even highly redundant systems. World opinion was split on the prospect, but in the end, the multi-national Foundation was formed, and the first interstellar mission was born.
It was Gram’s influence that gave him the courage he needed to apply. He could remember sitting at the picnic table outside church and her saying, “You have a purpose in life and you need to pursue it with passion and integrity. If you do, you have nothing to fear, not even death, because, at the end, you’ll have peace.”
Now as he thought back over the last three hours, he wondered if he had seen the culmination of that purpose. When the explosion occurred in the transfer station it holed both tank 2 and 5, venting water systems that constituted 38 percent of their capacity. He knew to the liter what they were going to need to make it to Vaetta, and at the rate of venting, they had 68 minutes to find a solution. Even now, with time to think and ponder, he couldn’t think of anything else he could have done but vent the just harvested hydroponic bays 8 -12, and then vent the ruptured tanks into the bays. Not a perfect solution, but the bay filters would not allow moisture to vent, and the bays would hold enough water in vapor form to reclaim once the damage was repaired. The fact that the only way to now shunt water from the tanks to the bays was via the original loading system on the outside of Finaer, and the only available way to get to the loading system controls was the limited range/thrust IMU, seemed like a minor detail at the time. The IMU had barely enough propellant for him to maneuver his way to the control panels through the venting cloud of ice. In the movies, the hero would have been able to make it to the tether node and the hook would have caught by a fraction of an inch on his last desperate attempt. In reality, he didn’t get within 15 meters of the node before the IMU propellant was depleted, and the vapor accelerated him steadily away from the Finaer.
Now he floated silently through space as the Finaer dwindled to a gleam against the backdrop of red-shifted stars. They had run the numbers on using one of the CMU’s to retrieve him, but it was clear the delta-v was too great. The goodbyes had been said, the thank you’s and commendations given. Now as he gazed out over the expanse of the universe, he realized that Gram’s words were absolutely true.
“Thanks, Gram”, he whispered. “See you soon”
by submission | Apr 20, 2018 | Story |
Author: Arkapravo Bhaumik
I am sitting outside the Department of Surgery & Smart Implants and I can see the operation theatre beyond the glass door. Radha is clasping my palm tightly. We both know that this has to be done, and we have discussed it between the two of us a number of times – be it as a casual banter over a cup of coffee or as an emotional vent-out similar to the Oprah Winfrey show of nearly three decades ago. If that was not enough, we took the opinion of three different surgeons in as many different medical centers, discussed it with our children, our neighbors and even our cousins who are halfway across the globe, and then swamped at least eight different forums on the Internet with a ton of questions. Now, with less than fifteen minutes to go, my mouth feels dry and I can feel her pulse quickening.
Radha breaks the uncanny silence, “You will come back as a metal man?” I wink at her and then with a hint of sarcasm in my tone, I say, “Maybe you should code-in three laws for me.”
Being together for 42 years, I know my wife very well and just as I had anticipated she purses her lips, rolls her eyes and then lectures me. “First law: The Terminator should be the personal property of me – Radha Chatterjee and all directives given by me should be God’s own will” As she speaks I see a hint of a smile on her lips.
I pause, look at her and acquiesce to the first law. She continues, “Second law: The Terminator should join me for all my meals at my table, even though he is not supposed to eat.” I add in a sub-clause, “ … that happens only if you let the Terminator gets to put on his favorite music, which can vary from Mahler to Strauss to Tchaikovsky.” She slowly nods, pretends to grudgingly agree to my sub-clause.
“Third law: A time will come when I may be needed to be made into a Terminator and I will expect Arun – my Terminator to respect and support my decision.” I knew this was coming at some point, Radha had not completely embraced the new age medical technology for prolonging life and vitality – hence her coining of the funny, yet borderline racial tag of ‘Terminator’. She has never been at ease with replacing the body with metal implants and reinvigorating the brain with electronic chips. How I hold up to this radical change in me will influence her decision in the near future. I cannot continue to be fully biological with multiple organ failures and a fast fading brain and after working with known traditional medical procedures for a long time, our family doctor had suggested for this.
Radha looks at me, “So, third law …?” I smile in agreement.
“Mr. Chatterjee” I turn my head to find my doctor, he pauses and looks at both of us and greets us with a smile and then says, “It is about time, I will call the nurses and the stretcher to help you into the operation theatre.” He smiles again in affirmation and walks into the operation theatre.
I turn to give Radha a hug, after which she batters her eyes in a childish manner and bids me goodbye and then fighting off tears and in a choking voice says, “… come back for me, and I can learn to kiss your lips made of steel.”
by submission | Apr 19, 2018 | Story |
Author: David Atos
Are you familiar with the musical composition called a canon? It’s a piece where the main melody is repeated over and over in counterpoint, with some kind of transformation. Sometimes, it’s delayed in time. Sometimes, it’s played backwards. Even if you’re not familiar with the musical terms, you’ve not only heard them, you’ve sung them as well. Simple rounds like “Row, row, row your boat” are basic canons.
The interesting thing about canons is that, given a partially-completed one, you can figure out the rest of the notes, like a logic puzzle. Famous composers used to exchange incomplete canons to entertain each other. Even today, you can find “puzzle canons” to exercise your mind.
The first gravitational waves were definitively detected by LIGO and Virgo in September 2015; two black holes dancing around each other, then merging into a single mass. Further observations were made over the years, slowly at first, then more and more frequently as our instruments improved. Soon, we were able to measure the gravitational waves from every portion of the sky.
It was a college music professor who first discovered it. The frequencies of the waves were confined beyond what quantum and relativistic physics dictated. Plotted on a graph, they all fit within enormous octaves. Each merger was a separate note. The notes combined to create harmonies and counterpoints. And together, an overarching structure.
It took 15 years of processing on the greatest supercomputers available to humanity, but the structure of the canon was discovered. The main melody was identified. The retrogrades, inversions, and mirrors calculated. Predictions were made, and observations matched them.
We don’t know the composer, but we do know that the universe is building towards an enormous crescendo.
by submission | Apr 18, 2018 | Story |
Author: DJ Lunan
For centuries clever clever men have sought in vain to authenticate the future invention of time travel.
But I have proof. Laura is a seven-foot partially invisible time traveller from 3031 zip-tied to a hairdresser’s chair in a flat above a carpet shop in the centre of Mechelen in northern Belgium. Take that scientists! Out-futured by a clever woman!
“Time travellers will be drawn to major historical events, like assassinations, secrets, Treaties and miracles – one challenge being we don’t typically know when these will happen” mused Hawking.
“Cracking the fourth dimension is so many millennia away, we would need to be super-lucky to catch futurists in the act of observing us men living now”, speculated Einstein.
“My first stop would be the World Cup Final in 1962, to see Brazil defend their title and watch the game with Pelé”, chimed Coelho.
“Once we have computing power to analyse every photograph ever taken, and document every moment, we shall spot men time travelling throughout history”, contemplated Clarke.
Hopeless, hapless men. Hampered by their first assumption – that time travellers would be men.
By understanding the foundation of their failure, I designed my trap and caught Laura.
‘Sexiest Man Alive of all Times. Pleasures and cleans in silence. Available one night only. Crack this code to find my location’
“How could you know?”, Laura demanded in ‘Norwegian (parochial)’ according to my TranslVoi App.
“We are weak mammals” I answer sagely.
“But I am not weak, I was just intrigued…by the code.”, Laura retorted deflated.
Wearing cloaking technology head-to-toe, Laura had walked unnoticed through history thanks to the Time Travel device fixed to her waist. She had stood next to Cleopatra and watched slaves build temples, followed Wollstonecraft across Europe on a speaking tour on women’s rights, and sat in awe as Thatcher bullied, harried and outwitted her men-only Cabinet.
“OK, I admit it, I had a day off, and permitted one free near-time destination. I was just looking for some fun before I move into 2020”, she confessed.
Laura was both multi-coloured and transparent. My paint trap and explosion had caught her down one side only after she kicked in the door, expecting some clean silent fun. One side of her remained transparent. It took all my strength to leverage Laura into the chair. She dripped paint in large spectral splashes over the concrete floor.
“What do you want, Trapper?” she demanded.
“I want to prove two things – that time travellers is possible, and that time travellers are female.”
Laura half-beamed. “Well done!”
“I will trade you something for my release. Do you know what historical event will occur on the 8th December 2020?” was Laura’s gambit.
“Do I want to know?”, I retort.
Half of Laura ruefully smiled. “Yes! It’s a time-stamp of huge significance. The USA elects its first female President. And she is shot the following day. It’s my next destination, to uncover the enduring mystery of who and why.”
“That’s intriguing, but utterly bereft of evidence or proof. Indeed, it’s what any time traveller would say!” I reply.
“President Melania is more, she heralds the end of patriarchy, survives two more assassination attempts, by old men, during three terms of office.”
“Prove it”, I challenge.
“I’m here. I’ve proved your hunch. The future is female dominated, starting very very soon. By my time, we only use men for pleasure and of course menial service. Your prescient advert could be from my time.”
“Thanks, I designed it to attract strong, taller, tech-savvy female time traveller”.
“Mwuh-mmm. ‘Pleasures and cleans in silence’. The perfect future man!”.
We both giggle as I snip the zip-ties.
by submission | Apr 17, 2018 | Story |
Author: Mina
The prisoner was marched across Swan Bridge. It was the pride of space station Methuselah-3, a crystal bridge designed to resemble the curve of a swan’s neck. It was not actually structurally possible and was held in place by a force field. It was a world apart from the military prison camp Prisoner 45X37Z was interned in, Gulag-XXII, which orbited around Methuselah-3. Walking across the bridge that felt suspended in the stars was almost like sensory overload.
At the end of the march, he found himself in a small, windowless room, with blinding white walls, furnished only with a shiny steel table and two steel chairs. The guards seated him in one of the chairs and steel cord tendrils grew out of the arms and legs, pinning him in place. Johan was left alone for a while. Eventually, the door opened and disappeared seamlessly into the wall behind a diminutive figure. He couldn’t help staring at the first woman he had seen since his incarceration, with masses of red hair – a veritable feast of colour.
Sitting opposite him, she placed a recording crystal in the middle of the table:
– Do you mind if I record this interview? It will be the only recording – my uncle is an admiral and he pulled some strings to ensure we could talk freely.
Johan shook his head. The crystal rose and began to spin slowly at her voice commands. It glittered in the harsh synthetic light:
– My name is Dr. Vera Lance. I’m a psychologist and I’m writing a study on the gulags. Thank you for volunteering.
Johan said nothing. It was not as if he’d been given any choice in the matter. She looked down for a moment at her hands then looked him straight in the eyes:
– I’m sorry, Captain Stroemung, about the spider chair. I asked them not to bind you, but they wouldn’t have let me talk to you otherwise.
Johan blinked. She had talked to him not as the number tattooed on the back of his neck, but as a person, even having checked his rank. It was at that moment that he decided he would answer her questions.
For the next three hours, he told her of the sterile, cold world he lived in. The bland and insufficient food. The back-breaking work in the mines on the planet below the station. The transport to and fro, squashed in airless steel cans. The occasional sadism of a prison guard, but the mostly indifferent and indiscriminate violence towards the prisoners – the forgotten losers of a war that would soon be just a footnote in the history records. Cheap labour but, as they were all given life sentences, plentiful enough that there was no real incentive to keep them alive if they were injured or simply too old.
He told her of a discussion they’d been having the day before in the prison barracks:
– We were talking about what would be a good death. A very bad death is being kicked to death by the guards; a bad death is being gassed by a pocket of Oltran in the mine, or being crushed by a rockfall; a mostly good death is getting injured and being shot by the guards. I’ve seen longtimers injure themselves on purpose. You can’t be sure that the guards won’t play a bit with you first though, so you take your chances.
As he fell silent, he realised there were unshed tears in her eyes. She spoke finally:
– Can I do anything for you?
– Music, I haven’t heard music in so long.
– I’ll play you my favourite from the Terran archives. It’s a choral piece called El Cant de la Sibilla. I like the Latin version best.
Vera issued various voice commands and the crystal stopped revolving. It began to pulse instead with a warm glow as the music began. Johan wasn’t sure what Latin was, but he closed his eyes and let the voices fill his soul.
When the two guards returned to take him to the prison transport, Vera insisted on walking with them. As they crossed the bridge, he made a choice, attacking and disarming one of the guards, feeling grim satisfaction as he shot him dead. He was rusty and slow though and the other guard had time to shoot him, point blank in the chest. Johan crumpled to the ground.
He was lying on his side, struggling to breathe, but stars were all around. Vera was kneeling beside him, holding his hand, silent tears coursing down her face, surrounded by that red halo of hair. The music was still echoing in his mind. He smiled as he took his last breath, his eyes fixed open as his spirit departed.
***
GALAXARAMA:
– And we welcome today as our guest the leader of the small but rapidly growing lobby group, Sibilla. Dr. Vera Lance first hit the media by storm with her article, “A Good Death for Captain Stroemung”. So, Dr. Lance, you have been quoted as saying that you will not stop until the living and working conditions have been improved in the gulags and the automatic life sentence has been repealed. In fact, you hope to ultimately achieve an imperial pardon and the unconditional release of all war prisoners. Tell me, Dr. Lance – why should we care about their fate at all?
by Julian Miles | Apr 16, 2018 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
He spins round, leveling a huge pistol. The pursuers halt in disarray. A breeze whips between silent vehicles, picking up litter and dust.
His enhanced eyes blaze red in the muzzle flash. A deafening report echoes as Sven backflips to land in an untidy heap. Another shot crashes. Marie bounces off a car and drops onto dirty concrete. Indicator flashes highlight the blonde streaks in her hair.
Jim jumps cleanly over a railing, his face momentarily white against the shadows before disappearing from view with a yell. The long moment of silence that follows ends with the sound of a hard landing.
“Jimmy!” Marie stretches a hand toward where her brother vanished.
“Still caring for the fool?”
A hand the span of her head rolls her over.
“He’s going to get you killed, kiddo.”
Wide eyes stare up at the supposed target. Four hours ago, Jimmy had told them a pack of lies! This isn’t some maniac fugitive. This is Hakim. They’d all been at school with Hakim. Sven had played rugby with him. Now Sven’s dead, she can’t feel her legs, and Jimmy dove off the car park in panic.
“Hi, Hakim. Long time, no see.”
He crouches by her: “Heya, kiddo. Still got the looks, I see.”
“Yeah, but I think my moves need work.”
The grin is as bright as ever: “They were fine. I have unfair advantages.”
This close, she can see the extensive enhancement work he’s had done.
He waves the monster pistol toward Sven’s body: “I shot Sven, didn’t I?”
She just nods. Breathing’s getting difficult.
“I only came back because my uncle’s shop kept getting ripped off. Guess Jimmy answered to Kala. He owned the gangers I dealt with. Just bad luck he managed to task your brother before I stuffed Mister Kala through an organ reclaimer.”
Marie doesn’t reply. He blinks, extrudes needles from his index and middle fingers, then punches them into her neck. She arches off the ground with an inhaling scream that bubbles as it tails off.
“Sorry. My bullets are laced. That should keep you going until the paramedics arrive.”
“Jimmy?” Her eyes plead with him.
Hakim sighs, then nods: “If he survived, I’ll sort him for the paramedics, too.”
Marie relaxes as the sedative takes hold. Hakim uses Sven’s sweatshirt to plug the hole he’d blown through her, then strides to the railing and hops over.
Jim’s been pressing the call button in the recessed doorway for agonised ages. One of his legs is smashed. Whoever answers can call an ambulance.
The door opens to reveal a portly man in a floral dressing gown. Jim’s about to beg for help when he realises the man isn’t looking at him.
“Best close that door, my friend. This isn’t anything to witness.”
The portly man pales, nods, and closes the door; all without even glancing at Jim.
“You set Sven and Marie on me. That’s low.”
Jim sighs and makes no sudden moves as he turns over to face Hakim.
“Thought she might make you hesitate.”
“When I’m ambushed, my optics don’t do recognising old friends. They do body dynamics and other surviving-the-moment stuff.”
“Misused my best chance. Shame. You put her down?”
“Close. She’ll be a long time in hospital. You know she made me promise to get you help if I found you alive?”
Jim laughs: “That’s my sister. Always refusing to see. Makes it too easy, sometimes.”
Hakim is suddenly right by him.
“You’ll always be her hero, in some way. Shame I didn’t find you alive.”
