by submission | Dec 30, 2009 | Story
Author : Jason Frank
Satisfied that the “open” side of his small sign was indeed facing outward, Harrison parted the dusty blinds and nervously looked outside. The once crowded downtown sidewalks were empty, as they had been since the Tald-Mart had opened outside of town. The resulting drop off in browsing walk-ins to his small book shop was directly responsible for today’s scheduled visitor, whose eventual presence was directly responsible for Harrison’s current unease.
Harrison had not yet had the opportunity to meet a Taldunian in person. He was quite certain, however, that it was the magnitude of today’s sale that had him on edge and not the species of the buyer. Surely his lifelong immersion in the great works of literature had inculcated Harrison against any sentiments as base as xenophobia. Of course, one’s distaste for another’s actions could exist without an underlying, irrational fear. Harrison had always imagined that whatever alien civilization first contacted the Earth would bring either conquest or enlightenment. He never envisioned their intent of selling a variety of technologically advanced toiletries at ridiculously low rates. There was more than enough crass commercialism on the planet already.
Then again, if one of these interstellar merchants now was interested in purchasing a great work of literature in its first edition, perhaps Harrison had been wrong about them. Perhaps they were no different than any other immigrant group, seeing to their material needs before concerning themselves with matters of taste and refinement.
Harrison turned away from his front window and began walking back to his habitual perch behind the cash register. He had only taken a few steps before the dull chime of the old bell hung high on the poster plastered front door interrupted him.
“Hello,” Harrison said before he had completely turned around. Seeing the Taldunian at the door, he added, “Might you be the customer I had the pleasure of talking with yesterday?”
“Indeed,” the Taldunian answered, “I am here to purchase the edition we discussed.”
“Yes, I have it here. Would you like to browse a bit before_”
“That is not necessary.”
“Let me get that for you.” Harrison hurried over to the counter and picked up the book in question. He gently unwrapped the fragile copy of Wuthering Heights and offered it to his customer.
“Everything seems to be in order here. Your account has been credited the agreed upon amount.”
Harrison felt that a call to his bank would be perceived as rudeness in this circumstance. Besides, there had not been a single instance of a Taldunian failing to follow through on a financial transaction.
The six figure sum the two parties had discussed would ensure the survival of his small operation for a number of years. Still, Harrison couldn’t help feeling the loss of an heirloom that had been in his family for generations. He had chosen to be a bookseller and so sell books he must.
The Taldunian removed a small vial from his tunic and began to liberally sprinkle its contents on the book. Harrison’s assumption that this was some sort of preservative unknown to himself was quickly corrected as the Taldunian lifted the book to his tentacle encircled mouth and took a bite.
“Hmm, it’s not very good,” the Taldunian said, still chewing. “As you humans say, there is no accounting for taste. Perhaps it will be more to my wife’s liking.” With that, the Taldunian turned and walked out. Harrison’s remained standing for some time silently. His mouth, hung agape, was as dry as a pile of sawdust.
by submission | Dec 29, 2009 | Story
Author : L.Hall
Robert Lynch kicked the treads of the small field tractor, clots of dried mud falling off and busting on the ground. He took off his ball cap, looked up in the air and ignored the old man, Paul Gilbert, standing behind him quietly. Bobby, his five year old son, stood near his terrain utility vehicle trying to grab a marshopper. Robert watched him for a moment.. there was no awe on the boy’s face at the genetically engineered insect, designed to cross pollinate plants and burrow into the ground to loosen soil under the Mars biodomes. Just a boy trying to catch an insect. He turned slightly to look at the old man.
“Paul, I gotta tell ya.. Times been tough on everyone.” Robert scratched his chin.
The old man scuffed his boot against the red soil on the dirt road.
“I know, son. But I just can’t see how I can let’er go for less’n fourteen hundred.”
Robert nodded and walked around the tractor, green paint worn off in spots around the hitch. Bobby chased a marshopper closer to Paul while Robert deliberated on the cost.
“You know it ain’t worth eight.” He said, looking across the top of it at the old man. A low chuckle came out of Paul as he shook his head.
“Boy,” he said a bit louder, catching Bobby’s attention. “You hear that bird?”
Bobby started looking around him confused. He’d read about birds in books, but had never seen one, having never been off the Mars agriculture colony. Looking up at Paul, he shook his head. The old man bent down on one knee.
“You don’t hear that bird? Listen.”
Robert leaned against the tractor watching the act. Bobby was straining so hard to hear. Paul held up his hand to his own ear.
“Hear it? It’s going ‘Cheap! Cheap! Cheap!'”
Robert started laughing as Paul stood back up and grinned at him across the tractor. Bobby continued looking around curiously.
“Fine! Tell you what. I’ll give you nine for it, and eight bales of feed.” Robert said, laughingly. Paul grinned as he walked over to the tractor.
“Throw in one of Mary’s pies and maybe supper?” he asked, holding out his hand. Robert shook his hand and clapped Paul on the back.
“Now.. that’s between you and Mary.” he said.
As Robert and Bobby pulled off the Gilbert’s homestead, the young boy looked over at his Daddy curiously. “Daddy, I never did hear that bird.”
Robert laughed as the TUV bumped over the dirt road toward the lights of their own biodome.
by submission | Dec 28, 2009 | Story
Author : Omkar Wagh
“How many days of funding do I have left?”, I asked.
“Well your thesis has been accepted and you have already been given a Ph.D. degree. So the college is willing to support you for about three more months at least.”
“Damn It! I would have never expected such a toxic species to last so long. Is there no way I could wrap up my work without landing in prison?”
“No I don’t think so. It’s a bit harsh but necessary. You’re going to have to fund the experiment with your own earnings now. I did advise you not to dabble in such experiments though.”
“Sir, but why is this law even in place?”
“Ever since a species in another simulation experiment conducted somewhere across the globe had developed enough to run their own simulation experiment, some blokes somewhere thought they actually had sentience, life even. They had as much a right to life as we did. Which meant a person could not stop such a simlation until all life had terminated.
Now depending on the laws of physics in that universe, this could take any time from months to years.”
There was nothing I could do. The job prospects for a universe simulation graduate were bleak especially with the negative publicity surrounding the research field because of the several casual genocides that were caused. Students would start simulations with random laws of physics, see which ones led to life, publish papers and then terminate them. I was one of the last students to take this line.
All that changed when some simulated species began their own simulations. What if we were a simulation ourselves? Would we want the same fate on us? Hence, we could not stop a simulation without all life terminating of it’s own accord.
I had to hire a talented hacker to bring down our systems from outside the university and delete all data. It was criminal. It was genocide. But at least he could claim he did not know of the simulation within the system. At least he wouldn’t get the death penalty. And I won’t be there to hear their last cries.
I’m not sure I want to play God anymore.
by submission | Dec 27, 2009 | Story
Author : Gavin Raine
It’s ironic, but I’d been having having such a good day. The children all had their heads down, working on their numbers, and I even had a little time to daydream for once.
Then, I had that strange feeling that my chair had just sunk six inches into the floor – you know the one – and I knew it was real because the children reacted too. I was just about to reassure them that everything was OK when the gravity went off and all the lights went out and everybody started screaming.
The darkness only lasted a few seconds, of course, but it was terrifying for them – and for me too. If I hadn’t been shouting at them to be quiet, I think I would have been screaming myself.
Anyway, the emergency lighting came on and I started grabbing children out of the air and pushing them towards their lockers. They were all very good really and they remembered their drill perfectly, but it’s not easy getting into a pressure suit in zero gee. Most of them were crying and one of the boys was sick and Molly Davis got it in her hair and… well it was just a god awful mess.
We were just about getting organized when that idiot Lieutenant Birch started talking on the PA. “Wow that was a big one!” he said. “The engines have cut out because we’ve got a bit of spin,” he said. “We’re going to have a nice new crater after that one,” he said. He talks to us like were a bunch of kids on a fucking fairground ride! I’m sorry, but it’s just really inappropriate.
Listen, I know we’re inside an asteroid with a shell ten meters thick, but this is happening far too often. Inter-stellar space isn’t as empty as they told us it would be and traveling at 80% of the speed of light is just plain suicidal. We’re still six months from the turn-around and we can’t slow down, or we miss our target, so you know it can only get worse.
I’m sorry Captain, but you’re going to have to find yourself a new schoolteacher. I’ve made my decision and I’m going into the freezers tomorrow. All things considered, I’m not prepared to sit around and wait for the big one. I think it would be better to die in my sleep.
by submission | Dec 26, 2009 | Story
Author : Jim Wisniewski
She smiles and tilts her head to push a lock of brown hair behind her ear. I run the image back a few seconds and watch it again, entranced as always by the fluidity of the motion. The machines can show me any moment of her life, but this is the one I keep coming back to. Such grace, such elegance encompassed in so simple a gesture. Even so there is no sense of artifice in it. The beauty is simply a part of her, in everything she does.
I play the scene back in slow motion, studying every changing nuance of her face. The detail of the image is excellent, now. Resolution was low in the early days of the project, but at this point there’s enough holoscopes to sift even the tiniest detail from the shell of thirty-year-old photons. Before long we’ll push the cloud out to a hundred light-years and begin again. That much distance will be hard on the algorithms, but with enough patience we’ll see everything. Dirichlet will not be denied.
A changing shadow on the wall alerts me to one of my colleagues passing by in the hall. As casually as I can, I flip over to a different display until the coast is clear again. Everyone knows some bandwidth goes towards personal uses, but we’re not supposed to flaunt it.
Not that they’d understand anyway. This way I can be with her at every point in time, sharing in each completed perfect moment. Here I wince at the pain when she was twelve and broke her wrist. There I feel the stress when she has to decide which school to pick and which friends to leave behind. Laughing along with her and her classmates at the commencement party, worrying about her new job, right up until the accident–
I don’t watch that far ahead, usually.
It’s better this way, it really is. Unrequited love is the purest kind. Watching from out here we will never fight, never grow distant and drift apart. She will never age. Photons don’t experience time flying along their lightlike paths. I suppose they carry my own image outwards as well, to anybody who knows how to look closely enough.
But no matter how long I watch, I can’t seem to find myself in the picture with her.
by Patricia Stewart | Dec 25, 2009 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
Kathryn opened the door to let her fiancée in. He brushed passed her and parked in front of the hall mirror. Carefully, he fluffed the snow off of his hair. Satisfied, he turned to kiss her, but stopped short when he noticed that she was still wearing her work overalls. “Kathryn, you’re not dressed yet? My parents are meeting us at Ducasse’s at eight.”
“I’m sorry Quincy, I was so busy that I lost track of the time.” Bouncing on the balls of her feet, she added, “I have a surprise for you. I activated my android this afternoon. Kris,” she yelled, “come out and say hello to Quincy.”
A plump android with a long white beard wearing cotton long johns walked out of the den. His cheeks and nose were a rosy red.”
“What? You’ve spent the last six months building a drunken old man?” exclaimed her fiancée without humor.
“Ho, ho, ho,” bellowed the android. “Don’t be silly, young man. I’m Santa Claus.”
Kathryn smiled. He was soooo perfect. “Kris,” she said, “go put on your red suit.” After the android returned to the den, she turned toward Quincy and put her index finger to her lips. “Shhhh. He doesn’t know he’s an android. I programmed him to think that he really is Santa Claus. I’m taking him to Macy’s tomorrow. The children will love him. He’s so full of joy, it’s contagious.”
“Kathryn!” Quincy snapped. “Have you lost your mind? You’re wasting your degree in cybernetics. You couldn’t think of anything practical to construct? That thing is worthless.”
Belittling her dream angered her. “Would you be happier if I created another pompous ass?” she retorted.
“You could do a lot worse than me, Kathryn. There are millions of eligible women who would kill to be in your shoes. Now, turn that damn thing off and get dressed.”
Kathryn’s eyes began to tear, but she didn’t move.
“Look Kathryn, you either do as I order, or I’m going to the restaurant without you.”
“I have a better idea. Why don’t you just go, for good.” She pulled the engagement ring off her finger and slammed it into his hand.
“You can’t be serious. Okay, forget it. I’m better off without you.” And he stormed out the door.
Kathryn sat on the couch, weeping. Suddenly, she felt a strong, reassuring arm reach around and hug her shoulder, as the android sat next to her. “There, there, Kathy, please don’t cry. Everything will be all right. Look,” he added, “I want to show you something.” He took a magazine from the coffee table and tore out a sheet. He deftly folded the page a dozen ways and produced a beautiful origami swan.
Kathryn managed a smile, although she was still sniffling. She wiped the tears from her eyes and said, “It’s beautiful. But, I didn’t progra… How did you know how to do that?”
“I’m Santa Claus, my dear, I can do anything.” And then he produced a red rose, as if from thin air.
She took the flower and sniffed it. “It’s real. But how?”
“Consider it Christmas Magic. You know,” he added thoughtfully, “Quincy is the world’s greatest fool. And on Christmas Eve, I think I’ll put a big lump of coal in his stocking.”
Kathryn laughed, something only a few minutes earlier she thought she’d never do again. She hugged the cuddly android. “Thank you, Santa.”
“Come,” he said, “let’s go to the kitchen for some milk and cookies?”
“I’d like that,” she replied. “I love milk and cookies.”
“Me too,” he said as his eyes literally twinkled.
