by submission | Aug 28, 2009 | Story
Author : Grant Bergland
“Computer, I am not the captain, I am a fifth midshipman.”
“Incorrect. According to Navy regulations you are captain. The captain and first mate were atomized with the science officer and chief engineer. Point seven seconds later, the chaplain, sanitation engineer, and…”
“Stop. Computer, how many others were ahead of me in rank?”
“Thirty nine, Captain.”
“And how much of the crew is still alive?”
“Ten sir.”
Lars gulped. “What is life pod functionality?”
“Life pods are disabled.”
“Computer, create escape scenarios.”
“Just a moment ….”
Surprised to be kept waiting, Lars looked helplessly around his quarters. Since he didn’t have any weapons, Lars pulled a leg off his metal cot and tested its weight.
The computer spoke rapidly. “I apologize for the delay, the Vorpan occupies many of my processors.”
“What?”
“She also has full access to my sensors and is advancing on your quarters.”
“How can I escape?”
“Get inside an engine, orient the engine towards earth with thrusters, then purge the core.”
“Computer, I need..”
“I am a liability to you. I will incapacitate myself with a feedback loop.”
“Wait, you have to…Computer?…Computer?”
Lars tightened his fist around the metal strut and jogged down to engineering. The hallways were empty, Lars reasoned between gasping breaths that others were hiding or ashes.
Suddenly the deck turned bright purple and glowed. Lars squinted his eyes shut, assuming he was atomized. When he cracked open his eyes seconds later, he blinked in disbelief.
Somehow he was on the shore of a purple ocean. On the beach were thousands of fat walruses. Behind him, Lars saw the Vorpan. The walruses blinked and grunted to each other.
A man in a U.S. Navy jumpsuit appeared by the walruses and walked to Lars. The man’s face melted and sprouted long ears and a rabbit nose.
“You humans have an odd method of communication.” The rabbit/man’s nose wriggled and its mouth chewed.
Behind Lars, the Vorpan closed in.
“You use your eating apparatus to make noises that are not the thoughts themselves, but rather representations of the ideas.”
“Who are you?” Lars said.
“Our name is Legion, we are many.” The rabbit/man waved his hand behind him. “We are a consciousness in space. A human representation of us is walruses on the shore.”
Lars looked over his shoulder at the Vorpan and ran.
“We’ve perused your memories.” Lars hit a wall hidden by the impossible beach and felt the ship in front of him. The Vorpan fired her gun and Lars hit the deck barely missing the shot. “We very much enjoy your bunnies.”
The rabbit/man hopped over and got down on his haunches in front of Lars.
“Is something wrong?”
“The Vorpan.” Lars yelled.
“Oh, that.”
The gun melted in the Vorpan’s hand and the monster shrieked.
Lars got to his feet.
“Wait, we would like you to explain bunnies to us.”
Faster than Lars thought possible, the Vorpan tackled him and drew a knife. The rabbit/man, still on his haunches, blinked his eyes.
“Is there a problem?”
The Vorpan plunged the knife down. “It’s trying to kill me.”
The rabbit/man twitched his nose. “What do you mean…‘kill’?”
The knife sliced into the side of Lars’ neck.
“Oh, that.” The rabbit/man said.
The Vorpan vanished.
“We’re sorry. Our people do not have an equivalent to your ‘kill’ or ‘die’.”
“You killed it?” Lars said, pressing his hand to his throat.
“Yes, utterly, completely.” The rabbit/man clasped his hands together and rubbed them with excitement. “Now, please…Lars, tell us of bunnies.”
“Um…they like carrots.”
“Yes, yes, carrots…..”
by submission | Aug 27, 2009 | Story
Author : Debbie Mac Rory
Sonia swallowed her meal pills, grimacing. She hated the things, and they always stuck in her throat. Adjusting the infusion cuff on her arm, she picked up the control and started thumbing through a selection of dining experiences: family dinner; ugh, no, not after the last one. Fancy French restaurant, seafood bar, roadside café… She finally settled on a noodle bar. Simple, easy and usually noisy enough so she wouldn’t have to deal with other people. Hitting select, she lay back on the couch and closed her eyes, waiting for the program to load.
* ** *** ** *
Dove grey walls greeted her when she opened her eyes. Great, she though, trust me to pick somewhere busy. Gradually the room began to resolve into an appropriate waiting room, and other people began to materialise, appearing in groups and couples. She ignored them all, wishing she didn’t have to go through this. But she’d missed her last two dining episodes. If she missed this one too she’d have to face going to the doctor for a check-up, and she needed that less than having to go through the episode.
It wasn’t always bad, she supposed, as a virtual waiter glided up to escort her to her seat. Less than fifteen minutes would elapse in her world but it would give the infusion band time to work with her meal pills, ensuring her body was in prime health and not deficient of any nutrients. The mind too was serviced in this time. Each episode gave a person a much needed chance to relax and socialise, to interact with other bases far distant, without taking much time at all out of their work schedules.
As the waiter collected menus for her, Sonia glanced about the room and found her eyes meeting with a gorgeous redhead, sitting on her own. The redhead smiled, and Sonia found her foul mood lifting as she smiled back. She leaned to the waiter and gestured. She didn’t even need to say a word; he smiled his understanding and guided her to the seat opposite.
Sonia gave her order, and introduced herself to the redhead… and the rest of the meal passed by in a flash. They shared gyoza and rice wine, laughing and chatting, and just touching each others fingers. People came and went around them but were barely noted by either. After entirely too short a time, a chime on Aimee’s wristband, and she smiled sadly. She cocked her head and blew Sonia a kiss, fading away so her smile lingered in Sonia’s mind like that of a cheshire cat.
Sonia looked down at the empty plates littering the space between them and only then noticed the shimmer of a data-card. She picked it up and with a skip of her heart beat she thumbed her wristband and began to exit the episode…
* ** *** ** *
Sonia stirred slowly, groaning. Coming out of an episode early always left her a little groggy, but the faint chime of her control drew up her awareness. She opened the data-card, biting her lower lips in nervousness. Aimee, it read, Luna 9, number 5164. Sonia smiled. Luna 9 wasn’t very far away, it wasn’t impossible that they could co-ordinate a week-break to meet in person… but for the mean time, a few more lunches, maybe a private dinner. Episodes were definitely looking up.
by Duncan Shields | Aug 26, 2009 | Story
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
“Man, we got ripped off.” said Manuel.
He was watching an old tri-D of a Flash Gordon serial made in the fifties. In the show, the year was 1998, just like now. It was hilarious and depressing all at the same time.
Manuel’s robot servant brought him another drink. “Will there be anything else?” D-11B intoned.
“No.” answered Manuel through his thought-amplification helmet. “That will be all.”
D-11B went back to the kitchen dispensary to prepare the dinner pills. Manuel continued watching Flash Gordon.
On the tri-D, Flash Gordon got into his ‘internal combustion’ ground car, put something called a cigarette into his mouth and drove to his ‘apartment’ using what he referred to as an ‘onboard navigational computer’ that told him exactly where to go.
In this series, there were little robots in space that took pictures of earth that everyone could see and use as a map. They called them satellites. No tethers! Amazing.
“Imagine how easy it would be to fly around without having to avoid all the tethers,” Manuel said to himself, “my personal jetpack would have a few less scratches, that’s for sure.”
Flash Gordon’s friend, Dr. Zarkov, had something called a pacemaker. It used metal wires to stimulate his heart with electricity!
Complete flights of fancy. The miracle material called ‘plastic’, for instance, made from the magic ‘oil’ liquid that came out of the ground, or electricity that was only in wires and not the free-floating Tesla storms that we had so many problems with.
“We hadn’t been able to live on the ground since 1938,” said Manuel to himself, “that’s why we all lived in nuclear-powered levitating houses. It was a matter of survival after The World War.”
Manuel could hear his wife’s flying car come in for a landing outside on the inner rim. He turned off the tri-D and stood up. “She’d kill me if she caught me watching this old claptrap,” he murmured, “it always makes me cranky.”
The bio-coral bone-thickeners helped Mauel’s hips as he stood up. He was wishing for a pair of those magnificent ‘plastic’ hips like in the Flash Gordon film.
No ground cars, no satellites, no shuttles, no gasoline, no plastic.
Manuel sighed. “Man, we got ripped off.” he said again.
“Honey, I’m home!” said his wife as she came in the front vacutube elevator.
Manuel forced a smile and went to greet his wife before dinner.
by submission | Aug 25, 2009 | Story
Author : Phill English
“I just don’t want to hear it, Helen.”
Helen grips Henry’s arm as he moves about the household, packing his things into a small carry-bag. She tries to spin him to face her as she pleads, but he remains resolute in his mission.
“Please, Henry, just hear me out. It was never intended to go that far! There just wasn’t any friction between us, and he was so gentle, so noble…”
Henry rounds on her, “Then why aren’t you lounging in his arms instead of making a fool out of yourself here?”
Helen looks down at the floor as she answers, “He didn’t care. He was so…so inert.” She spits the word out. “For all his charms, a statue! Carved, static, unmoving. But you, you, my darling Henry. Please, give me one more chance?”
Henry waves her off, moving around to the mantelpiece. He picks up an image of them together, pausing in his fury to look upon their energy, the bond that was so obviously between them. He turns to face Helen, and sees her desperation laid bare in a tearful smile.
The frame hits the ground and they embrace, frantic and excited.
* * *
Several orders of magnitude above the scene, a scientist leans back from his Planckroscope and mutters to himself, “So this is why the call it quantum entanglement.”
by Patricia Stewart | Aug 24, 2009 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
The Herschel Scientific Outpost was located on the northernmost shore of the Lacus Ocean at Titan’s South Pole. The outpost housed six earth scientists whose primary mission was to study the life forms discovered on Saturn’s largest moon. There were more than a thousand different species cataloged in the first six months of the expedition. At least one species, the Manti, were found to be intelligent. The creatures were named Manti because they vaguely resembled a large praying mantis. They were about three feet tall, with a proportionately stockier body than their terrestrial namesakes. Their exoskeletons were composed of complex hydrocarbons (plastic, in other words). They had a feudal society, similar to the medieval societies that prevailed in Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Within several months of first contact, the scientists were able to develop a common language with the Mandi. The relationship between the two species was excellent. In fact, because of their apparently magical technology, the Earthmen were generally idolized.
“Ms. Krinshaw,” said specialist Philippe Thame, “there is an urgent message coming in from Cooper. He says he has a serious problem, and is requesting assistance.” Because of his rapport with the Mandi, Cooper Jones was considered the expedition’s ambassador to Titan. He spent more time outside the ship than any other crew member.
“Put it on the speaker, Philippe,” instructed the commander. “What’s the problem, Cooper?”
“Hello, Sarah. I’m in a bit of a pickle out here. You know the large village to the east, the one run by the Manti we call Lord Charl? Well, it seems that one of his children was carried off by a giant creature called a Nograd. The Manti are afraid of them, and asked if I could attempt a rescue. Apparently, the Nograd are capable of combining the methane and nitrogen in Titan’s atmosphere to form solid cyanogen and hydrogen gas. It then blows the gas out of its mouth. It’s an exothermic reaction, so the hydrogen gas it secretes is relatively hot. My inferred spectrometer shows the gas to be 500 degrees hotter that Titan’s -290F surface temperature. That’s hot enough to melt the Manti’s exoskeleton.”
“Understood, Cooper. We’ll send out reinforcements.”
“That’s not necessary, Sarah. Since my suit can handle 375F, I decided I could take care of it on my own. After all, Titian’s creatures are pretty frail by Earth standards. Anyway, I tried to chase it away from its prisoner by jumping up and down and waving my arms around. It wasn’t afraid of me at all, so I decided to chuck an ice-rock at it. Since Titan’s gravity is less than one seventh of Earth’s, I was able to throw a pretty big bolder. I ended up crushing it.”
“I don’t understand, Cooper. If you killed the Nograd, what’s your problem?”
“Well, Sarah, uh, it appears that the offspring I rescued was Lord Charl’s oldest daughter. They say that because I saved her life, I have to marry her. And if I don’t, they’ll consider it an insult of the highest degree, and therefore, an act of war.”
“Interesting,” she replied with an unconcealed smile. “I’ll consult with Earth Command, Cooper, but considering the potential consequences, I don’t think we’ll have many options. My guess is that you’re about to become a Prince.”
by submission | Aug 23, 2009 | Story
Author : Yubin Kim
“I can see time, you know.” She said.
He looked up from a piece of paper full of scribbled equations, frowning at the interruption. “What?”
She plucked the pencil out of his loose grasp, quelling his half-formed protestations with a mysterious smile. Holding the thin object between her thumb and index finger, she closed her eyes. She could almost feel his frown deepening into a scowl, but she ignored his displeasure and instead, _looked_.
“I can see where this pencil was. In your hand, your pencil case, in the desk drawer, in the manufacture plant which it was made.” She narrated in a whisper, as she saw the pencil’s glistening shadow floating through time and various points in space.
“I don’t have time–”
She overrode his frustrated outburst, calmly continuing her narrative. “I can see where this pencil will be. Back in your hand and then–”
She opened her eyes with a startled gasp and glared at the pencil.
“What now?” He growled.
“It ends.” She explained in a slightly troubled tone, dropping the pencil back into his open hand. Rising from her chair, she lightly stepped away from the cluttered desk, and walked out of the room in wide, swinging steps.
He studied her sudden exit with bemusement, then shaking his head, he bent over his task. However, when he pressed the end of the pencil to the paper, the thin body broke in half with an audible snap. Blinking, the he stared at the remnants, and then raised his gaze towards the door where he saw her standing there with a smile. In her hand, she held up a new pencil. He suddenly found himself speechless.
