by submission | May 13, 2012 | Story |
Author : Mary Ann Back
Dr. Klatua wasn’t dead – yet. But ten minutes into my session, the only thing keeping me from killing him was the Heja Root I’d smoked earlier in space dock. He was a typical Martian, four-foot-ten, reptilian green with scales here and tentacles there. His voice was shrill and warbled like an Aldarian Loon.
“Bibi, Earth women have a hard time adjusting to marriage here on Mars. What you’re feeling is completely normal. Embrace those feelings. Own them.”
“Maybe you didn’t hear me right. I said my husband, Ashat, wants another wife; two wives – at the same time.”
“That is his right as a Martian – Mormon hybrid, Bibi.”
“But he’s invoked Rune-Pfar!”
“And how does that make you feel?”
“Like I could end up dead!” A bronze figurine of Mensuc, the Martian goddess of war, mocked me from the coffee table.
“It’s true, Rune-Pfar is dangerous but Ashat has given you no choice. Accept your fate, Bibi, whatever it may be. With acceptance comes peace. ”
“Seriously? I’m paying you $250 an hour and the best you’ve got is ‘it sucks to be you?’
“Such a willful and impertinent creature you are! You have never assimilated into our culture. Human nature clouds your judgment and blinds you to the truth. You pay me for counsel and so I have given. I can do no more. Leave me.”
“Assimilate this, Moron!” I grabbed the figurine of Mensuc, hurled it through the air, and nailed him in his nardroids. Oddly, I felt better.
He cupped himself with a tentacle, glared at me through the tears welling in all four of his eyes, and scrawled ANGER DISPLACEMENT in bold letters across my chart.
“I see that!” I said, snatching the figurine on my way out of his office.
Halfway back to space dock, the distant thwack of a slamming door and a quavering curse reached my ears.
“Die Earth bitch!”
So much for psychobabble.
*
My star runner was a Condor XL, cerulean blue, and fully loaded with holographic G.P.S., antimatter hyper-drive, and fine Corinthian leather. It was one of a kind, like me. From Earth, also like me. Not so long ago, Ashat found us irresistible. We sat frozen in space dock, waiting for me to stop crying. Damned tears.
I glanced at the figurine riding shotgun in my jump seat. I wasn’t sure why I’d stolen it. The real Mensuc was a hard core bad ass, strong, and certain – everything I needed to be. And she’d have smacked the crap out of me if she saw me crying. Maybe that’s why I brought it along. I needed a good smack now and then.
I lit a spliff of Heja Root and inhaled so deeply it swirled inside my soul. Screw Rune-Pfar and screw Ashat. If my destiny held danger, it would be a danger of my own choosing – and not the whim of a Martian hybrid who knew nothing of love.
I nudged the Condor into open space and gradually set her free. Mars and Ashat disappeared into the black abyss of the wake I left behind. A boundless blanket of stars stretched before me like a lighted path to freedom. At the end of that path lay the Novarian Frontier. It seemed as good a destination as any. I slipped the Condor into hyper-drive.
Mensuc and I had worlds to conquer.
by submission | May 12, 2012 | Story |
Author : Josie Gowler
Twenty years of war. The couple sitting in front of me are younger than I was when I became Captain. Officiating wedding ceremonies is one of the supposedly pleasanter responsibilities of my job on this starship. But how can I do that with a clear conscience, knowing what I know? It’s more purgatory than perk to me. Usually it’s funerals that I conduct.
“Are you sure?” I ask them. The question carries with it the weight of three deceased siblings, two dead parents and a tetraplegic husband.
They gaze, devoted, into each others’ eyes. Untouched by tragedy, so pure, so unscarred. “We’re very much in love,” she says.
Like that makes any difference. Did I ever, ever believe that life was that simple? I do remember believing that the war would be over quickly; I even rolled my eyes when the Admiral told us to expect it to last a couple of years. How hard can it be, I thought, to gain the right to live how we choose in our own corner of the universe? Big place, after all, lots of room to share. I frown. “Love doesn’t protect you against a smart bomb.” The words come out of my mouth as soon as my brain has formed them. But I don’t regret saying them, not because I’m Captain and I can say what I like, but because it’s something that they need to think about. Then again, if the girl replies with ‘better to have loved and lost…’ I’m just going to have to slap her.
“We’ve talked about that,” the fiancé says, with a firmness that surprises me, and him, by the look on his face. It’s the first time he’s spoken. “Love isn’t limited to now. It’s not affected by space and time. One of us may die – one of us will die – but there’ll still be love.”
There’s a long pause while we all absorb what he said. It’s even silenced his intended bride. I scratch at the thick scar running down my jawline. Well said, kid. Love and pragmatism. I sigh. Give them their ceremony, their ten minutes of happiness. Before I have to make the hard decisions. Before I have to send the husband or the wife off to die in some hopeless battle half a galaxy away.
Eventually, I nod.
Hope. Someone has to have it.
by Clint Wilson | May 11, 2012 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
“Damn it Jones! Haven’t you got that translator working yet?”
The ensign was baffled. He had set up translators on hundreds of worlds. This program was the very best, drawing on any slight nuances of anything that could conceivably transmit language, whether it was electrical impulse, sound, smell or motion. It could usually get a landing party hearing broken basic from any race in a day or two. “I don’t get it Captain. I’ve tried resetting all the perimeters as many different ways as I can.”
The captain looked across the river from the bay window of the cloaked ship toward the village of mindless blue bipeds running around playing, frolicking, laughing. Oh yes they could laugh. But how did they communicate? They were obviously intelligent to some degree. They slept in sturdy shelters with running water and automated climate control. They fed from long tubes that led directly to large replicator tanks. It all ran flawlessly. The crew had not once witnessed the beings perform any kind of maintenance on any of their equipment. “That’s it!” exclaimed the captain.
“What sir?”
“I’ll bet they lost their smarts somewhere along the way. They built everything too perfectly. They didn’t need to think anymore so they eventually devolved.”
“Hmmm, I guess it’s possible Captain. But that would take a long time. Do you think all this technology, all their structures and machines are really that old?”
“I’m going to order a scanning team to start dating the structures. You keep working on that translator!”
Then to the utter surprise of both men the translator suddenly crackled to life, speaking in its robotic tone. “Cattle in quadrant northeast are ready for slaughter. Prepare for killing and processing to commence.”
Both men stared at each other bewildered. Then the captain smiled, eyebrows raised. “Great work Jones! You finally figured it out.”
The ensign looked unsure. “Uh yes it seems to have finally latched onto an ancient previously catalogued language I’m not familiar with, but none of this data is making any sense. And besides, these creatures don’t keep cattle. The program must be misinterpreting something.”
The one aspect that everybody on the ship seemed to like about this place were the beautiful alien plants that swayed in the wind like multi-colored trees above the village of blue bipeds.
The translator announced again, “Initializing mobilization.”
The two men, jaws agape, stared out the window as a dozen of the colorful tree-plants suddenly stepped forward on their long stalks, and moved quickly into the village. The blue bipeds noticed it too and became nervous and agitated; something the humans had not yet witnessed.
Without warning the biggest tree-plant reached down into the throng of bipeds and scooped up a number of them, and then hurled them into the air, the blue creatures screaming aloud. Other tree-plants caught them and began to horribly rip the unfortunate beings to shreds. Still others gathered the guts and gore, and via hollow vines began spraying the biological food-fertilizer amongst their brethren.
All over the ship alarm bells sounded as the Captain barked, “Highly unexpected contingency! Prepare to abort mission! Make ready for lift off!”
The tree-plants continued methodically with their slaughter. And as the horrified ensign searched for anything else out there to draw his attention momentarily from the carnage, he spied one of the lofty giants form an upper limb into a prying tool and use it to remove the top off of one of the replicator feeder tanks. Of course, he thought. You have to maintain your equipment. You have to keep your cattle well fed.
by Duncan Shields | May 10, 2012 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
There are over a billion species represented. Finding out information and language about a species happens quickest during coitus, they say, and the more plentiful the better.
I was selected from over eighty thousand applicants. I am a mating specialist.
The stink of this planet is incredible. Every single race’s raging pheromones waft heavily through the air. The aquatic races make the ocean reek of vanilla, the avian races pepper the air streams, and us land-lovers stumble through a thick fog of undiluted sex.
The planet, predictably, is pink.
Minutes after my shuttle leaves, a plantform from Karssis shows me his datapad and wiggles his stamen in query. I nod, and it rubs some pollen on my head that quickly burrows into my brain, grabs control of my motor control, and forces me to walk twenty feet west to another plantform from Allorway whose sweet smell of fennel coaxes it out of my brain through the pores on my face. The pollen seeds bloom dark red parachutes, steering themselves towards the Allorwayan pitcher bowl mouth.
The experience is harmless and I have insight into the cultures of the two species that cannot be described.
I am scratched by love bugs that burrow deep and lay benign eggs in my liver. They will never reproduce and will dissolve in my bloodstream in weeks. I am tongue-painted with photo-sensitive, fertilized-egg paint over one half of my body. It dries in the sun and disappears. Cheek cells are taken from me for a race that hybrids itself with others. I trade minds with two of the races that reproduce mentally. My gene type is mimicked by those that mate by copying. I am lucky enough to find a race that can gestate inside of the flesh on the back of my arms in under an hour. The babies burrow out of my triceps, blinking and mewling. I am crying and smiling as it happens, ecstatic.
I am rubbed against, massaged, pounded and washed in juices. I am touched briefly by some races, held for hours by others. Some scare me to drink in the pheromones of my fear in order to start estrus.
I am deadly to some and some are deadly to me. I smirk sadly to these ones and I walk past. I’m too big or too small for others but if it’s at all possible, I give it a try.
I have sex in the air with six of the flying races, one of whom drops me in orgasm but catches me over thirty seconds later before I hit the ground. It’s the most exhilarating experience of my time there.
That is, until I’m taken into the oxygen-breathable egg sac of an aquatic mammal and my body is dissolved completely and painfully by the breath of her needy eggs. I am dead and completely nonexistent for a full half hour before I am reassembled by her internal genetic generators and deposited laughing back on the shore. My eyes are now a different colour. Not an accident, an improvement by her standards. A flirtation.
I have hundreds of similar experiences. With my boundless enthusiasm, I cover 0.0003% of the races on the planet. Rich with experience that will take a lifetime to tell, I return to our docking bay for debriefing.
I will be smiling for years.
I have scars from my time on the love planet; beautiful memories. I have new eyes that will stare back at me for the rest of my life. I am missing a finger. It doesn’t matter when I die now, I will die happy.
by submission | May 9, 2012 | Story |
Author : Alla Hoffman
Derrick woke up to the sensation of his lungs running out of air. The pod was dark, but he could see a weak greenish light filtering through the glass. He pounded on the lid frantically; something must have gone wrong with the cryo system. Maybe the power had gone. It was startling how much it hurt, like needles pushing through his lungs. It seemed halfway to forever, but eventually there was a crack and someone’s fingers appeared, prising up the lid. Derrick tried to help, startled by how weak and dizzy he felt. He’d never defrosted this rough before. The air tasted delicious, the light hurt his eyes, and as he collapsed gasping over the edge he took a moment to enjoy it.
He was in a windowless metal room and for some reason his pod was dripping wet beneath his fingertips. It was crowded and someone was kneeling in front of him. “Can you hear me?”
Derrick nodded and tried to reply, but his lungs weren’t done sucking down air. As his eyes focused better, he saw a pale, serious face resolve above a military uniform. He didn’t recognize the insignia. He tried again. “Where am I?” He pushed himself up, felt his legs nearly buckle. “I wasn’t supposed to serve another tour. They told me they’d thaw me when it was over.”
“You’re onboard The Waker.” The officer was frowning. “We found you while scouting in zone B6.” Upon seeing Derrick’s blank look, he added, “Spain.”
Derrick looked at him for a moment, searching for the joke, and laughed even when he didn’t find one. “What are you talking about? What’s to scout?”
The men wallpapering the room exchanged glances.
“Not another one,” someone murmured.
The officer in front of him didn’t answer, instead asking, “Where are you from?”
He stepped out of the pod, holding onto the edge for support. “Doesn’t the accent give it away? Tennessee.” Silence. “America?” Another exchange of glances.
He searched their faces for recognition. “Did something happen? Is the war—” He cut himself off. Maybe he’d been captured. Or drafted again.
The officer sighed, and took a moment to reply. “Why don’t we continue this conversation in sickbay.”
Derrick nodded tightly. He needed some help walking; something must have gone wrong with cryo. Maybe they shelled the city. All the halls were enclosed—he realized he must be on a ship of some kind. It was big enough that he couldn’t feel its movement.
They wound down a series of corridors until they reached an infirmary. He didn’t recognize half the equipment, and the other half looked out of date.
“Please, take a seat.” The officer who had escorted him, probably the captain, stepped back and fell into parade rest as a medic came forward to take his pulse.
The medic raised an eyebrow at the sluggish beat of his heart and twisted to face the captain. “Sir, did we find him in the old city? The odds of finding more remnants were supposed to be slim.”
“Old city?” Derrick felt his throat tighten, and the captain winced.
“There…was an event. Quite some time ago. Sea level has risen since then.”
He realized he was shuddering. “Sea-level? How long has it been?”
The captain looked down, and Derrick was already getting sick of the way no one wanted to meet his eyes. “We don’t know when you were last awake. But no one has called this area Spain for at least two hundred years.”
by Julian Miles | May 8, 2012 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Whales have long been creatures that inspire awe in humans. When we discovered them out here, that mystery only deepened. At what far distant point, and how, did a star-roving behemoth come to dwell in the oceans of Earth? The xenologists used the Latin word for star to name the new family group, from which the common name, Astruma, came easily.
I’ve been herding these monstrosities for a decade and even now, they fascinate me, take my breath away and make me feel so small. My ship, the ketch ‘Fairtrade’, is an old tub, lumbering her thirty metres about on long-obsolete gravitic cores and having to hitch a ride on transluminal haulers to get between herds. The lads in the new cutters, all dash and sleek and barely fifteen metres long, ridicule me at every opportunity until a herd needs gentling or a bull gets surly. Then Petey Mendez and his rustbucket get to be real popular.
Like now.
I don’t know which wag christened the bull of the Epsilon herd ‘Moby’, but he gave that damn great beast a heritage it seems to be determined to live up to. Like my granpappy said: “Name things with care, for names bestow as well as limit.” Today the one hundred and sixty-seven metres and Lord-knows-what tonnage of Moby has stove in two cutters and cracked a relay station. He’s royally peeved at something and no-one wants to go out and play.
“He’s coming round the asteroid, Petey. Must be doing nigh-on eighty knots.”
I do the conversion in my head while wishing herdsman usage of Earth nautical terms would cease. Astruma use a chronophasic ability to move. It seems rude to measure something about transposing time and space in yocto-increments in such an archaic way.
Oh well, time for the Mendez secret weapon. I cue the audio and let it play. The dichotomy of using such tranquil beauty in the face of such incredible danger is just so Zen. I close my eyes and let the song take me away.
I paid a fortune for this recording. Captured in the depths of the Mariana Trench, the song of a thirty-two metre female blue whale lasts for a couple of hours. I have a hundred kilowatts of antique valve speakers rigged between the inner and outer hulls. The outer hull of all ketches is high-ferric alloy; they were the last of the deep space ironsides before ceramics, laminates and sleight fields redefined shipbuilding.
I lie peacefully meditating in the biggest man made amplifier ever to grace the void as Moby eases his charge and heaves-to alongside. Before the hour is out, I have the entire three hundred plus herd hanging motionless about me, all exactly aligned to my ships’ bearing and all completely tranquil.
As the recording finishes, I open my eyes to see a single ebon eye the diameter of a cutter regarding me through the cockpit veiwports. In that moment, we share something that surpasses all fumbling communication attempts. I see the intelligence behind his eye and he sees whatever he sees in the tiny creature in the metal tube that makes noises that reach so far into both our ancestral memories.
Homo Sapiens and Mysticeti Astrum stare at each other for a minute or two more, then he blinks and moves off. I watch his glistening hide stutter by.
Ahab would have understood, although I doubt he would have sympathised.
